Dr. Herd. (depressed). Oh, but this is hopeless! When I have tried so hard to bring a ray of sunlight into your desolate life! I must give Rübub Kalomel notice too—his pill is really too preposterous!
Mrs. Herd. (feels gropingly for a chair, and sits down on the floor). Him, too! Ah, Haustus, you will never make my home a real home for me. My poor first husband, Halvard Solness, tried—and he couldn't! When one has had such misfortunes as I have—all the family portraits burnt, and the silk dresses, too, and a pair of twins, and nine lovely dolls.
[Chokes with tears.
Dr. Herd. (as if to lead her away from the subject). Yes, yes, yes, that must have been a heavy blow for you, my poor Aline. I can understand that your spirits can never be really high again. And then for poor Master Builder Solness to be so taken up with that Miss Wangel as he was—that, too, was so wretched for you. To see him topple off the tower, as he did that day ten years ago——
Mrs. Herd. Yes, that too, Haustus. But I did not mind it so much—it all seemed so perfectly natural in both of them.
Dr. Herd. Natural! For a girl of twenty-three to taunt a middle-aged architect, whom she knew to be constitutionally liable to giddiness, never to let him have any peace till he had climbed a spire as dizzy as himself—and all for the fun of seeing him fall off—how in the world——!
Mrs. Herd. (laying the table for supper with dried fish and punch). The younger generation have a keener sense of humour than we elder ones, Haustus, and perhaps, after all, she was only a perplexing sort of allegory.
Dr. Herd. Yes, that would explain her to some extent, no doubt. But how he could be such an old fool!
Mrs. Herd. That Miss Wangel was a strangely fascinating type of girl. Why, even I myself——