She tried to get on to her feet, but with an energy he did not know he possessed he pulled her down again. He did not recognize any of the things he was feeling and doing. The Dremmel of his real nature, of those calm depths where lay happy fields of future fertilizers, gazed at this inflamed conduct going on at the top in astonishment. "No," he said, with immense determination, "you will sit here and explain about your father." "It's a dreadful thing," replied Ingeborg, suddenly discovering that of all things she did not like being clutched, and looking straight into his eyes, her head a little thrown back, "that one can't leave one's home even for a week without getting into a scrape." "A scrape! You call it a scrape when a good man--" "Here's a person who goes away for a little change--privately. And before she knows where she is she's being held down on the top of the Rigi and ordered by a strange man--" "By her future husband!" cried Herr Dremmel, who was finding the making of offers more difficult than he had supposed. "--by a strange man to explain her father. As though anybody could ever explain their father. As though anybody could ever explain _anything_." "God in Heaven," cried Herr Dremmel, "do not explain him then. Just marry me." And at this moment the snake-like procession of the rest of Dent's Tour, headed by Mr. Ascough watch in hand, emerged from the hôtel, where it had been having tea, on to the plateau, wiping its mouths in readiness for the sunset. With the jerk of a thing that has been stung it swerved aside as it was about almost to tread on the two on the grass. Ingeborg sat very stiff and straight and pretended to be staring intently at the view, forgetting that it was behind her. She flushed when she found there was no time to move far enough from Herr Dremmel for a gap to be visible between them. "Look at those two now," whispered the young lady last in the procession to the young man brushing bread and butter out of his tie who walked beside her. He looked, and seemed inclined to linger. "She's very _pretty_, isn't she?" he said. "Oh, do you think so?" said his companion. "I never think anybody's pretty who isn't--you know what I mean--really _nice_, you know--lady-like--" And she hurried him on, because, she said, if he didn't hurry he'd miss the sunset. CHAPTER V Ingeborg spent most of the night on a hard chair at her bedroom window earnestly endeavouring to think.