can
boat. Those fellows expect to get work done here the way they are
accustomed to it over there, and that--

Krap: Yes, yes, but I can't go into all these details. You know now
what Mr. Bernick means, and that is sufficient. Be so good as to go
back to the yard; probably you are needed there. I shall be down myself
in a little while. --Excuse me, ladies! (Bows to the ladies and goes
out through the garden and down the street. AUNE goes quietly out to
the right. RORLUND, who has continued his reading during the foregoing
conversation, which has been carried on in low tones, has now come to
the end of the book, and shuts it with a bang.)

Rorlund: There, my dear ladies, that is the end of it.

Mrs. Rummel: What an instructive tale!

Mrs. Holt: And such a good moral!

Mrs. Bernick: A book like that really gives one something to think
about.

Rorlund: Quite so; it presents a salutary contrast to what,
unfortunately, meets our eyes every day in the newspapers and
magazines. Look at the gilded and painted exterior displayed by any
large community, and think what it really conceals!--emptiness and
rottenness, if I may say so; no foundation of morality beneath it. In a
word, these large communities of ours now-a-days are whited sepulchres.

Mrs. Holt: How true! How true!

Mrs. Rummel: And for an example of it, we need look no farther than at
the crew of the American ship that is lying here just now.

Rorlund: Oh, I would rather not speak of such offscourings of humanity
as that. But even in higher circles--what is the case there? A spirit
of doubt and unrest on all sides; minds never at peace, and instability
characterising all their behaviour. Look how completely family life is
undermined over there! Look at their shameless love of casting doubt on
even the most serious truths!

Dina (without looking up from her work): But are there not many big
things done there too?

Rorlund: Big things done--? I do not understand--.

Mrs. Holt (in amazement): Good gracious, Dina--!

Mrs. Rummel (in the same breath): Dina, how can you--?

Rorlund: I think it would scarcely be a good thing for us if such "big
things" became the rule here. No, indeed, we ought to be only too
thankful that things are as they are in this country. It is true enough
that tares grow up amongst our wheat here too, alas; but we do our best
conscientiously to weed them out as well as we are able. The important
thing is to keep society pure, ladies-