He reasoned for at least twenty minutes, taking great pains and being patient. He told her she was not really frightened, but that her physical condition caused her to fancy she thought she was. Ingeborg was interested by this, and readily admitted that it was possible. He told her about the simple courage of the other women in Kökensee, and Ingeborg agreed, for she had seen it herself. He told her how God had arranged she should bring forth in sorrow, but she fidgeted and began again to talk of bishops. He told her it would only be a few hours' suffering, perhaps less, and that in return there was a lifetime's joy for them in their child. She listened attentively to this, was quite quiet for a few minutes, then slid her hand into his. He told her she might, by letting herself go to fear, hurt her child, and would she not in that case find difficulty afterwards in forgiving herself? This completed her cure. An enormous courage took the place of her misgivings. She rose up from the sofa so superfluously brave, so glowing with enterprise, that she wanted to begin at once that she might show how much she could cheerfully endure. "As though," she said, lifting her chin, "I couldn't stand what other women stand--as though I wouldn't stand _anything_ sooner than hurt my baby!" And she flung back her head in the proudest defiance of whatever might be ahead of her. Her baby, her husband, her happy home--to suffer for these would be beautiful if it were not such a little thing, almost too little to offer up at their dear altar. She would have been transfigured by her shining thoughts if any thing could have transfigured her, but no thoughts however bright could pierce through that sad body. Her outlines were not the outlines for heroic attitudes. She not only had a double chin, she seemed to be doubled all over. She looked the queerest figure, heavy, middle-aged, uncouth, ugly, standing there passionately expressing her readiness to begin; and Herr Dremmel unconsciously seeing this, and bored by having had to explain the obvious at such length and spend a valuable half hour bringing a woman to reason--why could they never go to it by themselves?--wasted no more words having got her there, but brushed a hasty kiss across her hair and went away looking at his watch. And next day, just as she was putting the potatoes into that dinner-pot that so much simplified her cooking, she uttered a small exclamation and turned quickly to Ilse with a look of startled questioning. "_Geht's los_?" asked Ilse, pausing in the wiping dry of a wooden ladle. "I--don't know," said Ingeborg, gasping a little. "No," she added after a minute, during which they stood staring at each other, "it wasn't anything." And she went on with the potatoes.