I want my boy to be happy—that is what I want. He sha’n’t go on brooding over things. [_To REGINA, who appears at the door:_] More champagne—a large bottle. [_REGINA goes._ OSWALD. Mother! MRS. ALVING. Do you think we don’t know how to live here at home? OSWALD. Isn’t she splendid to look at? How beautifully she’s built! And so thoroughly healthy! MRS. ALVING. [_Sits by the table._] Sit down, Oswald; let us talk quietly together. OSWALD. [_Sits._] I daresay you don’t know, mother, that I owe Regina some reparation. MRS. ALVING. You! OSWALD. For a bit of thoughtlessness, or whatever you like to call it—very innocent, at any rate. When I was home last time—— MRS. ALVING. Well? OSWALD. She used often to ask me about Paris, and I used to tell her one thing and another. Then I recollect I happened to say to her one day, “Shouldn’t you like to go there yourself?” MRS. ALVING. Well? OSWALD. I saw her face flush, and then she said, “Yes, I should like it of all things.” “Ah, well,” I replied, “it might perhaps be managed”—or something like that. MRS. ALVING. And then? OSWALD. Of course I had forgotten all about it; but the day before yesterday I happened to ask her whether she was glad I was to stay at home so long—— MRS. ALVING. Yes? OSWALD. And then she gave me such a strange look, and asked, “But what’s to become of my trip to Paris?” MRS. ALVING. Her trip! OSWALD. And so it came out that she had taken the thing seriously; that she had been thinking of me the whole time, and had set to work to learn French—— MRS. ALVING. So _that_ was why——! OSWALD. Mother—when I saw that fresh, lovely, splendid girl standing there before me—till then I had hardly noticed her—but when she stood there as though with open arms ready to receive me—— MRS. ALVING. Oswald! OSWALD. ——then it flashed upon me that in her lay my salvation; for I saw that she was full of the joy of life. MRS. ALVING. [_Starts._] The joy of life——? Can there be salvation in _that_? REGINA. [_From the dining-room, with a bottle of champagne._] I’m sorry to have been so long, but I had to go to the cellar. [_Places the bottle on the table._ OSWALD. And now bring another glass.