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 mistress hemmed. She spoke softly, impressively, with dignity, as behooves the worthy spouse of a town’s head. Frau von Janík now and then uttered a word or two, or put in a whole sentence. The old lady listened with surprise, then told them that she had known all the time what the girl had been before, that she had taken her into her house in order to return her to the world and decent society, that now the girl was as pure as a child. She praised her, and she said that she could hardly have been more satisfied with her if she had been her own daughter. The burgomistress and Frau von Janík only exchanged cold glances: how that Jiří had deceived her, how he had put a cobweb before her eyes! Terrible, terrible!

Now Frau von Janík began to speak. She turned her attention to Jiří. It was evident, she said, that he was the fabricator of that whole story about her new innocence, that he wanted only to throw a mantle over his passion before the town and before her,