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of degradation, so that they themselves may profit. You have
miscalculated this time, my dear sir! I have not fallen so low as
that. What hurts me is that you could think even for a moment that I
would agree to go to Kotlicki, to Kotlicki, who is more repulsive to
me than the basest reptile!" she cried, carried away by passion.

"Miss Janina! Let us speak it over calmly and sensibly, without
getting excited."

"You dare to tell me not to get excited?"

"I must, for you are simply inexperienced; consequently that which I
ask of you appears to you as something monstrous, something that
will immediately sink you in the mud, dishonor you, and shame you."

"For God's sake, what is it then, if not just that!" Janina cried in
amazement.

"Let us stop playing a comedy, let us drop this game of
hide-and-seek and look at things as they are and we shall see that I
am not proposing anything out of the ordinary to you. What am I
asking of you? Merely that you go to Kotlicki for the money which is
to be the foundation of our common future, the money which will
create our theater for us and without which none of us can budge
from Warsaw. So what is there wrong in this? What wrong can there be
in that which will make almost all of us happy?"

"What? Is it possible that you do not see any wrong in the fact that
I, a woman should go alone to the home of a man? And for what will
he give me that one thousand or two thousand rubles?"

"When you lived with Glogowski no one regarded it as wrong. Now,
when you are living with Wladek who blames you for it? After all,
what is there so dreadfully dishonorable about it? We all live that
way; and are we thereby committing anything base? . . . No! for that
is a secondary thing, for we have something more important in our
minds: art!"

"No, I will not go!" answered Janina quietly, depressed by the
discovery that they all knew about her relation with Wladek.

She continued to listen to Topolski without hearing or understanding
his words. He began to expostulate with her, to beg, and to explain
that they were all sacrificing their very lives for the theater,
something more than the mere whim of a woman. He pointed out to her
that by her refusal she would deal a mortal blow to the newly
organized company; that they were all counting on her and would be
grateful to her until death, for by her sacrifice she would insure
the welfare of dozens of people; that the new theater would be
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