Dr. Herdal.
If I could only pay her off a little bit of the huge, immeasurable debt I owe her—but I can't!
Hilda.
[Looks hard at him.] Can't I help you? I helped Ragnar Brovik. Didn't you know I stayed with him and poor little Kaia—after that accident to my Master Builder? I did. I made Ragnar build me the loveliest castle in the air—lovelier, even, than poor Mr. Solness's would have been—and we stood together on the very top. The steps were rather too much for Kaia. Besides, there was no room for her on top. And he put towering spires on all his semi-detached villas. Only, somehow, they didn't let. Then the castle in the air tumbled down, and Ragnar went into liquidation, and I continued my walking-tour.
Dr. Herdal.
[Interested against his will.] And where did you go after that, may I ask, Miss Wangel?
Hilda.
Oh, ever so far north. There I met Mr. and Mrs. Tesman—the second Mrs. Tesman—she who was Mrs. Elvsted, with the irritating hair, you know. They were on their honeymoon, and had just decided that it was impossible to reconstruct poor Mr. Lövborg's great book out of Mrs. Elvsted's rough notes. But I insisted on George's attempting the impossible—with Me. And what do you think Mrs. Tesman wears in her hair now?
Dr. Herdal.
Why, really I could not say. Vine-leaves, perhaps.