"Why didn't you want the money when you could have had it?"
"Oh, yes, you'd want me to have money so that you could gamble it away. You would even help me to get the money for that purpose . . . you base scoundrel!"
She sprang at him with nervous fury. Her beautiful, statuesque face glowed with rage. She grasped his arm, pinched him and shook him, without herself knowing what she was doing.
Topolski, losing his patience, struck her violently away from him.
Majkowska with almost a roar so little did her voice seem to have in it anything human and with spasmodic laughter, and crying, and tragic wringing of hands, fell on her knees before him.
"Maurice, my soul's beloved, forgive me! . . . Light of my life! Ha! ha! ha! you damned scoundrel, you! . . . My dearest, my dearest, forgive me! . . ."
She groveled to his feet, grasped his hands and began rapturously to kiss them.
Topolski stood there gloomily. He felt ashamed of his own anger, so he merely chewed his cigarette and whispered quietly: "Come, get up from the floor and stop playing that comedy. . . . Have you no shame! . . . In a minute you will have everybody in here looking at you."
Majkowska's mother, an old woman, resembling a witch, came running up to her and tried to raise her from the floor.
"Mela, my daughter!" she cried.