"You certainly did. I don't know why, and if you say so I won't ask; but you did, and it'll be hard to retire from the position again."
After that, we had a lot more to say to each other. I admitted, very humbly, that I had been responsible for our estrangement five years before, and that the reason was the very unmanly one that I, losing popularity, was jealous of her rise. For her part, she confessed that not once had she forgotten me, nor given up the hope of reconciliation.
"I'm not worth it," I assured her. "I'm a sorry failure, and we both know it."
"Whenever I see you," she replied irrelevantly, "bells begin to ring in my ears—loud alarm bells, as if fires had broken out all around me."
"We're triple idiots to think of love," I went on. "You're the top, and I'm the muck under the bottom."
"You'll be the sensation of your life when Ruthven comes to Broadway," rejoined Sigrid confidently. "And the movie magnets will fight duels over the chance to ask for your name on a contract."
"To hell with the show business! Let's run away tonight and live on a farm," I suggested.
In her genuine delight at the thought she clutched my shoulders, digging in her long, muscular fingers. "Let's!" she almost whooped, like a little girl promised a treat. "We'll have a garden and keep pigs—no, there's a show."
"And the show," I summed up, "must go on."
On that doleful commonplace we rose from the tree-trunk and walked back. Climbing to the road, we sought out Jake, who with a hammer and a mouthful of nails was fastening his last sign to a tree. We swore him to secrecy with terrible oaths, then told him that we intended to marry as soon as we returned to New York. He half swallowed a nail, choked dangerously, and had to be thumped on the back by both of us.