[_Laughs to herself._] Of course not. But I suppose I _am_ a strange sort of bird.
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.
[_A little sulky._] That is not how you spoke ten years ago, up at the mountain station, when you were such a flirt!
_Was_ I a flirt? Deuce take me if I remember. But I am not like that _now_.
Then you have really forgotten how you sat next to me at the _table d'hôte_, and made pills and swallowed them, and were so splendid and buoyant and free that all the old women who knitted left next day?
What a memory you have for trifles, Miss Wangel; it's quite wonderful!
Trifles! There was no trifling on _your_ part. When you promised to come back in ten years, like a troll, and fetch me!
Did I say all that? It _must_ have been _after table d'hôte_!
It was. I was a mere chit then--only twenty-three; but _I_ remember. And now _I_ have come for _you_.
Dear, dear! But there is nothing of the troll about me now I have married Mrs. Solness.
[_Looking sharply at him._] Yes, I remember you were always dropping in to tea in those days.
[_Seems hurt._] Every visit was duly put down in the ledger and charged for--as poor little Senna will tell you.
Little Senna? Oh, Dr. Herdal, I believe there is a bit of the troll left in you still!
[_Laughs a little._] No, no; my conscience is perfectly robust--always was.
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?
That you would talk the poor man into clambering up that tower? You want to drag _Me_ into that business now!
[_Teasingly._] Yes, I certainly think that then you went on exactly like a troll.
[_With uncontrollable emotion._] Hilda, there is not a corner of me safe from you! Yes, I see now that _must_ have been the way of it. Then I _was_ a troll in that, too! But isn't it terrible the price I have had to pay for it? To have a wife who---- No, I shall never roll a pill again--never, never!
[_Lays her head on the stove, and answers as if half asleep._] No more pills? Poor Doctor Herdal!