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'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? DR. HERDAL. What a memory you have for trifles, Miss Wangel; 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'hôte_! 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. [_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! HILDA. [_Lays her head on the stove, and answers as if half asleep._] No more pills? Poor Doctor Herdal! DR. HERDAL. [_Bitterly._] No--nothing but cosy commonplace grey powders for a whole troop of children. HILDA. [_Lively again._.] Not grey powders! [_Quite seriously._] I will tell you what you shall make next. Beautiful rainbow-coloured powders that will give one a real grip on the world. Powders to make every one free and buoyant, and ready to grasp at one's own happiness, to _dare_ what one _would_. I will have you make them. I will--I _will_! [Illustration: "Beautiful rainbow-coloured powders that will give one a real grip on the world!"] DR. HERDAL. H'm! I am not quite sure that I clearly understand. And then the ingredients----? HILDA. What stupid people all of you pill-doctors are, to be sure! Why, they will be _poisons_, of course! DR. HERDAL.