“I didn’t do that,” she protested slowly. She, too, was plainly stunned. “I didn’t. But—well, I did, didn’t I?”
“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.
“I should live so—I knew this would happen,” he managed to gurgle at last. “Among all the men you know, Sigrid Holgar, you got to pick this schlemiel!”
We both threatened to pummel him, and he apologized profusely, mourning the while that his vow kept him from announcing our decision in all the New York papers.
“With that romance breaking now, we would have every able-bodied man, woman and child east of the Mississippi trying to get into our show,” he said earnestly. “With a club we’d have to beat them away from the ticket window. Standing-room would sell for a dollar an inch.”
“It’s a success as it is,” I comforted him. “Ruthven, I mean. The house is a sellout, Davidson says.”
That night at dinner, Sigrid sat, not at the head of the table, but on one side next to me. Once or twice we squeezed hands and Jake, noticing this, was shocked and burned his mouth with hot coffee. Varduk, too, gazed at us as though he knew our secret, and finally was impelled to quote something from Byron—a satiric couplet on love and its shortness of life. But we were too happy to take offense or even to recognize that the quotation was leveled at us.
XIII
The Black Book
Our final rehearsal, on the night of the twenty-first of July, was fairly accurate as regards the speeches and attention to cues, but it lacked fire and assurance. Varduk, however, was not disappointed.
“It has often been said, and often proven as well, that a bad last rehearsal means a splendid first performance,” he reminded us. “To bed all of you, and try to get at least nine hours of sleep.” Then he seemed to remember something. “Miss Holgar.”
“Yes?” said Sigrid.
“Come here, with me.” He led her to the exact center of the stage. “At this spot, you know, you are to stand when the final incident of the play, and our dialog together, unfolds.”
“I know,” she agreed.
“Yet—are you sure? Had we not better be sure?” Varduk turned toward the auditorium, as though to gage their position from the point of view of the audience. “Perhaps I am being too exact, yet—”
He snapped his fingers in the direction of Davidson, who seemed to have expected some sort of request signal. The big assistant reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out a piece of white chalk.
“Thank you, Davidson.” Varduk accepted the proffered fragment. “Stand a little closer center, Miss Holgar. Yes, like that.” Kneeling, he drew with a quick sweep of his arm a small white circle around her feet.
“That,” he informed her, standing up again, “is the spot where I want you to stand, at the moment when you and I have our final conflict of words, the swearing on the Bible, and my involuntary blessing upon your head.”
Sigrid took a step backward, out of the circle. I, standing behind her, could see that she had drawn herself up in outraged protest. Varduk saw, too, and half smiled as if to disarm her. “Forgive me if I seem foolish,” he pleaded gently.
“I must say,” she pronounced in a slow, measured manner, as though she had difficulty in controlling her voice, “that I do not feel that this little diagram will help me in the least.”
Varduk let his smile grow warmer, softer. “Oh, probably it will not, Miss Holgar; but I am sure it will help me. Won’t you do as I ask?”
She could not refuse, and by the time she had returned across the stage to me she had relaxed into cheerfulness again. I escorted her to the door of her cabin, and her good night smile warmed me all
