Gregers.

[Coming in beaming.] Well, so you've got it over. Wasn't it soothing and ennobling, eh? and ain't you both obliged to me?

Gina.

No; it's my opinion you'd better have minded your own business.

[Weeps.

Gregers.

[In great surprise.] Bless me! Pardon my Norwegian naïveté, but this ought really to be quite a new starting-point. Why, I confidently expected to have found you both beaming!—Mrs. Ekdal, being so illiterate, may take some little time to see it—but you, Hialmar, with your deep mind, surely you feel a new consecration, eh?

Hialmar.

[Dubiously.] Oh—er—yes. I suppose so—in a sort of way.

[Hedvig runs in, overjoyed.