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348 opened and Bambi floated in. She did not see the audience, her eyes were fixed on Jarvis’s face, and the strange expression she saw there. She came to him, put her hand in his, and smiled. He was so obviously nonplussed that the people grasped a new situation and were suddenly still. Bambi smiled at him and spoke:

“Dear People: If you have had as much fun to-night as I have, we owe each other nothing! And the most fun of all is the astonishment of Mr. Jarvis Jocelyn, who discovers himself to be a bigamist. He’s married to the co-dramatist and the author, and he never knew it! That I wrote the book has been a secret until this minute. If you hadn’t liked the play, I never would have admitted that I wrote it. You’re the very nicest first-nighters I ever met, and we are both most grateful to you, the bigamist and I.”

There was wild applause, flowers were tossed from the boxes, calls of “Brava!” greeted the little bowing figure clinging tightly to the big man’s hand. They finally made their escape to the wings, and Bambi turned to Jarvis for what was to her the real climax of the evening.

He looked at her so strangely that she laid her hand on his arm.