Valborg. That if I were his daughter I would never forgive him.

Mrs. Tjaelde. My dear Valborg, don't say such things!

Valborg. I mean it! A man who would bring such shame and misery upon his
family does not deserve any mercy from them.

Mrs. Tjaelde. We are all in need of mercy.

Valborg. In one sense, yes. But what I mean is that I could never give
him my respect or my affection again. He would have wronged me too
cruelly.

Tjaelde (getting up). Wronged you?

Mrs. Tjaelde. Have you finished already, dear?

Tjaelde. Yes.

Mrs. Tjaelde. No more wine?

Tjaelde. I said I had finished. Wronged you? How?

Valborg. Well, I cannot imagine how one could be more cruelly wronged
than to be allowed to assume a position that was nothing but a lie,
to live up to means that had no real existence but were merely a
sham--one's clothes a lie, one's very existence a lie! Suppose I were
the sort of girl that found a certain delight in making use of her
position as a rich man's daughter--in using it to the fullest possible
extent; well, when I discovered that all that my father had given me was
stolen-that all he had made me believe in was a lie--I am sure that then
my anger and my shame would be beyond all bounds!

Mrs. Tjaelde. My child, you have never been tried. You don't know how
such things may happen. You don't really know what you are saying!

Hamar. Well it might do Moeller good if he heard what she says!

Valborg. He has heard it. His daughter said that to him.

Mrs. Tjaelde. His own daughter! Child, child, is that what you write to
each other about? God forgive you both!

Valborg. Oh, He will forgive us, because we speak the truth.

Mrs. Tialde. Child, child!

Tjaelde. You evidently don't understand what business is--success one
day and failure the next.

Valborg. No one will ever persuade me that business is a lottery.

Tjaelde. No, a sound business is not.

Valborg. Exactly. It is the unsound sort that I condemn.

Tjaelde. Still, even the soundest have their anxious moments.

Valborg. If the anxious moments really foreshadow a crisis, no man of
honour would keep his family o: his creditors in ignorance of the fact.
My God, how Mr. Moeller has deceived his!

Signe. Valborg is always talking about business!

Valborg. Yes, it has had an attraction for me ever since I was a child.
I am not ashamed of that.

Signe. You think you know all about it, anyway.

Valborg. Oh, no; but you can easily get