] Tell me, Miss
Wangel--what is your name? Your Christian name, I mean.
HILDA.
Why, Hilda, of course.
SOLNESS.
[As before.] Hilda? Indeed?
HILDA.
Don't you remember that? You called me Hilda yourself--that day when
you misbehaved.
SOLNESS.
Did I really.
HILDA.
But then you said "little Hilda"; and I didn't like that.
SOLNESS.
Oh, you didn't like that, Miss Hilda?
HILDA.
No, not at such a time as that. But--"Princess Hilda"--that will
sound very well, I think.
SOLNESS.
Very well indeed. Princess Hilda of--of--what was to be the name of
the kingdom?
HILDA.
Pooh! I won't have anything to do with that stupid kingdom. I have
set my heart upon quite a different one!
SOLNESS.
[Has leaned back in the chair, still gazing at her.] Isn't it
strange---? The more I think of it now, the more it seems to me
as though I had gone about all these years torturing myself with--
h'm---
HILDA.
With what?
SOLNESS.
With the effort to recover something--some experience, which I
seemed to have forgotten. But I never had the least inkling of
what it could be.
HILDA.
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