IRENE.

[Motioning him off.] Keep still, still, still! [Draws a deep breath and says, as though relieved of a burden.] There! Now they let me go. For this time.--Now we can sit down and talk as we used to--when I was alive.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Oh, if only we could talk as we used to.

IRENE.

Sit there, where you were sitting. I will sit here beside you.

[He sits down again. She seats herself on another stone, close to him.

IRENE.

[After a short interval of silence.] Now I have come back to you from the uttermost regions, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Aye, truly, from an endless journey.

IRENE.

Come home to my lord and master--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

To our home;--to our own home, Irene.

IRENE.

Have you looked for my coming every single day?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

How dared I look for you?

IRENE.

[With a sidelong glance.] No, I suppose you dared not. For you understood nothing.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Was it really not for the sake of some one else that you all of a sudden disappeared from me in that way?

IRENE.

Might it not quite well be for your sake, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Looks doubtfully at her.] I don't understand you--?

IRENE.

When I had served you with my soul and with my body--when the statue stood there finished--our child as you called it--then I laid at your feet the most precious sacrifice of all--by effacing myself for all time.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Bows his head.] And laying my life waste.

IRENE.

[Suddenly firing up.] It was just that I wanted! Never, never should you create anything again--after you had created that only child of ours.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Was it jealously that moved you, then?

IRENE.

[Coldly.] I think it was rather hatred.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Hatred? Hatred for me?

IRENE.

[Again vehemently.] Yes, for you--for the artist who had so lightly and carelessly taken a warm-blooded body, a young human life, and worn the soul out of it--because you needed it for a work of art.