[With quiet emotion.] We kept them only about three weeks. Or scarcely so much. [Bursts forth.] Oh, Hilda, I can’t tell you what a good thing it is for me that you have come! For now at last I have some one I can talk to!
Hilda.
Can you not talk to—her, too?
Solness.
Not about this. Not as I want to talk and must talk. [Gloomily.] And not about so many other things, either.
Hilda.
[In a subdued voice.] Was that all you meant when you said you needed me?
Solness.
That was mainly what I meant—at all events, yesterday. For to-day I am not so sure—[Breaking off.] Come here and let us sit down, Hilda. Sit there on the sofa—so that you can look into the garden. [Hilda seats herself in the corner of the sofa. Solness brings a chair closer.] Should you like to hear about it?
Hilda.