You cannot possibly be serious
about it?

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