Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 4

hear, ALINE? Miss WANGEL will go!
[Raps with his fist on table.
Mrs. Herd. (quietly). If you say so, HAUSTUS, no doubt she will have to go. But you must tell her so yourself.
[Puts the watering-pot on the console table, and goes out, as HILDA enters, sparkling with pleasure.
Hilda (goes up straight to him). Good morning, Dr. HERDAL. I have just seen a pig killed. It was ripping--I mean, gloriously thrilling! And your wife has taken a tremendous fancy to me. Fancy that!
Dr. Herd. (gloomily). It is eccentric certainly. But my poor dear wife was always a little----
Hilda (nods her head slowly several times). So you have noticed that too? I have had a long talk with her. She can't get over your discharging Mr. KALOMEL--he is the only man who ever really understood her.
Dr. Herd. If I could only pay her off a little bit of the huge, immeasurable debt I owe her--but I can't!
Hilda (looks hard at him). Can't I help you? I helped RAGNAR BROVIK. Didn't you know I stayed with him and poor little KAIA--after that accident to my Master Builder? I did. I made RAGNAR build me the loveliest castle in the air--lovelier, even, than poor Mr. SOLNESS'S would have been--and we stood together on the very top. The steps were rather too much for KAIA. Besides, there was no room for her on top. And he put towering spires on all his semi-detached villas. Only, somehow, they didn't let. Then the castle in the air tumbled down, and RAGNAR went into liquidation, and I continued my walking-tour.
[Illustration: "Beautiful rainbow-coloured powders that will give one a real grip on the world!"]
Dr. Herd. (interested against his will). And where did you go after that, may I ask, Miss WANGEL?
Hilda. Oh, ever so far North. There I met Mr. and Mrs. TESMAN--the second Mrs. TESMAN--she who was Mrs. ELVSTED, with the irritating hair, you know. They were on their honeymoon, and had just decided that it was impossible to reconstruct poor Mr. L?VBORG'S great book out of Mrs. ELVSTED'S rough notes. But I insisted on GEORGE'S attempting the impossible--with Me. And what do you think Mrs. TESMAN wears in her hair now?
Dr. Herd. Why, really I could not say. Vine-leaves, perhaps.
Hilda. Wrong--straws! Poor TESMAN didn't fancy that--so he shot himself, un-beautifully, through his ticket-pocket. And I went on and took Rosmersholm for the Summer. There had been misfortune in the house, so it was to let. Dear good old Rector KROLL acted as my reference; his wife and children had no sympathy with his views, so I used to see him every day. And I persuaded him, too, to attempt the impossible--he had never ridden anything but a rocking-horse in his life, but I made him promise to mount the White Horse of the Rosmersholms. He didn't get over that. They found his body, a fortnight afterwards, in the mill-dam. Thrilling!
Dr. Herd. (shakes his finger at her). What a girl you are, Miss WANGEL! But you mustn't play these games here, you know.
Hilda (laughs to herself). Of course not. But I suppose I am a strange sort of bird.
Dr. Herd. You are like a strong tonic. When I look at you I seem to be regarding an effervescing saline draught. Still, I really must decline to take you.
Hilda (a little sulky). That is not how you spoke ten years ago, up at the mountain station, when you were such a flirt!
Dr. Herd. Was I a flirt? Deuce take me if I remember. But I am not like that now.
Hilda. Then you have really forgotten how you sat next to me at the table d'h?te, and made pills and swallowed them, and were so splendid and buoyant and free that all the old women who knitted left next day?
Dr. Herd. What a memory you have for trifles, Miss WANGEL, it's quite wonderful!
Hilda. Trifles! There was no trifling on your part. When you promised to come back in ten years, like a troll, and fetch me!
Dr. Herd. Did I say all that? It must have been after table d'h?te!
Hilda. It was. I was a mere chit then--only twenty-three; but I remember. And now I have come for you.
Dr. Herd. Dear, dear! But there is nothing of the troll about me now I have married Mrs. SOLNESS.
Hilda (looking sharply at him). Yes, I remember you were always dropping in to tea in those days.
Dr. Herd. (seems hurt). Every visit was duly put down in the ledger and charged for--as poor little SENNA will tell you.
Hilda. Little SENNA? Oh, Dr. HERDAL, I believe there is a bit of the troll left in you still!
Dr. Herd. (laughs a little). No, no; my conscience is perfectly robust--always was.
Hilda. Are you quite quite sure that, when you went indoors with dear Mrs. SOLNESS that afternoon, and