“Bambi!” exclaimed Jarvis, and they stood a-gaze.  She recovered first.

“Do you like me?” she coquetted.

He walked about her slowly, considering her from all sides.

“Ariel!” he said at last.

“Oh, thank you, Apollo,” she laughed, to cover the lump in her throat at his awed admiration.

They sent Ardelia’s supper up to her, and the rest of them made an attempt at dining, but nobody could eat a thing.  Bambi talked incessantly from excitement, and all eyes in the dining-room were focussed upon her.

Ardelia was in a tremor of pride when they went upstairs again.  She shone like ebony, and grinned like a Hindoo idol.  They admired her, to her heart’s content, and she descended to the cab in a state of sinful pride.

Although they were early, the motors were already unloading before the theatre.  They were to sit in the stage box, and as soon as the rest of them were seated Bambi went back on the stage to say good-evening to the company.  The first-night excitement prevailed back there.  Every member of the company was dressed and made up a good half hour too soon.  They all assured the perturbed author that she need have no fears, everything would go off in fine shape.  Somewhat relieved, she started to go out front, when she ran into Mr. Frohman.

“Good-evening.  If you are as well as you look, you’re all right,” he smiled at her.

“I feel like a loaded mine about to blow to pieces,” she answered.

“Hold on for a couple of hours more.  Does Jarvis know yet?”

“Not yet.”

He laughed and went on.  Bambi returned to the box, where she sat far back in the corner.  The house was filling fast now.  More than a little interest was evinced in the strange box party of big Jarvis, the Professor, and Ardelia.  Richard Strong nodded and smiled from a nearby seat.

“We should have come in late, just as the curtain rose,” whispered Bambi.  “We must not be so green again.”

“Why so, daughter?”

“Then we wouldn’t be stared at.”

“Are we stared at?  By whom?”

The overture interrupted her reply.  The seats were full now as high as the eye could reach the balconies.  Bambi scanned the faces eagerly.  Would they like the play?  If they only knew what it meant to Jarvis and to her to have them like it!

The curtain rose.  For two full moments she could not breathe.  The act started off briskly, and little by little her tension relaxed.  She laid her hand on Jarvis’s knee and it was stiff with nervous concentration.  The first genuine laugh came to both of them like manna from heaven.

“It’s all right,” Bambi whispered to Jarvis.  He nodded, his eyes glued to the stage.  Of all kinds of creative work, dramatic writing can be the most poignant or the most satisfactory.  It is the keenest pleasure to see characters whom you have invented given life and personality if the actors are clever.  The Jocelyns had the aid of practically a perfect cast.  The sense of power that comes with the laughter or the tears of an audience aroused by your thoughts is a very real experience.  Bambi “ate up her sensations,” as Strong had said.  As the curtain descended after the first act the applause was instantaneous and long.