“I used to tell myself the other thing—the spark—would come. It took New York to teach me that if you have the other thing—looking pretty and being letter perfect in a few days aren’t important. But Frank—”
“Yes, sweetheart—”
“I didn’t marry you because I was a failure. I married you because I loved you.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“But I want to. Do you want me to tell you just when I knew I loved you?”
“Yes.”
She had told it to him dozens of times but he waited with the eager attention of one who had never before heard it.
[230]
] “Well, it was the time we both opened in ‘The Jungle-Beast.’ I had just come to New York. You’d been here six months. But I was too proud to let you know because I couldn’t get a job and was half starved. And then we met one day—in Cleeburg’s office—and you made him give me a part.”
“He’d have given it to you without me.”
“He would not. It was you who managed me. The best manager in the world,” she murmured.