Professor Rubek.
[Hastening to pass the subject by.] And then you have married, too?
Irene.
Yes; I married one of them.
Professor Rubek.
Who is your husband?
Irene.
He was a South American. A distinguished diplomatist. [Looks straight in front of her with a stony smile.] Him I managed to drive quite out of his mind; mad—incurably mad; inexorably mad.—It was great sport, I can tell you—while it was in the doing. I could have laughed within me all the time—if I had anything within me.
Professor Rubek.
And where is he now?
Irene.
Oh, in a churchyard somewhere or other. With a fine handsome monument over him. And with a bullet rattling in his skull.
Professor Rubek.
Did he kill himself?
Irene.
Yes, he was good enough to take that off my hands.
