re softly.] Thus did I fashion her.--I fashioned her
in your image, Irene.

IRENE.

[Laying her hands flat upon the table and leaning against the back of
her chair.] And then you were done with me--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Reproachfully.] Irene!

IRENE.

You had no longer any use for me--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

How can you say that!

IRENE. --and began to look about you for other ideals--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I found none, none after you.

IRENE.

And no other models, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

You were no model to me. You were the fountainhead of my achievement.

IRENE.

[Is silent for a short time.] What poems have you made since? In marble
I mean. Since the day I left you.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I have made no poems since that day--only frittered away my life in
modelling.

IRENE.

And that woman, whom you are now living with--?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Interrupting vehemently.] Do not speak of her now! It makes me tingle
with shame.

IRENE.

Where are you thinking of going with her?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Slack and weary.] Oh, on a tedious coasting-voyage to the North, I
suppose.

IRENE.

[Looks at him, smiles almost imperceptibly, and whispers.] You should
rather go high up into the mountains. As high as ever you can. Higher,
higher,--always higher, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[With eager expectation.] Are you going up there?

IRENE.

Have you the courage to meet me once again?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Struggling with himself, uncertainly.] If we could--oh, if only we
could--!

IRENE.

Why can we not do what we will? [Looks at him and whispers beseechingly
with folded hands.] Come, come, Arnold! Oh, come up to me--!

[MAIA enters, glowing with pleasure, from behind the hotel,
and goes quickly up to the table where they were previously
sitting.]

MAIA.

[Still at the corner of the hotel, without looking around.] Oh, you
may say what you please, Rubek, but--[Stops, as she catches sight of
IRENE]--Oh, I beg your pardon--I see you have made an acquaintance.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Curtly.] Renewed an acquaintance. [Rises.] What was it you wanted with
me?

MAIA.

I only wanted to say this: you may do whatever you please, but _I_ am
not going with you on that disgusting steamboat.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Why not?

MAIA.

Because I want to go up on the mountains and into the forests--that's
what I want. [Coaxingly.] Oh