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46 “He’s fallen on an idea just the same, Jarvis. Your woman isn’t convincing.”

“But she’s true,” he protested.

“We don’t care a fig whether she’s true, unless she’s true to us,” she answered him. “Go on with your last act.”

“You don’t like it—what’s the use?”

“Don’t be silly. I am deeply interested. Go on!”

He began a little hopelessly, feeling the atmosphere, by that subtle sense that makes the creative artist like a sensitive plant where his work is at stake. The third act failed to ascend, or to resolve the situation. He merely carried it as far as it interested him, and then dropped it. As he closed the manuscript Bambi reached out her hand for it.

“Give it to me, in my hand!” she ordered. He obeyed, questioningly.

“I feel as if it was such a big thing, mangled and bleeding. I want to hold it and help it.”

“Mangled?”

“Yes. Don’t you feel it? She isn’t a woman! She’s a monster. You don’t believe her. You won’t believe her, because you hate her.”

“But she’s true. She lives to-day. She is the woman of now,” he repeated.