iously imposed a
silence upon everybody.

"I will not return!" thought Janina, automatically repeating those
words, while she gazed upon the blue expanse of waters and pursued
with her eyes the waves that fled swiftly on before her, "I will not
return!"

She felt that loneliness was embracing her with ever wider arms and
surrounding her soul with an emptiness into which she gazed
defiantly. Her sorrow, the thought of her father and Grzesikiewicz,
all her former acquaintances and her whole past seemed to be flowing
on far behind her so that she saw them dimly in the distant gray
mist and only the faint echo of an entreaty or of weeping seemed to
reach her now and then.

No! she would not have the strength to turn back and swim against
that current that was bearing her onward. Nevertheless, she felt
that tears were dropping upon her heart and burning it with
bitterness.

They disembarked at the landing-stage at Bielany and began to wind
their way up the hill.

Janina walked ahead of the company with Kotlicki who did not leave
her for a moment.

"You owe me a reply," he said after a while, assuming a tender
expression.

"I answered you yesterday, and to-day you owe me an explanation,"
she said harshly, for now, after that recent conversation with
Grzesikiewicz and all that it had cost her, she felt an almost
physical aversion and hatred toward Kotlicki; he struck her as
repulsive and brazen.

"An explanation? . . . Can one explain love or analyze a
feeling? . . ." he began, uneasily biting his thin lips. He did not
like the tone of her voice.

"Let us be sincere, for what you told me is . . ." she cried
impulsively.

"Is sincerity itself."

"No, it is only a comedy!" Janina retorted sharply and felt a great
desire to strike him in the face.

"You offend me! One can believe a person's feelings without sharing
them," he said in a quieter tone so that those who followed them
would not hear.

"Now please listen to what I have to say! I want to tell you that
your comedy not only wearies me, but is beginning to anger me. I am
still too little a hysterical actress and too much a normal woman to
take pleasure in such acting. I was never taught by my mother, the
secret code of a woman's conduct toward a man, nor did they warn me
of man's falsehood and baseness. I observed that quickly enough for
myself, and see it every day behind the scenes. You think that to
every woman who is in the theater you can boldly t