Lona: Indeed I am. Isn't she sweet and healthy and honest? She is exactly the wife for Johan. She is just what he needs over there; it will be a change from an old step-sister.
Mrs. Bernick: Dina? Dina Dorf? But think--Lona: I think first and foremost of the boy's happiness. Because, help him I must; he has not much idea of that sort of thing; he has never had much of an eye for girls or women.
Mrs. Bernick: He? Johan? Indeed I think we have had only too sad proofs that--Lona: Oh, devil take all those stupid stories! Where is Karsten?
I mean to speak to him.
Mrs. Bernick: Lona, you must not do it, I tell you.
Lona: I am going to. If the boy takes a fancy to her--and she to him--then they shall make a match of it. Karsten is such a clever man, he must find some way to bring it about.
Mrs. Bernick: And do you think these American indecencies will be permitted here?
Lona: Bosh, Betty!
Mrs. Bernick: Do you think a man like Karsten, with his strictly moral way of thinking--Lona: Pooh! he is not so terribly moral.
Mrs. Bernick: What have you the audacity to say?
Lona: I have the audacity to say that Karsten is not any more particularly moral than anybody else.
Mrs. Bernick: So you still hate him as deeply as that! But what are you doing here, if you have never been able to forget that? I cannot understand how you, dare look him in the face after the shameful insult you put upon him in the old days.
Lona: Yes, Betty, that time I did forget myself badly.
Mrs. Bernick: And to think how magnanimously he has forgiven you--he, who had never done any wrong! It was not his fault that you encouraged yourself with hopes. But since then you have always hated me too. (Bursts into tears.) You have always begrudged me my good fortune. And now you come here to heap all this on my head--to let the whole town know what sort of a family I have brought Karsten into. Yes, it is me that it all falls upon, and that is what you want. Oh, it is abominable of you! (Goes out by the door on the left, in tears.)
Lona (looking after her): Poor Betty! (BERNICK comes in from his room. He stops at the door to speak to KRAP.)
Bernick: Yes, that is excellent, Krap--capital! Send twenty pounds to the fund for dinners to the poor. (Turns round.) Lona! (Comes forward.) Are you alone? Is Betty not coming in?
Lona: No. Would you like me to call her?
Bernick: No, no--not at all. Oh, Lona, you don't know how anxious I have been to speak openly to you--after having begged for your forgiveness.
Lona: Look here, Karsten--do not let us be sentimental; it doesn't suit us.
Bernick: You must listen to me, Lona. I know only too well how much appearances are against me, as you have learnt all about that affair with Dina's mother. But I swear to you that it was only a temporary infatuation; I was really, truly and honestly, in love with you once.
Lona: Why do you think I have come home?
Bernick: Whatever you have in your mind, I entreat, you to do nothing until I have exculpated myself. I can do that, Lona; at all events I can excuse myself.
Lona: Now you are frightened. You once were in love with me, you say. Yes, you told me that often enough in your letters; and perhaps it was true, too--in a way--as long as you were living out in the great, free world which gave you the courage to think freely and greatly. Perhaps you found in me a little more character and strength of will and independence than in most of the folk at home here. And then we kept it secret between us; nobody could make fun of your bad taste.
Bernick: Lona, how can you think--?
Lona: But when you came back--when you heard the gibes that were made at me on all sides--when you noticed how people laughed at what they called my absurdities...
Bernick: You were regardless of people's opinion at that time.
Lona: Chiefly to annoy the petticoated and trousered prudes that one met at every turn in the town. And then, when you met that seductive young actress--Bernick: It was a boyish escapade--nothing more; I swear to you that there was no truth in a tenth part of the rumours and gossip that went about.
Lona: Maybe. But then, when Betty came home--a pretty young girl, idolised by every one--and it became known that she would inherit all her aunt's money and that I would have nothing!
Bernick: That is just the point, Lona; and now you shall have the truth without any beating about the bush. I did not love Betty then; I did not break off my engagement with you because of any new attachment. It was entirely for the sake of the money. I needed it; I had to make sure of it.
Lona: And you have the face to tell me that?
Bernick: Yes, I have. Listen, Lona.
Lona: And yet you wrote to me that an unconquerable passion for Betty had overcome you--invoked my magnanimity--begged me, for Betty's sake, to hold my tongue about all that had been between us.
Bernick: I had to, I tell you.
Lona: Now, by Heaven, I don't regret that I forgot myself as I did that time--Bernick: Let me tell you the plain truth of how things stood with me then. My mother, as you remember, was at the head of the business, but she was absolutely without any business ability whatever. I was hurriedly summoned home from Paris; times were critical, and they relied on me to set things straight. What did I find? I found--and you must keep this a profound secret--a house on the brink of ruin. Yes--as good as on the brink of ruin, this old respected house which had seen three generations of us.
What else could I--the son, the only son--do than look about for some means of saving it?
Lona: And so you saved the house of Bernick at the cost of a woman.
Bernick: You know quite well that Betty was in love with me.
Lona: But what about me?
Bernick: Believe me, Lona, you would never have been happy with me.
Lona: Was it out of consideration for my happiness that you sacrificed me?
