Janina was looking through an album, when Cabinska quietly entered. Her face wore an expression of suffering and melancholy; she dropped down heavily into a chair, sighed deeply and whispered, "Pardon me for letting you bore yourself here."
"Oh I didn't feel a bit bored!"
"This is my sanctuary. Here I lock myself up when life becomes unbearable. I come here to recall a happy past and to dream of that which will never more return . ." she added, indicating the roles and the wreaths hanging on the walls.
"Are you ill, Madame Directress? . . . perhaps I am intruding, and solitude is the best medicine." Janina spoke with sincere sympathy.
"Oh, please stay! . . . It affords me real relief to speak with a person who is, as yet, a stranger to this world of falsehood and vanity!" she said with emphasis, as though reciting a role.
"I don't know whether I am worthy of your confidence," answered
Janina modestly.
"Oh, my artistic intuition never deceives me! . . . I pray you sit nearer to me! So you have never before been in the theater, mademoiselle?"
"No."
"How I envy you! . . . Ah, if I could begin over again, I would not know all this bitterness and disappointment! Do you love the theater?"
"I have sacrificed almost everything for it."