MASTER. Just think, I met my daughter on the stairway, and when I asked her if she recognised me she called me uncle and told me that her father was up-stairs. Of course, he is her stepfather, and has all the rights—They have just spent their time exterminating me, blackguarding me——
LOUISE. A cab is stopping at the corner.
Starck withdraws into the gateway.
MASTER. I only hope they don't come back to burden me again! Just think: to have to hear my child singing the praise of her father—the other one! And then to begin the old story all over again: "Why did you marry me?"—"Oh, you know; but what made you want me?"—"You know very well!"—And so on, until the end of the world.
LOUISE. It was the consul that came.
MASTER. How does he look?
LOUISE. He is taking his time.
MASTER. Practising what he is to say, I suppose. Does he look satisfied?
LOUISE. Thoughtful, rather——
MASTER. Hm!—That's the way it always was. Whenever he saw that woman he became disloyal to me. She had the power of charming everybody but me. To me she seemed coarse, vulgar, ugly, stupid; to all the rest she seemed refined, pleasant, handsome, intelligent. All the hatred aroused by my independence centred in her under the form of a boundless sympathy for whoever wronged me in any way. Through her they strove to control and influence me, to wound me, and, at last, to kill me.