“May I venture to ask you to put your question in a more definite form?”

“Are you, or are you not, willing to marry me?”

Another silence.

“No: and yet, supposing that....”

“Remember my condition.”

No more is said.

In front of my lodgings we bid each other a calm and friendly farewell.

The next morning, on my way to my office, I put a long scented envelope into a post-box. It is addressed to Janusz.

Nevertheless, the decision which it contains is—not to marry him.

Yes, I am now the bond-slave of my soul: these my ice-plains, it is no longer mine to leave them.