ther's insistance on her marriage
roused a stormy protest in her.

"No, no, no!" she repeated to herself, pacing excitedly up and down
her room. "I will not marry!"

Janina had never contemplated matrimony seriously. At times the
vision of a great, overwhelming love would gleam through her mind,
and she would dream of it for a while; but of marriage she had never
given a thought.

She even liked Grzesikiewicz, because he would never speak lightly
to her about love, nor enact those amorous comedies to which other
admirers had accustomed her. She liked him for the simplicity with
which he would relate all that he had to suffer at school, how he
was abused and humiliated as the son of a peasant and innkeeper and
how he paid them back in peasant fashion with his fists. He would
smile while relating this to her, but there was in his smile a trace
of sorrow.

She opened the door of her father's room and was about to tell him
abruptly and decisively that there was no need of Grzesikiewicz's
coming, but Orlowski was already enjoying his after-dinner nap,
seated in a big arm-chair with his feet propped against the
window-sill. The sun was shining straight into his face which was
almost entirely bronzed from sunburn.

Janina withdrew.

"No, no, no! . . . Even though I have to run away from home, I will
not marry!" she repeated to herself fiercely.

But immediately there followed this determination a feeling of
womanly helplessness.

"I will go to my uncle's house. . . . Yes! . . . and from there I
will go to the stage. No one can force me to stay here."

Thereupon, the blood would rush to her head with indignation and she
would immediately gaze with courage into the future, determined to
meet anything that might happen rather than submit.

She heard her father arise and then go to the window; she listened
to the station bells, and to the jabbering of a few Jews who were
boarding the train; she saw the red cap of her father, and the
yellow striped cap of the telegrapher conversing through his window
with some lady; she saw and heard all, but understood nothing, so
absorbed was she in thought.

Krenska entered and in her habitual way began to circle around the
table with quiet, cat-like motion before she spoke. Her face bore an
expression of sympathy and there was tenderness in her voice.

"Miss Janina!"

The young woman glanced at her.

"No! I assure you that I will not!" she said with emphasis.

"Your father