INGOLF. Why did you hide it, Hadda? Why, I almost believed you bore me a grudge. You seemed to hold more aloof each day.
HADDA PADDA. And even that did not betray me?
INGOLF. Why did you hide it, Hadda?
(Footsteps are heard outside.)
HADDA PADDA [kisses Ingolf hastily, gets up, and seats herself at his side, takes his hand]. Don't you understand, dear, I was afraid of knowing the certainty. The stronger my love grew, the more carefully I had to hide it. I dared not risk those beautiful dream-children of uncertainty for a disguised certainty. Whenever we talked together, and you looked up at me, I was startled. I thought you understood, and your hurried glance reached me only after the fear of seeing the answer in it.
INGOLF. You, the most sincere of women, could cherish so strong a love and seem so cold.
HADDA PADDA. Now I have made too great a virtue of my love. Some of my reserve was pride. Just think, you lived with us during your entire schooltime, and in the summer sister and I were by turns at your home. We grew up, you, handsome and manly, and a lord of pleasures; and you always seemed to be careful not to pay me greater attention than the other girls, especially at parties. That was why I drew back.—I was eighteen, you were twenty; you were graduated and went abroad. And poor, proud little Hadda Padda was left alone.
INGOLF. Poor proud little Hadda Padda. [They laugh.]
HADDA PADDA. Then when you came back the next spring, it was Kristrun's turn to go to the country. And since then, you have not been home during the summer.
INGOLF. And when you went to Copenhagen the following winter, it just happened to be the only year I stayed home.