Janina roused herself and looked up at Majkowska with a certain dissatisfaction. What interest did all that have for her at the present moment? And she already began to feel vexed and impatient at that eternal battle of all with everybody. She wasn't a bit concerned about Rosinska, whose acting was, in reality, impossible, and nauseatingly sentimental.
"Cabinski would do well to keep her off the stage," continued Majkowska without heeding Janina's silence, but she broke off quickly, for there approached them just then Sophie, Rosinska's daughter, who was to dance a solo pas with a shawl.
She stood beside Majkowska, all dressed for the dance. In that costume she looked like a girl of twelve; her figure was undeveloped, her face was thin and mobile, while her gray eyes and cynically contorted, carmined lips wore the expression of an experienced courtesan. She watched the acting of her mother, hissing between her teeth with dissatisfaction. Finally, she bent over toward Majkowska and whispered so that Janina could not hear her: "Just look how that old woman is playing!"
"Who? Your mother?"
"Yes. Just look at the eyes she is making at that fellow in the high hat! Hopping about like an old turkey hen, too! Gee whiz, how she has dolled herself up! She's bent on making herself look young and doesn't even know how to make up her face decently. I am ashamed of her. She thinks that all are such fools that they will not notice her artificial beauty. Ha! ha! She can't fool me, for one. When she dresses, she locks herself up so as not to let me see how she pads and pieces herself together, ha! ha!" she laughed with an almost hostile expression. "Those men are such simps that they believe everything they see. . . . She buys everything for herself and I can't even beg money for a parasol from her."
"Sophie, who ever heard of speaking that way about one's mother!"
Majkowska reproved her.
"Oh slush! a mother isn't anything so great! In about four years I can become a mother myself, a few times, if I want to; but I'm not so foolish as all that . . . no kids for mine, not on your life! I'd have to be some fool!"
"You are a nasty and silly kid! I'm going to tell your mother immediately . . ." indignantly whispered Majkowska, walking away.
"She's a silly fool herself, even though she is an actress of standing." Sophie hurled after her, pouting her lips spitefully.
"Stop that! You're preventing me from hearing what is being said on the stage."