Solness (gazing at her): I seem—it's strange—to have gone about all these years torturing myself with the effort to recover something—some experience which I seem to have forgotten. What a good thing it is that you have come to me now. I'd begun to be so afraid—so terribly afraid of the younger generation. One day they'll thunder at my door.
Hilda: Then I'd go out and open it. Let them come in to you on friendly terms, as it were.
Solness: No, no, no! The younger generation—it means retribution.
Hilda (with quivering lips): Can I be of any use to you, Mr. Solness?
Solness: Yes, you can. For you, too, come—under a new banner, it seems to me. Youth marshalled against youth! You are the very one I have most needed.
Hilda (with happy, wondering eyes): Oh, heavens, how lovely!
Solness: What?
Hilda: Then I have my kingdom!
Solness (involuntarily): Hilda!
Hilda (with quivering lips): Almost—I was going to say.