"We'll hire some husky fellow to carry the baskets for us. I'll go and see if I can find someone," said Wawrzecki, and he went off in the direction of a monastery.

Before he returned all were ready for the homeward journey. The general mood of gayety had even risen, for Mimi was dancing a waltz with Glogowski on the greensward. Topolski was so drunk that he continually kept talking to himself and quarreling with Majkowska.

Kotlicki smiled and kept close to Janina who had become very sportive and merry. She smiled at him and conversed with him, hardly remembering his recent proposal. He was sure that the impression of it had merely glided over her soul and sunk away in forgetfulness.

They walked in disordered groups as is usual after an outing. Janina was weaving a wreath of oak leaves, while Kotlicki was helping her and amusing her with piquant remarks. She listened to him, but when they entered into a bigger and real wood where the ground was covered with dense underbrush, she suddenly became grave, gazed at the trees with such great joy, touched their trunks and branches with such tenderness, her lips and eyes glowed with such rapture, that Kotlicki asked her, pointing to the trees: "No doubt they must be good friends of yours?"

"Yes indeed, good and sincere friends and not comedians!" she replied with a light irony in her voice.

"You have a very vengeful memory. You neither believe, nor forgive.

I desire only one thing: to be able to convince you . . ."

"Then marry me!" she exclaimed quickly, turning towards him.

"I beg for your hand!" he murmured in the same tone.

They glanced straight into each other's eyes and both suddenly became gloomy. Janina knitted her brows and began unconsciously to tear her unfinished wreath with her teeth, while Kotlicki bowed his head and became silent.

"Come, let us hurry, we shall be late for the performance!" called someone, and they hastened to catch up with the rest of the company.

"So to-morrow there is to be a read rehearsal of my play?" Glogowski was asking Topolski.

"To be exact, it will be only a reading of the play itself, for Dobek has not yet finished writing out the roles," answered Topolski.

"Great Scott! and when do you expect to present it?"

"Don't fear, the Philistines will hiss and hoot you soon enough, without your hurrying!" Kotlicki twitted him.

"We shall present it in a week from next Tuesday . . . at least I would have it so," replied Topolski.

"Or, strictly speaking, there will remain for rehearsals and for the learning of the roles only four days. No one will know his part, no one will be able to master it even pa.s.sably in so short a time.

That's nothing short of murder, cold-blooded murder!" cried Glogowski.

"You'll treat Dobek to a few whiskeys and he will safely pull the play through for you," suggested Wawrzecki.

"Yes, he will shout for everybody. . . . As the matter stands, it is best to announce that there will take place merely a reading of the play."

"You needn't worry about me, I'll learn my role," Majkowska a.s.sured him.

"And I also," added Janina.

"I know the ladies always know their parts but the men . . ."

"The men will play their parts well without having to learn them,"

remarked Wawrzecki. "Don't you know that Glas never studies his roles! A few rehearsals familiarize him with the situations of the play and the prompter does the rest."

"That's why he plays so splendidly!" sneered Glogowski.

"What do you want? He's a good actor and not at all a bad comedian."

"Yes, because he always knows how to improvise some nonsense with which to cover up his bungling."

"Please give me an entirely serious answer. Were those last words of yours only a joke or were they an expression of your wishes and a condition?" Kotlicki again whispered to Janina as a certain idea entered into his head.

"Every variety is good, providing it is not wearisome. Have you heard that before?" answered Janina impatiently.

"Thank you! I will remember it. . . . But do you know this: patience is the first condition of success."

Kotlicki glanced at her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, and retired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazen self-confidence and decided, at all events, to wait.

Kotlicki was not one of those whom a woman can drive away from herself with scorn or even with insults. He accepted everything and carefully stored it away in his memory for a future reckoning. He was a man who had a contempt for women, who told people what he thought to their very faces, and who always craved women and love.

He ignored the fact that he was ugly, for he knew he was rich enough to buy any woman that he might desire. He belonged to that category of men which is ready for anything.

He now walked along smiling at some thought that was in his mind, and striking with his cane the weeds that were in his path.

It grew dark and the rain began to fall in large drops.

"We will get drenched like chickens!" laughed Mimi, opening her parasol.

"Miss Janina, my umbrella is at your service," called Glogowski.

"Thank you very much, but as far as I am able, I do not use any protection against the rain; I just dote on getting wet in the rain."

"You have the instincts of . . ." he broke off suddenly and pressed his hand to his mouth with a comical gesture.

"Finish what you began to say . . . please do . . ."

"You have the instincts of fish and geese. . . . I am curious to know how they have developed in you."

Janina smiled, for she remembered her old autumn and winter tramps through the woods in the greatest storms and rainfalls, and she answered merrily: "I like such things. I am used from my childhood to endure rains and rough weather . . . I am simply wild about storms."

"My, what fiery blood! It must be something atavistic."

"It's merely a habit or an inner need which has grown to the proportions of a pa.s.sion."

Glogowski offered his arm to Janina; she accepted and began to relate to him in an easy, friendly tone the various adventures she had experienced on her excursions in the country. She felt as unrestrained in his company as though she had known him from childhood. At moments she would even forget that this was the first time in her life that she had met him. She was won over to him by his bright and happy face and by the somewhat mild sincerity of his character; she felt in him a brotherly and honest soul.

Glogowski listened to her, answered her questions, and observed her with curiosity. Finally, choosing an appropriate moment, he said frankly: "May the deuce take me, but you are an interesting woman, a very interesting one! I will tell you something; just now a certain thought struck me and I offer it to you hot from the griddle, only don't think it strange. I detest conventionality, social hypocrisy, the affectation of actresses, etc., count up to twenty! . . . and that is just what I fail, as yet, to see in you. Oho! I immediately noticed that you were free from all that. Frankly, I like you as a certain type that one meets very rarely. It is interesting, interesting!" he repeated, almost to himself. "We might become friends!" he cried delightedly, speaking his thoughts aloud, "For, although women always disappoint me, because sooner or later the female of the species crops out in every one of them, still, a new experiment might be worth something . . . ."

"Frankness in return for frankness," said Janina, laughing at the lightning-like swiftness with which he formed determinations. "You also are an interesting specimen."

"Well, then, we agree! Let us shake and be good friends!" he exclaimed, extending his hand.

"But I haven't yet finished what I wanted to say: I must tell you that I do without confidants and friends entirely. That smacks of sentimentality and is not very safe."

"Bosh! Friendship is worth more than love. I see it's beginning to pour in earnest. It is the dogs crying over rejected friendship. I shall have the opportunity of meeting you more often, shall I not?

For you have within you something . . . something like a piece of a certain kind of soul that one comes across very rarely."

"I am at the theater every day for rehearsals and almost every day at the performances."