BORGHEIM. Ah, Eyolf, by the bye! Where is Eyolf to-day? I've got something for him.
ALLMERS. He is out playing somewhere.
BORGHEIM. Is he really! Then he has begun to play now? He used always to be sitting indoors over his books.
ALLMERS. There is to be an end of that now. I am going to make a regular open-air boy of him.
BORGHEIM. Ah, now, that's right! Out into the open air with him, poor little fellow! Good Lord, what can we possibly do better than play in this blessed world? For my part, I think all life is one long playtime!—Come, Miss Asta!
[BORGHEIM and ASTA go out on the verandah and down through the garden.]
ALLMERS. [Stands looking after them.] Rita—do you think there is anything between those two?
RITA. I don't know what to say. I used to think there was. But Asta has grown so strange to me—so utterly incomprehensible of late.
ALLMERS. Indeed! Has she? While I have been away?
RITA. Yes, within the last week or two.