[Jumping up and looking about anxiously.] My child!
MAGDA.
Your child? Who calls it so? Yours? Ha, ha! Dare to claim portion in him and I'll kill you with these hands. Who are you? You're a strange man who gratified his lust and passed on with a laugh. But I have a child,--my son, my God, my all! For him I lived and starved and froze and walked the streets; for him I sang and danced in concert-halls,--for my child who was crying for his bread! [Breaks out in a convulsive laugh which changes to weeping, and throws herself on a seat, right.]
VON KELLER.
[After a silence.] I am confounded. If I could have suspected,--yes, if I could have suspected--I will do everything; I will not shrink from any reparation. But now, I beg you to quiet yourself. They know that I am here. If they saw us so, I should be--[correcting himself] you would be lost.
MAGDA.
Don't be afraid. I won't compromise you.
VON KELLER.
Oh, I was not speaking for myself, not at all. But just think, if it were to come out, what the town and your father--