mmy,' it makes
me sweat to think."

"I should not have kept it up so long. I forget you are not used to this
drill," he apologized.

"I think I'll live. Remember the first time I came to see you?"

"Perfectly."

"Wasn't I scared?"

"Were you?"

"You were so kind and fatherly."

"Fatherly?" he said.

"What lots of things have happened to me since then," she mused.

"And to me," said Richard, under his breath.

"Heigho! Life is a bubble."

"You'll feel better after a cup of tea. Where shall we go?"

"Let's walk up to the Plaza."

"Done," said he, closing his desk.

It was a cold, crisp day, which stimulated the blood like a cocktail.
Bambi breathed deep as she tried to fall in step with her companion.

"I can't keep step with you. I'm too little and my skirt's too tight."

"I'll keep step with you, my lady."

"Mercy, don't try. Jarvis says I hop along like a grasshopper."

"I resent that. Your free, swaying walk is one of your charms. You
always make me think of a wind-blown flower."

She looked up at him, radiantly.

"Richard, you say the charmingest things!"

"Francesca, you do inspire them."

"I'm a vain little peacock, and Jarvis never notices how I look."

"Too bad to mate a peacock and an owl."

A brilliant sunset bathed the avenue in a red, gold light. The steady
procession of motors, taxis, and hansom cabs made its slow way uptown.
The shop windows blazed in their most seductive moments. The sidewalks
were crowded with smart men; fashionable women swathed in magnificent
furs; slim, little pink-cheeked girls. All of them made their way up the
broad highroad toward home or tea, as the case might be.

"Oh, you blessed flesh-pots, how I adore you!"

"Referring to the men or the women?"

"Naughty Richard! I mean all the luxury and sensuousness which New York
represents."

"You hungry little beggar, how you do eat up your sensations!"

"They give me indigestion sometimes."

The foyer of the Plaza was like a reception. The tea-room was a-clatter
and a-clack with tongues.

"Like the clatter of sleek little squirrels," said Bambi, as she
followed the head-waiter to their table.

Her comments on people about them, the nicknames she donated to them,
convulsed Strong. He would never again see that pompous head-waiter
except as "Papa Pouter!"

"Would you get tired of it if you were here all the time?"

"I suppose so. It is all so alike. The women all look alike, and the
men, and th