RODRIGO--Do you want me to start my new engagement in bath-robe and slippers? SCHIGOLCH--Hm--Sister Theophila wouldn’t have gone to heaven so promptly either, if she hadn’t felt so affectionate towards our patient. RODRIGO--When one has to serve thru a honeymoon with her, she’ll have a very different value. Anyway, it can’t hurt her if she gets a little fresh air beforehand. ALVA--[_A pocketbook in his hand, to_ GESCHWITZ, _who is leaning on a chair-back by the centre table_.] This holds 10,000 marks. GESCHWITZ--Thank you, no. ALVA--Please take it. GESCHWITZ--[_To_ SCHIGOLCH.] Come along, at last! SCHIGOLCH--Patience, Fräulein. It’s only a stone’s throw across Hospital Street. I’ll be here with her in five minutes. ALVA--You’re bringing her here? SCHIGOLCH--I’m bringing her here. Or do you fear for your health? ALVA--You see that I fear nothing. RODRIGO--According to the latest wire, the doctor is on his way to Constantinople to have his “Earth-Spirit” produced before the Sultan by harem-ladies and eunuchs. ALVA--[_Opening the centre door under the gallery._] It’s shorter for you thru here. [_Exeunt_ SCHIGOLCH _and_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ. ALVA _locks the door_.] RODRIGO--You were going to give more money to the crazy skyrocket! ALVA--What has that to do with you? RODRIGO--I get paid like a lamp-lighter, tho I had to demoralize all the Sisters in the hospital. Then came the assistants’ and the doctors’ turn, and then---- ALVA--Will you seriously inform me that the medical professors let themselves be influenced by you? RODRIGO--With the money those gentlemen cost me I could become President of the United States! ALVA--But Fräulein von Geschwitz has reimbursed you for every penny that you spent. So much I know, and you’re still getting five hundred marks a month from her besides. It is often pretty hard to believe in your love for the unhappy murderess. When I asked Fräulein von Geschwitz just now to accept my help, it certainly was not done to stir up =your= insatiable avarice. The admiration which I have learnt to have for Fräulein von Geschwitz in this affair, I am far from feeling towards you. It is not at all clear to me what claims of any kind you can make upon me. That you chanced to be present at the murder of my father has not yet created the slightest bond of relationship between you and me. On the contrary, I am firmly convinced that if the heroic undertaking of Countess Geschwitz had not come your way you would be lying somewhere to-day, without a penny, drunken in the gutter.