"A splendid display role! I think that you would act it superbly. I can bring you the play, if you wish."
"Good! we can read it together."
On the morrow Janina received a solemn promise from Cabinska that she would be given the part.
In the afternoon Wladek brought Doctor Robin. This was his first visit to Janina's home, so he took care to appear particularly handsome, elegant, polite, and somewhat absent-minded. He acted love and respect for Janina with the skill of a virtuoso; he was very quiet, as though from an excess of happiness.
"For the first time I feel shy and happy!" he said, kissing Janina's hand.
"Why shy? You are always so sure of yourself on the stage!" she answered, a bit confused.
"Yes, on the stage, where one only plays happiness, but not here . . . where I am really happy."
"Happy?" she repeated.
Wladek glanced at Janina with such passionate intensity, with such mastery of facial expression, accentuated by a rapturous smile, simulating the ecstasy and transport of love, that had he shown this on the stage he would have been warmly applauded. Janina understood him excellently and something stirred in her as though some new string in her heart had been lightly plucked.
Wladek began to read the play. With each of "Mary's" words, Janina's enthusiastic nature burst forth anew. With bated breath, and eyes fixed on Wladek, she listened, not daring to mar, either by word or gesture, the impression that his reading made on her. She feared to dispel the charm that spoke through his eloquent voice and in the velvety softness of his black eyes.