[_In the doorway._] Yes, do, dear. Try to calm down, and recover your balance, my scared little song-bird. You may rest secure. I have broad wings to shield you. [_Walking up and down near the door._] Oh, how lovely—how cosy our home is, Nora! Here you are safe; here I can shelter you like a hunted dove whom I have saved from the claws of the hawk. I shall soon bring your poor beating heart to rest; believe me, Nora, very soon. To-morrow all this will seem quite different—everything will be as before. I shall not need to tell you again that I forgive you; you will feel for yourself that it is true. How could you think I could find it in my heart to drive you away, or even so much as to reproach you? Oh, you don’t know a true man’s heart, Nora. There is some thing indescribably sweet and soothing to a man in having forgiven his wife—honestly forgiven her, from the bottom of his heart. She becomes his property in a double sense. She is as though born again; she has become, so to speak, at once his wife and his child. That is what you shall henceforth be to me, my bewildered, helpless darling. Don’t be troubled about anything, Nora; only open your heart to me, and I will be both will and conscience to you. [NORA _enters in everyday dress._] Why, what’s this? Not gone to bed? You have changed your dress? NORA. Yes, Torvald; now I have changed my dress. HELMER. But why now, so late——? NORA. I shall not sleep to-night. HELMER. But, Nora dear—— NORA. [_Looking at her watch._] It’s not so late yet. Sit down, Torvald; you and I have much to say to each other. [_She sits at one side of the table._ HELMER. Nora—what does this mean? Your cold, set face—— NORA. Sit down. It will take some time. I have much to talk over with you. [HELMER _sits at the other side of the table._ HELMER. You alarm me, Nora. I don’t understand you. NORA. No, that is just it. You don’t understand me; and I have never understood you—till to-night. No, don’t interrupt. Only listen to what I say.—We must come to a final settlement, Torvald. HELMER. How do you mean? NORA. [_After a short silence._] Does not one thing strike you as we sit here? HELMER. What should strike me? NORA. We have been married eight years. Does it not strike you that this is the first time we two, you and I, man and wife, have talked together seriously? HELMER. Seriously! What do you call seriously? NORA.