"Now you look fine! . . . but do you want to appear on the stage in short skirts without wearing tights?" "I haven't any! . . ." All began to laugh at her embarrassed look. "I will loan you a pair," cried Zielinska. "I think they'll fit you." They treated her with undisguised favor, for they had heard that she was to teach Cabinska's daughter and that Pepa had loaned her a costume. Janina, looking in the mirror, hardly recognized herself. It seemed as though she wore a mask, only slightly resembling her own face and with that strange expression that all the chorus girls wore. She went downstairs to Sowinska. "My dear madame, tell me truly, how do I look?" she begged, all excited and flushed. Sowinska scrutinized her from all sides and, with her finger, spread the rouge more thoroughly on her cheeks. "Who gave you that costume?" she asked. "Madame Directress loaned it to me." "Oh! something must have melted her today!" "She told me such sad stories. . . ." "The actress! . . . if she only played that way on the stage there would be no better in the world." "You must be joking, madame! . . . She told me about Lwow and her past." "She's a liar, that old hag! She was then the sweetheart of some hussar and made such scandals that they turned her out of the theater. What was she at the Lwow theater? . . . a chorus girl only. Ho! ho! those are old tricks. . . . We all know them here long since!" "Tell me how I look?" asked Janina at length. "Beautiful. . . . I'll wager they'll all be chasing after you!" An increasing nervousness seized Janina. She walked up and down the stage, peered through the hole in the curtain, viewed herself in all the mirrors, and then tried to sit still and wait, but could not endure it. The feverish excitement and nervousness attendant upon a first appearance shook her as with the ague. She could not stand or sit still for a single moment. It seemed as though she did not see the people, the preparations that were going on about her, the lights, or even the stage itself, but only had in her brain the reflection of a confused and moving mass of eyes and faces. At each moment she would gaze with terror at the audience and feel as though her heart were ceasing to beat. When the bell rang for the second time, she hurried off the stage and took her place in the chorus that was already assembled behind the scenes; while waiting for the moment to enter, she unconsciously crossed herself, and her whole body trembled so violently that one of the chorus girls, noticing her confusion, took her by the arm. "Enter!" shouted the stage-director. The throng carried her along with it and pushed her to the front of the stage. The sudden silence and magnified glare of light restored her senses somewhat, and after leaving the stage she stood behind one of the scenes and completely regained her composure.