Mathilde. But I am not going till you two are reconciled! I don't want all three of us to be unhappy. No, I am not unhappy; but I shall be if you are—and if I don't get abroad now!
Axel. What can I do in the matter?
Mathilde (quickly). Stay here and give the old folk a welcome! Behave to Laura as if there were nothing the matter, and she will say nothing!
Axel. Why do you think she will say nothing?
Mathilde. Because of all I have done to make that likely!
Axel. You?
Mathilde. Yes—no—yes; at least, not as you wanted me to, but indirectly—
Axel. Even at the beginning of all this?
Mathilde. No, not then, it is true. But forget that, because now I have made it good! I did not know you then—and there were reasons—
Axel (going nearer to her). Mathilde, you have filled me with an extraordinary regard for you—as if everything that I have been denied in another quarter was to be found in you, and as if now for the first time I—