Even so! We can bear the worry, an' ingratitude--that's what you expect in this world. An' as far as Rose Bernd is concerned, I always felt as if she were more than half my own child. You see, Christie, as far as I can think back--when father was still chief forester--her mother already came to wash for us. Afterward, in the churchyard, at our little Kurt's grave--I see the girl standin' as clear as if it was to-day, even though I was myself more dead than alive. Except you an' me, I can tell you that, nobody was as inconsolable as the girl. FLAMM Do as you please, as far as I'm concerned! But what are your intentions exactly? I can't think what you're after, child! MRS. FLAMM First, I'm going to be real curious now. FLAMM What about? MRS. FLAMM Oh, about nothing you can describe exactly! You know, usually, I don't interfere in your affairs. But now ... I'd like real well to know ... what's come over you this while past? FLAMM Over me? I thought you were talking about Rose Bernd. MRS. FLAMM But now I'm talking about you, you see. FLAMM You can spare yourself the trouble, mother. My affairs are no concern of yours. MRS. FLAMM You say that! 'Tis easily said. But if a person sits still as I have to do and sees a man growing more an' more restless, an' unable to sleep o' nights, an' hears him sighin' an' sighin', and that man happens to be your own husband--why, you have all kinds of thoughts come over you! FLAMM Now, mother, you've gone off your head entirely. You seem to want to make me look utterly foolish! _I_ sigh! Am I such an imbecile? I'm not a lovelorn swain. MRS. FLAMM No, Christie, you can't escape me that way! FLAMM Mother, what are you trying to do? Do you want, simply, to be tiresome, to bore me? Eh? Or make the house too disagreeable to stay in? Is that your intention? If so, you're going about it the best way possible. MRS. FLAMM I don't care what you say; you're keeping something secret! FLAMM [_Shrugging his shoulders._] Do you think so?--Well, perhaps I _am_ keeping something from you! Suppose it is so, mother.... You know me.... You know my nature in that respect.... The whole world could turn upside down and not get that much [_he snaps his fingers_] out of me! As for annoyance ... everyone has his share of it in this world! Yesterday I had to dismiss one of the brewers; day before yesterday I had to send a distiller to the devil. And, all in all, apart from such incidents, the kind of life one has to live here is really flat and unprofitable enough to make any decent individual as cross as two sticks. MRS. FLAMM Why don't you seek company? Drive in to town! FLAMM