I must get hardened."

Back at the club, she hurried into her hot bath, with a vague hope of
washing off all traces of that awful street. But their talk at dinner
was desultory and rather serious. Jarvis talked for the most part,
elaborating schemes of social reform and the handling of our
immigrant brothers.

They started off to the theatre, with no definite plan. Bambi's spirits
rose to the lights of Broadway, like a trout to a silver shiner. There
is a hectic joyousness on Broadway, a personification of the "Eat, drink
and be merry, for to-morrow we die" spirit which warms you, like
champagne, or chills you, like the icy hand of despair, according to
your mood. Bambi skipped along beside Jarvis, twittering gayly.

"People are happy, aren't they?"

"Surface veneer."

"Jarvis, you old bogie-man, hiding in the dark, to jump out and say
'Boo!'"

"That's my work--booing frauds. Let's go in here," he added.

"'Damaged Goods,'" Bambi read on the theatre poster. "Do you know
anything about it?"

"I've read it. It is not amusing," he added.

She followed him without replying. The theatre was packed with a motley
audience of unrelated people. Professors and their wives, reformers,
writers, mothers with adolescent sons, mothers with young
daughters--what, in Broadway parlance, is called a "high-brow"
audience--a striking group of people gathered together to mark a daring
experiment of our audacious times; a surgical clinic on a social sore,
up to this moment hidden, neglected, whispered about.

Bambi came to it with an open mind. She had heard of Brieux, his
dramatic tracts, but she had not seen the text of this play, nor was she
prepared for it. The first act horrified her into silence during the
whole intermission. The second act racked her with sobs, and the last
act piled up the agony to the breaking point. They made their way out to
the street, part of that quiet audience which scarcely spoke, so deep
was the impression of the play.

Broadway glared and grinned and gambolled, goat-like. Bambi clung to
Jarvis tightly. He looked down at her swollen face, red eyes, and
bewildered mouth without a word. He put her into a taxicab and got in
after her. In silence she looked out at the glittering white way.

"The veneer is all rubbed off. I can see only bones," she said, and
caught her breath in a sob.

Jarvis awkwardly took her hand and patted it.

"I am sorry we went to that play to-night. You must not feel th