one of the girls through the open door
to the lower dressing-room, "I met that same guy . . . you
know! . . . I was walking along Nowy Swiat."

"Tell it to the marines! Who would fall for such a scarecrow as
you!" put in another.

"I've bought a new suit . . . look!" cried a small, very pretty
blonde.

"You mean he bought it for you!"

"Goodness, no! . . . I bought it from my own savings."

"Persian lamb! . . . oh! . . . Do you think we'll believe you? . . .
Come now, you bought it out of that fellow's savings, didn't you?"

"It's pure lily! . . . The waist is low-cut with a yoke of
cream-colored embroidery, the skirt is plain with a shirred hem, the
hat is trimmed with violets," another girl was recounting, as she
slipped her ballet skirts over her head.

"Listen there, you lily-colored kid . . . give me back that ruble
that you owe me . . . ."

"After the play when I get it I'll give it back to you, honest!"

"Ha! ha! Cabinski will give it to you, like fun . . ."

"I tell you, my dear, I'm getting desperate. . . . He coughed a
little . . . but I thought nothing of it . . . until yesterday, when
I looked down his little throat I saw . . . white spots . . . I ran
for the doctor . . . he examined him and said: diphtheria! I sat by
him all night, rubbed his throat every hour . . . he couldn't say a
word, only showed me with his little finger how it hurt . . . and
the tears streamed down his face so pitifully that I thought I'd die
of grief . . . I left the janitress with him, for I must make some
money . . . I left my cloak to cover him with . . . but all, all
that is not enough! . . ." a slim and pretty actress with a face
worn by suffering and poverty was telling her neighbor in a subdued
voice, while she curled her hair, carmined her pale lips, and with
the pencil gave a defiant touch to her eyes dimmed by tears and
sleepiness.

"Helen! your mother asked about you to-day . . ."

"Surely, not about me . . . my mother died long ago."

"Don't tell me that! Majkowska knows you and your mother well and
saw you together on Marshalkowska Street the other day."

"Majkowska ought to buy herself a pair of glasses, if she's so blind
as that . . . I was going downtown with the housekeeper."

The other girls began to laugh at her. The one who had denied her
mother blew out her candle and left in irritation.

"She's ashamed of her own mother. That's true, but such a
mother! . . ."

"A plain peasant woman. She