"Whom will the Little One invite?" asked Herr Dremmel, bending down across the whole of the Milky Way and every single one of all the multitude of scents the night was softly throwing against her face. He kissed her very kindly and at unusual length. It lasted so long that she missed the smell of an entire clover field. "Your mother," said Ingeborg, when she again emerged. "Heavens and earth!" said Herr Dremmel. "I know now what I did--or rather didn't do. I know now why she kept on saying _Bratkartoffel_. Oh, Robert, she must have been _hurt_. She must have thought I didn't care a bit. And I did so want her to be happy. Why didn't you tell me?" "Tell you what, little sheep?" "About there having to be supper, and about her having to go to bed." "To bed?" "Did the Baron put you?" "Put me?" "To bed?" Herr Dremmel bent down again and looked a little anxiously at as much of her face as he could see in the moonlight. It seemed normal; not in the least flushed or feverish. He touched her cheek with his finger. It was cool. "Little One," he said, "what is this talk of beds?" "Only that it would save rather a lot of awful things happening if you would just give me an _idea_ beforehand of what is expected. It wouldn't take a minute. I wouldn't disturb you at your work for anything, but at some odd time--breakfast, for instance, or while you're shaving--if you'd _say_ about beds and things like that. One couldn't guess it, you know. In Redchester one didn't do it, you see. And it's such a really beautiful arrangement. Oh"--she suddenly flung her arms round him and held him tight--"I _am_ glad I married one of you!" "One of me?" Herr Dremmel again peered anxiously at her face. "One of you wonderful people--you magnificent, spacious people. In Redchester we got rid of difficulties by running away. You face them and overcome them. There isn't much doubt, is there, which is the finer?" He transferred his cigar to the hand that was round her shoulder and spread his right one largely over her forehead. It was quite cool. "Who," went on Ingeborg enthusiastically, jerking her head away from his hand, "would have a custom that makes calls last five hours without rebelling? You are too splendidly disciplined to rebel. You don't. You just set about finding some way of making the calls endurable, and you hit on the _nicest_ way. I loved that hour in bed. If only I'd known that the other day when your mother came! The relief of it...." "But my mother--" began Herr Dremmel in a puzzled voice. Then he added with a touch of severity, "Your remarks, my treasure, are not in your usual taste. You forget my mother is a widow." "Oh? Don't widows?" "Do not widows what?" "Go to bed?" "Now kindly tell me," he said, with an impatience he concealed beneath calm, for he had heard that a husband who wishes to become successfully a father has to accommodate himself to many moods, "what it is you are really talking about."