[_With a suppressed smile._] Do! And--h'm!--you needn't trouble to come back. I have advertised for a male book-keeper--they are less emotional. Good-night, my little Senna! SENNA. [_Softly and quiveringly._] Good-night, Dr. Herdal! [_Staggers out of hall-door, blowing kisses._ MRS. HERDAL. [_Enters through the window, plaintively._] Quite an acquisition for you, Haustus, this Miss Blakdraf! DR. HERDAL. She's--h'm--extremely civil and obliging. But I am parting with her, Aline--mainly on _your_ account. MRS. HERDAL. [_Evades him._] Was it on my account, indeed, Haustus? You have parted with so many young persons on my account--so you tell me! DR. HERDAL. [_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. HERDAL. [_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. HERDAL. [_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. HERDAL. Yes, that too, Haustus. But I did not mind it so much--it all seemed so perfectly natural in both of them. DR. HERDAL. 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. HERDAL. [_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. HERDAL. Yes, that would explain her to some extent, no doubt. But how _he_ could be such an old fool! MRS. HERDAL. That Miss Wangel was a strangely fascinating type of girl. Why, even I myself---- DR. HERDAL. [_Sits down and takes some fish._] Fascinating? Well, goodness knows, I couldn't see _that_ at all. [_Seriously._] Has it never struck you, Aline, that elderly Norwegians are so deucedly impressionable--mere bundles of overstrained nerves, hypersensitive ganglia. Except, of course, the Medical Profession. MRS. HERDAL. Yes, of course; those in that profession are not so inclined to gangle. And when one has succeeded by such a stroke of luck as you have---- DR. HERDAL.