Nora.
Oh, how kind of you.
Mrs. Linden.
[Sewing.] So you’re to be in costume to-morrow, Nora? I’ll tell you what—I shall come in for a moment to see you in all your glory. But I’ve quite forgotten to thank you for the pleasant evening yesterday.
Nora.
[Rises and walks across the room.] Oh, yesterday, it didn’t seem so pleasant as usual.—You should have come to town a little sooner, Christina.—Torvald has certainly the art of making home bright and beautiful.
Mrs. Linden.
You too, I should think, or you wouldn’t be your father’s daughter. But tell me—is Doctor Rank always so depressed as he was last evening?
Nora.
No, yesterday it was particularly noticeable. You see, he suffers from a dreadful illness. He has spinal consumption, poor fellow. They say his father was a horrible man, who kept mistresses and all sorts of things—so the son has been sickly from his childhood, you understand.