"Let us have a drink of coffee . . ." said Niedzielska, reentering.
She took from the dresser two showy cups and placed them on the table. Then she went to the kitchen and brought in the coffee, already poured into two chipped bowls, and a plate with a few stale cakes.
"O goodness, I forgot that I had already set the cups on the table . . . well, it doesn't matter. We can drink the coffee just as well out of these, can't we? . . ." she said, at once adding, "dear me, I forgot the sugar! Do you like your coffee sweet, mademoiselle?"
The old woman left the room and through the door Janina could hear her taking sugar out of a glass bowl. She brought in on a little saucer two lumps.
"Please have some in your coffee. . . . You see at my age I can't have anything sweet," she said, drinking audibly.
Finally, after perhaps half an hour, in which her hostess chattered interminably and Janina listened with increasing weariness, the girl got up to go, and at the very door she met Wladek.
"Visiting my mother!" he exclaimed.
"Certainly. There's nothing wrong in that," she answered, smiling at his confusion.
"Heavens! No doubt she's been telling you what a scoundrel I am. I beg your pardon for having had to listen."
"Oh, it didn't offend me in the least."