HILDA.
[_Looks hard at him._] Can"t _I_ help you? I helped Ragnar Brovik.
Didn"t you know I stayed with him and poor little Kaia--after that accident to my Master Builder? I did. I made Ragnar build me the loveliest castle in the air--lovelier, even, than poor Mr. Solness"s would have been--and we stood together on the very top. The steps were rather too much for Kaia. Besides, there was no room for her on top. And he put towering spires on all his semi-detached villas. Only, somehow, they didn"t let. Then the castle in the air tumbled down, and Ragnar went into liquidation, and I continued my walking-tour.
DR. HERDAL.
[_Interested against his will._] And where did you go after _that_, may I ask, Miss w.a.n.gel?
HILDA.
Oh, ever so far north. There I met Mr. and Mrs. Tesman--the second Mrs.
Tesman--she who was Mrs. Elvsted, with the irritating hair, you know.
They were on their honeymoon, and had just decided that it was impossible to reconstruct poor Mr. Lovborg"s great book out of Mrs.
Elvsted"s rough notes. But I insisted on George"s attempting the impossible--with Me. And what _do_ you think Mrs. Tesman wears in her hair _now_?
DR. HERDAL.
Why, really I could not say. Vine-leaves, perhaps.
HILDA.
Wrong--_straws_! Poor Tesman _didn"t_ fancy that--so he shot himself, _un_-beautifully, through his ticket-pocket. And I went on and took Rosmersholm for the summer. There had been misfortune in the house, so it was to let. Dear good old Rector Kroll acted as my reference; his wife and children had no sympathy with his views, so I used to see him every day. And I persuaded him, too, to attempt the impossible--he had never ridden anything but a rocking-horse in his life, but I made him promise to mount the White Horse of Rosmersholm. He didn"t get over _that_. They found his body, a fortnight afterwards, in the mill-dam.
Thrilling!
DR. HERDAL.
[_Shakes his finger at her._] What a girl you are, Miss w.a.n.gel! But you mustn"t play these games _here_, you know.
HILDA.
[_Laughs to herself._] Of course not. But I suppose I _am_ a strange sort of bird.
DR. HERDAL.
You are like a strong tonic. When I look at you I seem to be regarding an effervescing saline draught. Still, I really must decline to take you.
HILDA.
[_A little sulky._] That is not how you spoke ten years ago, up at the mountain station, when you were such a flirt!
DR. HERDAL.
_Was_ I a flirt? Deuce take me if I remember. But I am not like that _now_.
HILDA.
Then you have really forgotten how you sat next to me at the _table d"hote_, and made pills and swallowed them, and were so splendid and buoyant and free that all the old women who knitted left next day?
DR. HERDAL.
What a memory you have for trifles, Miss w.a.n.gel; it"s quite wonderful!
HILDA.
Trifles! There was no trifling on _your_ part. When you promised to come back in ten years, like a troll, and fetch me!
DR. HERDAL.
Did I say all that? It _must_ have been _after table d"hote_!
HILDA.
It was. I was a mere chit then--only twenty-three; but _I_ remember. And now _I_ have come for _you_.
DR. HERDAL.
Dear, dear! But there is nothing of the troll about me now I have married Mrs. Solness.
HILDA.
[_Looking sharply at him._] Yes, I remember you were always dropping in to tea in those days.
DR. HERDAL.
[_Seems hurt._] Every visit was duly put down in the ledger and charged for--as poor little Senna will tell you.
HILDA.
Little Senna? Oh, Dr. Herdal, I believe there is a bit of the troll left in you still!
DR. HERDAL.
[_Laughs a little._] No, no; my conscience is perfectly robust--always was.
HILDA.
Are you quite _quite_ sure that, when you went indoors with dear Mrs.
Solness that afternoon, and left me alone with my Master Builder, you did not foresee--perhaps wish--intend, even a little, that---- H"m?
DR. HERDAL.
That you would talk the poor man into clambering up that tower? You want to drag _Me_ into that business now!
HILDA.
[_Teasingly._] Yes, I certainly think that then you went on exactly like a troll.
DR. HERDAL.