ROSE
[Showily dressed in her Sunday clothes. Her features are peaked and there is a feverish gleam in her eyes.] Good-day, madam.
MRS. FLAMM
Good-day! Sit down. Well, Rose, I've asked you to come here … I suppose you've kept in mind what we talked about that time. There's many a thing that's changed since then!… In many respects, anyhow! But that made me want to talk to you all the more. That day, to be sure, you said I couldn't help you, that you wanted to fight it all out alone! An' to-day a good bit has grown clear to me—your strange behaviour that time, an' your unwillingness to let me help you.—But I don't see how you're goin' to get along all alone. Come, drink a cup o' coffee. [ROSE sits down on the edge of a chair by the table.] August was here to see me a while ago. If I had been in your shoes, lass, I'd have risked it long ago an' told him the truth. [Looking sharply at her.] But now, the way things has gone—I can't even advise you to do it! Isn't that true?
ROSE
Oh, but why, madam?
MRS. FLAMM
'Tis true, the older a person gets, the less can she understand mankind an' their ways. We've all come into the world the same way, but there's no mention to be made o' that! From the Emperor an' the archbishop down to the stable boy—they've all gotten their bit o' life one way … one way … an' 'tis the one thing they can't besmirch enough. An' if the stork but flies past the chimney-top—the confusion of people is great. Then they run away in every direction. A guest like that is never welcome!
ROSE
Oh, madam, all that would ha' been straightened up this long time, if it hadn't ha' been for this criminal an' scoundrel here … this liar … this Streckmann …