SALA How can you imagine such a thing, Miss Herms? IRENE I suppose you are bound for the Wegrats'?--What do you think of it, Julian? Isn't it dreadful? (_To Sala_) Please give them my regards. SALA I'm not going there now. I'm going home. IRENE Home? And you say that in such a matter-of-fact way? I understand you are now living in a perfect palace. SALA No, anything but that. A modest country house. It would give me special pleasure, Miss Herms, if sometime you would make sure of it in person. My garden is really pretty. IRENE Have you fruit trees, too, and vegetables? SALA In this respect I can only offer you a stray cabbage and a wild cherry tree. IRENE Well, if my time permit, I shall make a point of coming out there to have a look at your villa. JULIAN Must you leave again so soon? IRENE Certainly. I have to get home again. Only this morning I had a letter from my little nephew--and he's longing for me. A little rascal of five, and he, too, is longing already. What do you think of that? SALA And you are also longing to get back, I suppose? IRENE It isn't that. But I'm beginning to get accustomed to Vienna again. As I'm going about the streets here, I run across memories at every corner.--Can you guess where I was yesterday, Julian? In the rooms where I used to live as a child. It wasn't easy by any means, as a lot of strangers are living there now. But I got into the rooms just the same. SALA (_with amicable irony_) How did you manage it, Miss Herms? IRENE I sneaked in under a pretext. I pretended to believe that there was a room to be let--for a single elderly lady. But at last I fell to weeping so that I could see the people thought me out of my mind. And then I told them the true reason for my coming there. A clerk in the post-office is living there now with his wife and two children. One of these was such a nice little chap. He was playing railroad with an engine that could be wound up, and that ran over one of my feet all the time.... But I can see that all this doesn't interest you very much, Mr. von Sala. SALA How _can_ you interrupt yourself like that, Miss Herms, just when it is most exciting? I should have loved to hear more about it. But now I must really go, unfortunately. Good-by, Julian.--Then, Miss Herms, I may count on a visit from you. (_He goes out_) IRENE Thank God! JULIAN (_smiling_) Do you still have the same antipathy for him? IRENE Antipathy?--I hate him! Nothing but your incredible kindness of heart would let him come near you. For you have no worse enemy. JULIAN Where did you get that idea? IRENE My instinct tells me--you can feel such things. JULIAN I fear, however, that even now you cannot judge him quite objectively. IRENE Why not? JULIAN You can't forgive him that you failed in one of his plays ten years ago. IRENE