He became patient. "It has been laid down that a woman shall leave father and mother and any other related obstacle she may have the misfortune to be hampered with, and cleave only to her husband." "That was about a man cleaving to his wife. There wasn't anything said about a woman. Besides--" She stopped. She couldn't tell him that she didn't want to cleave. He gazed at her a moment in silence. He had not contemplated a necessity for persuasion. "This," he then said with severity, "is prevarication." She sat down on the grass and clasped her hands round her knees and looked up at him. She had taken off her hat when first she got to the top to fan herself, and had not put it on again. As she sat there with her back to the glow of the sky, the wind softly lifted the rings of her hair and the sun shone through them wonderfully. They seemed to flicker gently to and fro, little tongues of fire. "Why," said Herr Dremmel, suddenly leaning forward and staring, "you are like a spirit." This pleased her. For a moment her eyes danced. "Like a spirit," he repeated. "And here am I talking heavily to you, as though you were an ordinary woman. Little One, how does one trap a spirit into marrying? Tell me. For very earnestly do I desire to be shown the way." "One doesn't," said Ingeborg. "Ah, do not be difficult. You have been so easy, of such a comfortable response in all things up to now." "But this--" began Ingeborg. "Yes. This, I well know--" He was more stirred than he had thought possible. He was becoming almost eager. "But," asked Ingeborg, exploring this new interesting situation, "why do you want to?" "Want to marry you?" "Yes." "Because," said Herr Dremmel, immensely prompt, "I have had the extreme good fortune to fall in love with you." Again she looked pleased. "And I do not ask you," he went on, "to love me, or whether you do love me. It would be presumption on my part, and not, if you did, very modest on yours. That is the difference between a man and a woman. He loves before marriage, and she does not love till after." "Oh?" said Ingeborg, interested. "And what does he--" "The woman," continued Herr Dremmel, "feels affection and esteem before marriage, and the man feels affection and esteem after." "Oh," said Ingeborg, reflecting. She began to tear up tufts of grass. "It seems--chilly," she said. "Chilly?" he echoed. He let his stick drop, and got up and came and sat down, or rather let himself down carefully, on the grass beside her. "Chilly? Do you not know that a decent chill is a great preservative? Hot things decay. Frozen things do not live. A just measure of chill preserves the life of the affections. It is, by a very proper dispensation of Nature, provided before marriage by the woman, and afterwards by the man. The balance is, in this way, nicely held, and peace and harmony, which nourish best at a low temperature, prevail."