THEKLA [_turns and goes over toward him to the left_]. Is she pretty? GUSTAV. Yes, according to my taste, but perhaps I'm too old, and strangely enough--now that chance brings me near to you again--I'm now beginning to have grave doubts of the feasibility of playing a game like that twice over. THEKLA. What do you mean? 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._] GUSTAV. And you know I'm jealous of your husband. THEKLA. And now we must part! Forever! [_She goes past him till she approaches the center door._] GUSTAV. Quite right, we must part--but before that, we'll say good-by to each other, won't we? THEKLA [_uneasily_]. No. GUSTAV [_dogging her_]. Yes, we will; yes, we will. We'll say good-by; we will drown our memories in an ecstasy which will be so violent that when we wake up the past will have vanished from our recollection forever. There are ecstasies like that, you know. [_He puts his arm around her waist._] You're being dragged down by a sick spirit, who's infecting you with his own consumption. I will breathe new life into you. I will fertilize your genius, so that it will bloom in the autumn like a rose in the spring, I will-- [_Two lady visitors appear on the right behind the central door._] SCENE IV. [_The previous characters; the Two Ladies._] [_The ladies appear surprised, point, laugh, and exeunt on the left._] SCENE V. THEKLA [_disengaging herself_]. Who was that? GUSTAV [_casually, while he closes the central door_]. Oh, some visitors who were passing through. THEKLA. Go away! I'm afraid of you. [_She goes behind the sofa on the left._]