Riis. No—thanks all the same! These new-fangled shirts are troublesome things. I bought some in Paris.
Mrs. Riis. Yes, I believe you have bought a whole dozen.
Riis. A dozen and a half. (Goes into his room, comes out again in apparently the same difficulties, and walks about as before.) As a matter of fact I am wondering about something.
Mrs. Riis. It must be something complicated.
Riis. It is—it is. No doubt of it!—This collar is the very—Ah, at last! (Goes into his room and comes out again, this time with his necktie in his hand.) I have been wondering—wondering—what our dear girl's character is made up of?
Mrs. Riis. What it is made up of?
Riis. Yes—what characteristics she gets from you and what from me, and so forth. In what respects, that is to say, she takes after your family, and in what respect after mine, and so forth. Svava is a remarkable girl.
Mrs. Riis. She is that.
Riis. She is neither altogether you nor altogether me nor is she exactly a compound of us both.
Mrs. Riis. Svava is something more than that.