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When? To-day?
Laura. Yes. Almost directly.
Axel. And no one has told me! (Takes up his hat to go.)
Laura (frightened). Axel!
Axel. It is certainly not for the pleasure of finding me here that they are coming.
Laura. But you mustn't go!
Mathilde. No, you mustn't do that.
Axel. Are they not going to put up here?
Laura. Yes, I thought—if you are willing—in your room.
Axel. So that is what it is to be—I am to go away and they are to take my place.
Mathilde. Take my room, and I will move into Laura's. I will easily arrange that. (Goes out.)
Axel. Why all this beating about the bush? It is quite natural that you should want to see them, and equally natural that I should remove myself when they come; only you should have broken it to me—a little more considerately. Because I suppose they are coming now to take you with them—and, even if it means nothing to you to put an end to everything like this, at all events you ought to know what it means to me!
Laura. I did not know till this moment that they were coming.
Axel. But it must be your letters that have brought them here—your complaints—
Laura. I have made no complaints.
Axel. You have only told them how matters stand here.
Laura. Never. (A pause.)
Axel (in astonishment). What have you been writing to them all this year, then—a letter every day?
Laura. I have told them everything was going well here.
Axel. Is it possible? All this time? Laura! Dare I believe it? Such consideration—(Comes nearer to her.) Ah, at last, then—?
Laura (frightened). I did it out of consideration for them.
Axel (coldly). For them? Well, I am sorry for them, then. They will soon see how things stand between us.
Laura. They are only to be here a day or two. Then they go abroad.
Axel. Abroad? But I suppose some one is going with them?—you, perhaps?
Laura. You can't, can you?
Axel. No.—So you are going away from me, Laura!—I am to remain here with Mathilde—it is just like that book.
Laura. With Mathilde? Well—perhaps Mathilde could go with them?
Axel. You know we can't do without her here—as things are at present.
Laura. Perhaps you would rather I—?
Axel. There is no need for you to ask my leave. You go if you wish.
Laura. Yes, you can do without me.—All the same, I think I shall stay!
Axel. You will stay—with me?
Laura. Yes.
Axel (in a happier voice, coming up to her). That is not out of consideration for your parents?
Laura. No, that it isn't! (He draws back in astonishment. MATHILDE comes in.)
Mathilde. It is all arranged. (To AXEL.) You will stay, then?
Axel (looking at LAURA). I don't know.—If I go away for these few days, perhaps it will be better.
Mathilde (coming forward). Very well, then I shall go away too!
Laura. You?
Axel. You?
Mathilde. Yes, I don't want to have anything to do with what happens. (A pause.)
Axel. What do you think will happen?
Mathilde. That is best left unsaid—till anything does happen. (A pause.)
Axel. You are thinking too hardly of your friend now.
Laura (quietly). Mathilde is not my friend.
Axel. Mathilde not your—
Laura (as before). A person who is always deceiving one is no friend.
Axel. Has Mathilde deceived anybody? You are unjust.
Laura (as before). Am I? It is Mathilde's fault that I am unhappy now.
Axel. Laura!
Laura. My dear, you may defend her, if you choose; but you must allow me to tell you plainly that it is Mathilde's advice that has guided me from the days of my innocent childhood, and has led me into all the misery I am suffering now! If it were not for her I should not be married to-day and separated from my parents. She came here with me—not to help me, as she pretended—but to be able still to spy on me, quietly and secretly, in her usual way, and afterwards to make use of what she had discovered. But she devotes herself to you; because she—no, I won't say it! (With growing vehemence.) Well, just you conspire against me, you two—and see whether I am a child any longer! The tree that you have torn up by the roots and transplanted will yield you no fruit for the first year, however much you shake its branches! I don't care if things do happen as they do in that story she has taken such pleasure in reading to me; but I shall never live to see the day when I shall beg for any one's love! And now my parents are coming to see everything, everything—and that is just what I want them to do! Because I won't be led like a child, and I won't be deceived! I won't! (Stands quite still for a moment, then bursts into a violent fit of crying and runs out.)
Axel (after a pause). What is the meaning of that?
Mathilde. She hates me.
Axel (astonished). When did it come to that?
Mathilde. Little by little. Is it the first time you have noticed it?
Axel (still more astonished). Have you no longer her confidence, then?
Mathilde. No more than you.
Axel. She, who once believed every one—!
Mathilde. Now she believes no one. (A pause.)
Axel. And what is still more amazing—only there is no mistaking it—is that she is jealous!
Mathilde. Yes.
Axel. And of you?—When there is not the slightest foundation—. (Stops involuntarily and looks at her; she crosses the room.)
Mathilde. You should only be glad that this has happened.
Axel. That she is jealous?—or what do you mean?
Mathilde. It has helped her. She is on the high road to loving you now.
Axel. Now?
Mathilde. Love often comes in that way—especially to the one who has been made uneasy.
Axel. And you are to be the scapegoat?
Mathilde. I am accustomed to that.
Axel (quickly, as he comes nearer to her). You must have known love yourself, Mathilde?
Mathilde (starts, then says). Yes, I have loved too.
Axel. Unhappily?
Mathilde. Not happily. But why do you ask?
Axel. Those who have been through such an experience are less selfish than the rest of us and are capable of more.
Mathilde. Yes. Love is always a consecration, but not always for the same kind of service.
Axel. Sometimes it only brings unhappiness.
Mathilde. Yes, when people have nothing in them, and no pride.
Axel. The more I get to know of you, the less I seem really to know you. What sort of a man can this fellow be, that you have loved without return?
Mathilde (in a subdued voice). A man to whom I am now very grateful; because marriage is not my vocation.
Axel. What is your vocation, then?
Mathilde. One that one is unwilling to speak about, until one knows that it has been successful.—And I don't believe I should have discovered it,