Seven years ago, when Michael Kalmar had condescended to make her his
wife, her whole soul had gone forth to him in a passion of adoring love
that had invested him in a halo of glory. He became her god thenceforth
to worship and to serve. Her infidelity meant no diminution of this
passion. Withdrawn from her husband's influence, left without any sign
of his existence for two years or more, subjected to the machinations
of the subtle and unscrupulous Rosenblatt, the soul in her had died,
the animal had lived and triumphed. The sound of her husband's voice
last night had summoned into vivid life her dead soul. Her god had
moved into the range of her vision, and immediately she was his again,
soul and body. Hence her sudden fury at Rosenblatt; hence, too, the
utter self-abandonment in her appeal to her husband. But now he had
cast her off. The gates of Heaven, swinging open before her ravished
eyes for a few brief moments, had closed to her forever. Small wonder
that she brought a heavy heart to the righting of her disordered home,
and well for her that Anka with her hearty, cheery courage stood at
her side that morning.

Together they set themselves to clear away the filth and the wreckage,
human and otherwise. Of the human wreckage Anka made short work.
Stepping out into the frosty air, she returned with a pail of snow.

"Here, you sluggards," she cried, bestowing generous handfuls upon
their sodden faces, "up with you, and out. The day is fine and
dinner will soon be here."

Grunting, growling, cursing, the men rose, stretched themselves
with prodigious yawning, and bundled out into the frosty air.

"Get yourselves ready for dinner," cried Anka after them.