Gustav. I feel that my roots are too firmly embedded in your soil, and the old wounds break open. You're a dangerous woman, Thekla.
Thekla. Re-a-lly? My young husband is emphatic that is just what I'm not—that I can't make any more conquests.
Gustav. That means he's left off loving you.
Thekla. What he means by love lies outside my line of country.
[She goes behind the sofa on the left. Gustav goes after her as far as the table on the left.]
Gustav. You've played hide and seek so long with each other that the "he" can't catch the she, nor the she the "he," don't you know. Of course it's just the kind of thing one would expect. You had to play the little innocent, and that makes him quite tame. As a matter of fact a change has its disadvantages—yes, it has its disadvantages.
Thekla. You reproach me?
Gustav. Not for a minute. What always happens, happens with a certain inevitability, and if this particular thing hadn't happened something else would, but this did happen, and here we are.
Thekla. You're a broad-minded man. I've never yet met anybody with whom I liked so much to have a good straight talk as with you. You have so little patience with all that moralizing and preaching, and you make such small demands on people, that one feels really free in your presence. Do you know I'm jealous of your future wife?
[She comes forward and passes by him toward the right.]