d only at rare
intervals with somnolent voices. The trees stood motionless as
though listening to the sunlit tranquility of that August day. Only
now and then some leaf or withered twig would float down in a spiral
line upon the lawns. The golden splashes of sunlight filtering
through the branches formed a shifting mosaic upon the grass and
gleamed like strips of pale platinum.

"Let the devil take it all!" Glogowski occasionally flung out into
the silence and distractedly rumpled his hair.

Janina merely glanced at him, loath to mar with words the silence
that enveloped her that calm of nature lulled to sleep by the
excessive warmth. She also was lulled by some unknown tenderness
that had no connection with any particular thing, but seemed to
float down out of space, from the blue sky, from the transparent
whiteness of the slowly sailing clouds from the deep verdure of the
trees.

"For goodness' sake, say something, or I'll go crazy, or get
hydrophobia! . . ." he suddenly exclaimed.

Janina burst out laughing, "Well, let us talk about this evening, if
about nothing else," ventured the girl.

"Do you want to drive me crazy altogether? May the deuce take me,
but I fear I won't endure till this evening!"

"But haven't you told me that this is not your first play, so . . ."

"Yes, but at the presentation of each new one the ague always shakes
me, for always at the last moment I see that I have written rubbish,
tommyrot, cheap trash . . ."

"I don't pretend to be a judge, but I liked the play immensely. It
is so frank."

"What? Do you mean that seriously?" he cried.

"Of course."

"For you see, I told myself that if this play fails, I shall . . ."

"Will you give up writing?"

"No, but I shall vanish from the horizon for a few months and write
another one. I will write a second, a third . . . I will write until
I produce a perfectly good one! I must!"

"Tell me, do you think Majkowska will make a good Antka in my play?"
he suddenly asked.

"It seems to me that that role is well-suited to her."

"Maurice also will play his part well, but the rest of them are a
miserable lot and the staging terrible. It's bound to turn out a
fiasco!"

"Mimi knows nothing about the peasants and her imitation of their
dialect is ludicrous," remarked Janina.

"I heard her and it pained me to listen! Do you know the peasants?
Ah, Great Scott!" he cried impulsively. "Why don't you act that
role? . . ."

"Because they di