"Then we will go together, agreed? . . ." asked the counselor. "On the way we shall settle a little piece of business."
Cabinska glanced at him uneasily. He was again blinking his eyes, crossing his feet, and adjusting his glasses which had a habit of continually slipping off.
"No doubt he wants that money, . . ." thought Cabinska, as they were going down the stairs.
The counselor, in the meanwhile, was smiling and chirping away in honeyed tones.
This strange individual would show up at the garden-theater at the very first performance and vanish after the last, until the following spring. He freely loaned money which was never returned to him. He would give suppers, bring gifts of candy to the actresses, take the young novices under his wing and was always reputed to be in love with some actress platonically. Immediately upon his first appearance, Cabinski had borrowed one hundred rubles from him and before all those present he had intentionally forced him to accept as security his wife's bracelet with the object of convincing them that he had no money.
They entered the theater and quietly took their seats, for the rehearsal was already in full swing and Kaczkowska with Topolski were just in the midst of a capital love scene.
The counselor listened, bowed on all sides with a smile and whispered to the directress: "Love is a splendid thing . . . on the stage!"
"Even in life it is not bad," she remarked.
"True love is very rare in life, so I prefer it on the stage, for here I can enjoy it every day," he spoke hurriedly, and his eyelids began to blink again.
"You have been disillusioned, Counselor?"