and, moreover, the nearness of the departure for
Warsaw, the debts in which all were swamped, the approach of winter
and the worry over securing new engagements did not put anyone in a
mood for playing.

And all the while Cabinski, kissed everyone and promised to pay, but
never did so. He knew how to arrange matters so skillfully and acted
so excellently the part of a man worried about the welfare of
everyone that Janina feeling his troubles and believing him, often
lacked the courage to remind him of the money he owed her. Moreover,
she knew that between the director and his wife there went on a
continual battle over expenses and that the nurse often bought
various things for the children out of her own savings, while
Cabinska would sit twice as long at the pastry shop to avoid hearing
the complaints.

Slowly, but in an ever narrowing circle, poverty hemmed Janina in
and clouded her face with ceaseless worry.

Janina suffered all the more in her present condition because she
was unable to seclude herself from other people as she used to do at
Bukowiec after every quarrel with her father. She could not rave
with the gales and calm herself inwardly by sheer physical
exhaustion. She tramped about the city but everywhere she met too
many people. She would have gladly confided to Glogowski all that
troubled her, but had not the courage to do so, for she was
restrained by pride. Glogowski seemed to guess her condition, or at
least her worries, and would often remind her that she ought to tell
him everything . . . everything. But she did not do so.

She stayed at home as little as possible, and whenever she entered
the house she tried to do it so quietly that no one might hear her.
It was not the possibility that she might find herself thrown out
into the street on the morrow that frightened her, but the fact that
Mme. Anna or Sowinska might say to her curtly: "Pay what you owe
me."

But that moment finally arrived. While eating her dinner Janina knew
the inevitable had come. She caught just one glance of Mme. Anna's
eyes while she was serving the soup and in them read everything.

After the meal, which to Janina had been torture, Mme. Anna followed
her immediately and, in the most unconcerned manner, began to relate
something about a fantastic customer. Then, suddenly, as though she
had remembered something, she said: "Oh yes, I almost forgot!
Perhaps you will let me have that half-month's rent, for I must pay
the