rabbit._

_Mrs. E._ (_nervous_). Oh, please, I'm so perfectly in despair. EJLERT
LÖVBORG, you know, who was our Tutor; he's written such a large new book. I
inspired him. Oh, I know I don't look like it--but I did--he told me so.
And, good gracious, now he's in this dangerous wicked town all alone, and
he's a reformed character, and I'm _so_ frightened about him; so, as the
wife of a Sheriff twenty years older than me, I came up to look after Mr.
LÖVBORG. Do ask him here--then I can meet him. You will? How perfectly
lovely of you! My husband's _so_ fond of him!

_Hedda._ GEORGE, go and write an invitation at once; do you hear? (GEORGE
_looks around for his slippers, takes them up and goes out._) Now we can
talk, my little THEA. Do you remember how I used to pull your hair when we
met on the stairs, and say I would scorch it off? Seeing people with
copious hair always _does_ irritate me.

_Mrs. E._ Goodness, yes, you were always so playful and friendly, and I was
so afraid of you. I am still. And please, I've run away from my husband.
Everything around him was distasteful to me. And Mr. LÖVBORG and I were
comrades--he was dissipated, and I got a sort of power over him, and he
made a real person out of me--which I wasn't before, you know; but, oh, I
do hope I'm real now. He talked to me and taught me to think--chiefly of
him. So, when Mr. LÖVBORG came here, naturally I came too. There was
nothing else to do! And fancy, there is another woman whose shadow still
stands between him and me! She wanted to shoot him once, and so, of course,
he can never forget her. I wish I knew her name--perhaps it was that
red-haired opera-singer?

_Hedda_ (_with cold self-command_). Very likely--but nobody does that sort