“Oh, that’s all the same! The chief thing is that she wants to see you after six months’ absence. Look here, Gania, this is a serious business. Don’t swagger again and lose the game⁠—play carefully, but don’t funk , do you understand? As if she could possibly avoid seeing what I have been working for all this last six months! And just imagine, I was there this morning and not a word of this! I was there, you know, on the sly. The old lady did not know, or she would have kicked me out. I ran some risk for you, you see. I did so want to find out, at all hazards.”

Here there was a frantic noise upstairs once more; several people seemed to be rushing downstairs at once.

“Now, Gania,” cried Varia, frightened, “we can’t let him go out! We can’t afford to have a breath of scandal about the town at this moment. Run after him and beg his pardon⁠—quick.”