"Of course. I didn't suppose you were dragged across Europe by your hair to Kökensee. I'll come all the way with you. I want to see Kökensee." "Don't walk so fast, then," said Ingeborg, panting. "I _can't_ walk like that." He looked at her as he went slower. "Is that the effect of Kökensee?" he said. "Why can't you walk like that? You're only a girl." "I'm not a girl at all. I'm a wife, I'm a mother. I'm everything really now except a mother-in-law and a grandmother. That's all there's still left to be. I think they're rather dull things, both of them." "You won't think so when you've got there." "That's the dreadfullest part of it." "It's a kindly trick Time plays on us. Are you a real pastor's wife who goes about her parish being an example?" "I haven't yet. But I'm going to." "What--not begun in eighteen months? But what do you do then all day long?" "First I cook, and then I--don't cook." They were out in the open, on the bit of road that passed between meadows. Ingram stopped and looked at something over to the left with sudden absorbed attention. She followed his eyes, but did not see much--a wisp of mist along the grass, the top twigs of a willow emerging from it, and above it the faint sky. He said nothing, and presently went on walking faster than ever. "_Please_ go a little slower," begged Ingeborg, her heart thumping with effort. "I think you know," said Ingram, suiting himself to her, "you should be able to walk better than that." "Yes," said Ingeborg. "I suppose that's the danger of places like Kökensee--one lets oneself get slack." "Yes," said Ingeborg. "You mustn't, you know. Imagine losing one's lines. Just think of the horrible indefinite lines of a fat woman." "Yes," said Ingeborg. "Do you paint much?" she asked, unable to endure this turn of the conversation. He looked at her and laughed. "A good deal," he said. Then he added, "I'm Ingram." "Is that your name? Mine's Dremmel." "_Edward_ Ingram," he said, looking at her. It was inconceivable she should not know. "_Ingeborg_ Dremmel," she said, as though it were a game. He was silent a moment. Then he stopped with a jerk. "I don't think I'll come any farther," he said. "The Glambecks will be wondering what has become of me. Glambeck brought me down for a couple of nights, and I can't be not there all the time." "But you wanted to see Kökensee--" "Doesn't anybody ever read in Kökensee?" "Read?" "Papers? Books? Reviews? Criticisms? What the world's doing in all the million places that aren't Kökensee? Who everybody is? What's being thought and created?" He had an oddly nettled look. "Robert takes in the Norddeutscheallgemeinezeitung, and I've been reading Kipling--" "Kipling! Well, good-bye." "But isn't Kipling--why, till I married I had only the Litany." "What on earth for?" "That and Psalms and things. I felt very _empty_ on the Litany." "I can imagine it. I'd lose no more time then in furnishing my emptiness. Good-bye."