blue sky.

_Brack_. Which accounts for the condition of my hat. (_Exhibiting
it._) Look here--_riddled_!

_Hedda_. Couldn't help myself. I am so horribly bored with TESMAN.
Everlastingly to be with a professional person!

_Brack_ (_sympathetically_). Our excellent TESMAN is certainly a bit
of a bore. (_Looks searchingly at her_.) What on earth made you marry
him?

_Hedda_. Tired of dancing, my dear, that's all. And then I used TESMAN
to take me home from parties; and we saw this villa; and I said I
liked it, and so did he; and so we found some common ground, and here
we are, do you see! And I loathe TESMAN, and I don't even like the
villa now; and I do feel the want of an entertaining companion so!

[Illustration: "I am a Norwegian literary man, and peculiar."]

_Brack_. Try me. Just the kind of three-cornered arrangement that
I like. Let me be the third person in the
compartment--(_confidentially_)--the tried friend, and, generally
speaking, cock of the walk!

_Hedda_ (_audibly drawing in her breath_). I cannot resist your
polished way of putting things. We will conclude a triple alliance.
But hush!--here comes TESMAN.

[_Enter GEORGE, with a number of books under his arm._