"I find it daily more of a burden to carry this secret in my heart, when knowledge of it would lighten my wife's unhappiness. Shall we not confess the situation, and discuss plans for separation? I owe this girl who bears my name more than I can ever pay. I would not do anything to hurt her pride. Tell me what you think about it, dear one? "YOUR JARVIS." "JARVIS DEAR: Again I must seem to oppose you. Please let us keep our secrets to ourselves until our meeting. Suppose that something should happen even yet? Suppose we should not wish to take this step when the time comes? I do not want you to hurt your wife. I respect and love you for your sense of obligation to her. How can she help loving you, my Jarvis? "When the day comes for me to prove my devotion, may you say about me that you owe me more than you can ever pay. "I live only for the completion of the play. "YOUR LOVE." XXV Bambi felt the renewed vigour with which Jarvis attacked the final problems of their task. He was working toward the goal of his affections, a meeting with his lady. She, too, felt the strain of the situation, and keyed herself up to a final burst of speed. The middle of February came, bringing the day which ended their labours. "Well, I believe that is the best we can do with it," Jarvis said. "Yes, our best best. For my part, I feel quite fatuously satisfied. I think it is perfectly charming." "I hope the author will be pleased," he said earnestly. "I'm much more concerned with Mr. Frohman's satisfaction. If he likes it, hang the author!" "But I want to please her more than I can say." "You have a great interest in that woman, Jarvis. What is it about her that has caught your attention?" "It is difficult to say. As I have grown into her book, so that it has become a part of my thought, I have been more and more absorbed in the personality of the woman." "You told me the heroine was like me--once." "Did I?" in surprise. "You've changed your mind, evidently?" "No-o. Her brilliance is like you." "But not her other qualities?" "She seems softer, more appealingly feminine to me, than you do. You have so much more executive ability----" "You think I'm not feminine?" "I didn't say that," he evaded. "Why do you insist upon thinking the author and heroine to be one person?" "Just a fancy, I suppose. But the book is so intimate that I feel consciously, or otherwise, the woman has written herself into 'Francesca.'" "You may be approaching an awful shock, my dear Jarvis, when you meet her." "I think not." "These author folk! She'll be a middle-aged dowd, mark my words." He rose indignantly, and put the last sheets of the manuscript away. She watched him, smiling. "Shall you go to New York to-morrow?" "Yes, if I can get an appointment by wire. I am going to see about it now." "I do hope he will be sensible enough to put it on right away."