Part 29

Everybody smiled at Bambi and she smiled back.

"Nice sort of hookey place, isn't it?" she commented.

"Do you know the man at the next table?"

"Which one?"

"The fat one, who is staring so."

"Oh, no. I thought you meant the one who lifts his glass to me every time he drinks."

Jarvis pushed back his chair furiously.

"I will smash his head," he said, rising.

"Jarvis! Sit down! You silly thing! He's only in fun. It's the spirit of the place."

"I won't have you toasted by strange men," he thundered.

"All right. I'll make a face at him next time," she said, soothingly; but somewhere, down in the depths of her being, where her cave ancestor lurked, she was pleased. As they finished their coffee, Bambi picked up the check, which the waiter laid beside Jarvis's plate.

"Do you mind my paying it? Would you rather do it?"

"Certainly not. It's your money. Why should I pretend about it?"

She could have hugged him for it. Instead, she overfed the waiter.

"It's too heavenly, out of doors, for pictures, after all," she said, as they came out on to the drive. "What shall we do?"

"Let's get that double-decker again, and ride until we come to the end of the world."

"Righto. Here it comes, now."

Downtown they went, to Washington Square, where they dismounted, to wander off at random. All at once they were in another world. It was like an Alice in Wonderland adventure. They stepped out of the quiet of the green, shady quadrangle into a narrow street, swarming with life.

Innumerable children, everywhere, shrieking and running at games. Fat mothers and babies along the curb, bargaining with pushcart men. A wheezing hurdy-gurdy, with every other note gone to the limbo of lost chords, rasped and leaked jerky tunes. All the shops had foreign names on the windows--not even an "English spoken here" sign. The fresh wind blew down the dirty street, and peppered everything with dust. Newspapers increased their circulation in a most irritating manner under foot. The place was hideous, lifting its raucous cry to the fair spring sky.

Jarvis looked at Bambi, silenced, for once. Her face registered a loud protest.

"Well?" he challenged her.

"Oh, I hate ugliness so. It's like pain. Is it very weak of me to hate ugliness?" she begged.

"It's very natural, and no doubt weak."

"I wouldn't mind the thought of poverty so much--not hunger, nor thirst, nor cold--but dirt and hideousness--they are too terrible."

"This is life in the raw. You like it dressed for Fifth Avenue better," he taunted.

"Do you prefer this?"

"Infinitely."

She looked about again, with a sense of having missed his point.