Have you travelled much about the world?

IRENE.

Yes. Travelled in many lands.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Looks compa.s.sionately at her.] And what have you found to do, Irene?

IRENE.

[Turning her eyes upon him.] Wait a moment; let me see--. Yes, now I have it. I have posed on the turntable in variety-shows. Posed as a naked statue in living pictures. Raked in heaps of money. That was more than I could do with you; for you had none.--And then I turned the heads of all sorts of men. That too, was more than I could do with you, Arnold. You kept yourself better in hand.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Hastening to pa.s.s the subject by.] And then you have married, too?

IRENE.

Yes; I married one of them.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Who is your husband?

IRENE.

He was a South American. A distinguished diplomatist. [Looks straight in front of her with a stony smile.] Him I managed to drive quite out of his mind; mad--incurably mad; inexorably mad.--It was great sport, I can tell you--while it was in the doing. I could have laughed within me all the time--if I had anything within me.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

And where is he now?

IRENE.

Oh, in a churchyard somewhere or other. With a fine handsome monument over him. And with a bullet rattling in his skull.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Did he kill himself?

IRENE.

Yes, he was good enough to take that off my hands.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Do you not lament his loss, Irene?

IRENE.

[Not understanding.] Lament? What loss?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Why, the loss of Herr von Satow, of course.

IRENE.

His name was not Satow.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Was it not?

IRENE.

My second husband is called Satow. He is a Russian--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

And where is he?

IRENE.

Far away in the Ural Mountains. Among all his gold-mines.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.