our backs on the quarter from
which disturbance comes.

Martha: Yes, I have no doubt you are perfectly right.

Rorlund: And in a house like this, in a good and pure home, where
family life shows in its fairest colours--where peace and harmony
rule-- (To MRS. BERNICK:) What are you listening to, Mrs. Bernick?

Mrs. Bernick (who has turned towards the door of BERNICK'S room): They
are talking very loud in there.

Rorlund: Is there anything particular going on?

Mrs. Bernick: I don't know. I can hear that there is somebody with my
husband.

(HILMAR TONNESEN, smoking a cigar, appears in the doorway on the right,
but stops short at the sight of the company of ladies.)

Hilmar: Oh, excuse me-- (Turns to go back.)

Mrs. Bernick: No, Hilmar, come along in; you are not disturbing us. Do
you want something?

Hilmar: No, I only wanted to look in here--Good morning, ladies. (To
MRS. BERNICK:) Well, what is the result?

Mrs. Bernick: Of what?

Hilmar: Karsten has summoned a meeting, you know.

Mrs. Bernick: Has he? What about?

Hilmar: Oh, it is this railway nonsense over again.

Mrs. Rummel: Is it possible?

Mrs. Bernick: Poor Karsten, is he to have more annoyance over that?

Rorlund: But how do you explain that, Mr. Tonnesen? You know that last
year Mr. Bernick made it perfectly clear that he would not have a
railway here.

Hilmar: Yes, that is what I thought, too; but I met Krap, his
confidential clerk, and he told me that the railway project had been
taken up again, and that Mr. Bernick was in consultation with three of
our local capitalists.

Mrs. Rummel: Ah, I was right in thinking I heard my husband's voice.

Hilmar: Of course Mr. Rummel is in it, and so are Sandstad and Michael
Vigeland, "Saint Michael", as they call him.

Rorlund: Ahem!

Hilmar: I beg your pardon, Mr. Rorlund?

Mrs. Bernick: Just when everything was so nice and peaceful.

Hilmar: Well, as far as I am concerned, I have not the slightest
objection to their beginning their squabbling again. It will be a
little diversion, any way.

Rorlund: I think we can dispense with that sort of diversion.

Hilmar: It depends how you are constituted. Certain natures feel the
lust of battle now and then. But unfortunately life in a country town
does not offer much in that way, and it isn't given to every one to
(turns the leaves of the book RORLUND has been reading). "Woman as the
Handmaid of Society." What sort of drivel is this?

Mrs.