The room is empty. It is lighted partly by a lamp, with a red shade, placed in the arch of the stairway, but principally from the open doors of the side room. Here the company is seated at table, as is evident from the ringing of glasses and clatter of plates, knives and forks. [_Ida, followed at once by William, comes out of the side room._ IDA. At last! (_Coaxingly._) And now, you _must_ think of your father, Willy. Don’t be angry with me, but since you have a favour to ask your father, you mustn’t wait till he comes down to you. WILLIAM. Did father think of coming down to dinner? IDA. Of course! Mamma has— [_William seizes Ida suddenly in his arms and presses her to him impulsively with passionate strength._ IDA. Oh—oh—you—If anyone—my hair will be all— [_William lets his arms fall nervelessly from round her, folds his hands, hangs his head, and stands before her suddenly sobered, like an arrested criminal._ (_Smoothing her hair._) Oh, what a rough boy you are, sometimes! WILLIAM. Rough you call it—I should call it something quite different. IDA. Oh, Willy! why are you so depressed again? All in a minute! Really, you’re incorrigible! WILLIAM (_gripping her hand, puts his arm round her shoulders, makes her walk with him quickly through the hall_). Incorrigible? Yes—you see—that’s just it; I’m afraid of nothing so much as that I—as that—all your trouble with me will be thrown away, I’m so terribly changeable! (_Touching his forehead._) There’s no peace here. Any second might decide my fate! I’m afraid of myself! To be always running away from one’s self. Have you any idea of what that means? Well, that’s what I am, what I have been all my life. IDA. After all—but no, that won’t do— WILLIAM. But do say— IDA. I’ve often thought—really—it has seemed to me so often that—don’t be angry—but that really there is nothing from which you need fly. I myself sometimes think— WILLIAM. Ah, my dearest! You mustn’t—Did you notice Robert—did you see? IDA. No—what? WILLIAM. Did you see how he met me? He—you see—he _knows_ that I have to fly from myself, he knows me. Just ask him, he will make it clear to you, that is to say, he threatens to—Ah, I know better! Only just watch how he always looks at me. He means me to be anxious, to be frightened—Ha! ha! ha! No, my dear brother, we’re not so pitiful as all that yet! And now you _do_ see, don’t you, Ida, that I daren’t let you—I mean, you mustn’t have any illusions about me. There is only one way. I must be frank with you—I must manage _that_ somehow—I fight for that. When you know me through and through, then—I mean if you can bear with me, if you can still—love me—then—that would be—then I think something might arise in me, something brave, even proud—then I should _really_ live, and if they were all to despise me—(_Ida nestles against him devotedly._) And now, before I go up to father, I’ll tell you too—you know what I mean? [_Ida nods._