Rank.
I won’t have him, I say—not on any account! I shall lock my door against him.—As soon as I am quite certain of the worst, I shall send you my visiting-card with a black cross on it; and then you will know that the final horror has begun.
Nora.
Why, you’re perfectly unreasonable to-day; and I did so want you to be in a really good humour.
Rank.
With death staring me in the face?—And to suffer thus for another’s sin! Where’s the justice of it? And in one way or another you can trace in every family some such inexorable retribution——
Nora.
[Stopping her ears.] Nonsense, nonsense! Now cheer up!
Rank.
Well, after all, the whole thing’s only worth laughing at. My poor innocent spine must do penance for my father’s wild oats.