Bambi laid her cheek against the poor, hurt letter, and cried.
“My poor, bungling Jarvis, how I must have hurt you!”
She read it again, and all at once light flooded in.
“Why, it’s Richard, of course! He thinks I am in love with Richard! The dear old goose! He sees so little and sees that crooked.”
She went in search of him, determined to tell the whole foolish story, to explain the imaginary obstacles that divided them. But he was not to be found, so the impulse died, and she determined to play the farce out to its end, and now, that she knew the core of the whole situation, she could make it count for their final readjustment.
She wrote him at once:
“My Dear Jarvis: At last I feel that there is truth between us. I have suspected that you were not happy in your love life. But I wanted not to pry into locked chambers. Now we can be glad of the bond that lies between us, for I, too, go heart hungry through the days.
“I have not spoken to you of my home, or my husband, but now that you have become such a part of my thought life, I feel no disloyalty in the truth.
“My husband is a man who has never felt the want of affection. He is so self-centred in his de-
