m the stage.

"Quiet! what is that?" asked everybody.

"Aha! Majkowska versus Topolski in a scene of free love."

Janina went out to see what was happening. On the almost totally
dark stage the heroic pair were engaged in a quarrel.

"Where were you?" cried Majkowska, springing at Topolski with
clenched fists.

"Let me alone, Mela."

"Where were you all last night?"

"I tell you, please go away. . . . If you are ill, go home."

"You were playing cards again, weren't you? And I haven't even
enough money for a dress! I couldn't even buy myself a supper last
night!"

"Why didn't you want the money when you could have had it?"

"Oh, yes, you'd want me to have money so that you could gamble it
away. You would even help me to get the money for that purpose . . .
you base scoundrel!"

She sprang at him with nervous fury. Her beautiful, statuesque face
glowed with rage. She grasped his arm, pinched him and shook him,
without herself knowing what she was doing.

Topolski, losing his patience, struck her violently away from him.

Majkowska with almost a roar so little did her voice seem to have in
it anything human and with spasmodic laughter, and crying, and
tragic wringing of hands, fell on her knees before him.

"Maurice, my soul's beloved, forgive me! . . . Light of my life! Ha!
ha! ha! you damned scoundrel, you! . . . My dearest, my dearest,
forgive me! . . ."

She groveled to his feet, grasped his hands and began rapturously to
kiss them.

Topolski stood there gloomily. He felt ashamed of his own anger, so
he merely chewed his cigarette and whispered quietly: "Come, get up
from the floor and stop playing that comedy. . . . Have you no
shame! . . . In a minute you will have everybody in here looking at
you."

Majkowska's mother, an old woman, resembling a witch, came running
up to her and tried to raise her from the floor.

"Mela, my daughter!" she cried.

"Mother, take that crazy woman away from here; she is continually
creating scandals," said Topolski and went out into the hall.

"My dear daughter! Do you see! I told you and begged you not to go
with such a poor fool! . . . See what your love has brought you to,
my Mela! Come, get up, my child!"

"Go to the devil, mother!" cried Majkowska, pushing away her mother.

Then she sprang up from the floor and began to pace rapidly up and
down the stage. In this violent motion she must have spent the rest
of her anger, for she began to hum and smile