IRENE.

[Gently.] Does not that always happen when a young warm-blooded woman
dies?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Oh Irene, have done with these wild imaginings--! You are living!
Living--living!

IRENE.

[Rises slowly from her chair and says, quivering.] I was dead for many
years. They came and bound me--laced my arms together behind my back--.
Then they lowered me into a grave-vault, with iron bars before the
loop-hole. And with padded walls--so that no one on the earth above
could hear the grave-shrieks--. But now I am beginning, in a way, to
rise from the dead.

[She seats herself again.]

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[After a pause.] In all this, do you hold me guilty?

IRENE.

Yes.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Guilty of that--your death, as you call it.

IRENE.

Guilty of the fact that I had to die. [Changing her tone to one of
indifference.] Why don't you sit down, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

May I?

IRENE.

Yes.--You need not be afraid of being frozen. I don't think I am quite
turned to ice yet.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Moves a chair and seats himself at her table.] There, Irene. Now we two
are sitting together as in the old days.

IRENE.

A little way apart from each other--also as in the old days.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Moving nearer.] It had to be so, then.

IRENE.

Had it?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Decisively.] There had to be a distance between us--

IRENE.

Was it absolutely necessary, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Continuing.] Do you remember what you answered when I asked if you
would go with me out into the wide world?

IRENE.

I held up three fingers in the air and swore that I would go with you
to the world's end and to the end of life. And that I would serve you in
all things--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

As the model for my art--

IRENE. --in frank, utter nakedness--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[With emotion.] And you did serve me, Irene--so bravely--so gladly and
ungrudgingly.

IRENE.

Yes, with all the pulsing blood of my youth, I served you!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Nodding, with a look of gratitude.] That you have every right to say.

IRENE.

I fell down at your feet and served you, Arnold! [Holding her clenched
hand towards him.] But you, you,--you--!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Defensively.] I never did you any wrong! Never, Irene!

IRENE.

Yes, you did! You did wrong to my innermost, inborn nature--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Starting back.] I-