[_Glances towards HIALMAR EKDAL._] Our usual party is twelve. [_To the others._] This way, gentlemen! [WERLE _and the others, all except_ HIALMAR _and_ GREGERS, _go out by the back, to the right._ HIALMAR. [_Who has overheard the conversation._] You ought not to have invited me, Gregers. GREGERS. What! Not ask my best and only friend to a party supposed to be in my honour——? HIALMAR. But I don’t think your father likes it. You see I am quite outside his circle. GREGERS. So I hear. But I wanted to see you and have a talk with you, and I certainly shan’t be staying long.—Ah, we two old schoolfellows have drifted far apart from each other. It must be sixteen or seventeen years since we met. HIALMAR. Is it so long? GREGERS. It is indeed. Well, how goes it with you? You look well. You have put on flesh, and grown almost stout. HIALMAR. Well, “stout” is scarcely the word; but I daresay I look a little more of a man than I used to. GREGERS. Yes, you do; your outer man is in first-rate condition. HIALMAR. [_In a tone of gloom._] Ah, but the inner man! That is a very different matter, I can tell you! Of course you know of the terrible catastrophe that has befallen me and mine since last we met. GREGERS. [_More softly._] How are things going with your father now? HIALMAR. Don’t let us talk of it, old fellow. Of course my poor unhappy father lives with me. He hasn’t another soul in the world to care for him. But you can understand that this is a miserable subject for me. —Tell me, rather, how you have been getting on up at the works. GREGERS. I have had a delightfully lonely time of it—plenty of leisure to think and think about things. Come over here; we may as well make ourselves comfortable. [_He seats himself in an arm-chair by the fire and draws_ HIALMAR _down into another alongside of it._ HIALMAR. [_Sentimentally._] After all, Gregers, I thank you for inviting me to your father’s table; for I take it as a sign that you have got over your feeling against me. GREGERS. [_Surprised._] How could you imagine I had any feeling against you? HIALMAR. You had at first, you know. GREGERS. How at first? HIALMAR. After the great misfortune. It was natural enough that you should. Your father was within an ace of being drawn into that—well, that terrible business. GREGERS.