"Well, madam, it really would be nice of you to stay a while. Maybe in your presence he would be ashamed."
"No. Thank you. I haven't the patience to look at him."
"Yes, of course, you are of the gentlefolk. You can have your own way, and at that I suppose you've got to dance to somebody's music."
"Oh, I should say so."
"Yes, I thought so. I meant to ask you another thing. Is it nice to be an actress?"
"You earn your own bread and butter. That's one good thing."
"And is it true, as Porfiry Vladimirych was telling me, that strangers embrace actresses about the waist?"
Anninka flushed up an instant.
"Porfiry Vladimirych does not understand," she said with irritation. "That's why he talks nonsense. He seems to have no notion that it's only play and not reality on the stage."
"And yet, even he, that is, Porfiry Vladimirych, when he saw you first, his mouth began to water. 'My niece,' and 'dear,' and 'darling,' like a gay blade. And his shameless eyes just devour you."