INGOLF. You, the most sincere of women, could cherish so strong a
love and seem so cold.
HADDA PADDA. Now I have made too great a virtue of my love. Some
of my reserve was pride. Just think, you lived with us during your
entire schooltime, and in the summer sister and I were by turns at
your home. We grew up, you, handsome and manly, and a lord of
pleasures; and you always seemed to be careful not to pay me
greater attention than the other girls, especially at parties.
That was why I drew back.--I was eighteen, you were twenty; you
were graduated and went abroad. And poor, proud little Hadda Padda
was left alone.
INGOLF. Poor proud little Hadda Padda. [They laugh.]
HADDA PADDA. Then when you came back the next spring, it was
Kristrun's turn to go to the country. And since then, you have not
been home during the summer.
INGOLF. And when you went to Copenhagen the following winter, it
just happened to be the only year I stayed home.
HADDA PADDA. Then I thought it surely was the will of fate to
separate us. But I loved you even more. I could not give up hope.
Not even when you wrote home, the year before last, that you had
decided to live abroad.
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