Father, a word with you in private. I loathe you. I am nothing if not candid. Old Ekdal was your partner once, and it's my firm belief you deserved a prison quite as much as he did. However, you surely need not have married our Gina to my old friend Hialmar. You know very well she was no better than she should have been! [Illustration: "Father, a word with you in private: I loathe you." ] OLD WERLE. True--but then no more is Mrs. Sörby. And _I_ am going to marry _her_--if you have no objection, that is. GREGERS. None in the world! How can I object to a step-mother who is playing Blind Man's Buff at the present moment with the Norwegian nobility? I am not so overstrained as all that. But really I can_not_ allow my old friend Hialmar, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, to remain in contented ignorance of Gina's past. No, I see my mission in life at last! I shall take my hat, and inform him that his home is built upon a lie. He will be _so_ much obliged to me! [_Takes his hat, and goes out._ OLD WERLE. Ha!--I am a wealthy merchant, of dubious morals, and I am about to marry my house-keeper, who is on intimate terms with the Norwegian aristocracy. I have a son who loathes me, and who is either an Ibsenian satire on the Master's own ideals, or else an utterly impossible prig--I don't know or care which. Altogether, I flatter myself my household affords an accurate and realistic picture of Scandinavian Society! [_Curtain._ * * * * * ACT SECOND HIALMAR EKDAL'S _Photographic Studio. Cameras, neck-rests, and other instruments of torture lying about._ GINA EKDAL _and_ HEDVIG, _her daughter, aged 14, and wearing spectacles, discovered sitting up for_ HIALMAR. HEDVIG. Grandpapa is in his room with a bottle of brandy and a jug of hot water, doing some fresh copying work. Father is in society, dining out. He promised he would bring me home something nice! HIALMAR. [_Coming in, in evening dress._] And he has not forgotten his promise, my child. Behold! [_He presents her with the menu card_; HEDVIG _gulps down her tears_; HIALMAR _notices her disappointment, with annoyance_.] And this all the gratitude I get! After dining out and coming home in a dress-coat and boots, which are disgracefully tight! Well well, just to show you how hurt I am, I won't have any _beer_ now! What a selfish brute I am! [_Relenting._] You may bring me just a little drop. [_He bursts into tears._] I will play you a plaintive Bohemian dance on my flute. [_He does._] No beer at such a sacred moment as this! [_He drinks._] Ha, this is real domestic bliss! [GREGERS WERLE _comes in, in a countrified suit_. GREGERS. I have left my father's home--dinner-party and all--for ever. I am coming to lodge with you. HIALMAR.