Herr Dremmel continued writing. He was, to all appearances, absorbed; and his forehead, that hot afternoon, was covered with the drops of concentration. "Robert," she said at last again, in a voice that shook however hard she tried to keep it steady, "here I am." Herr Dremmel finished his sentence. Then he raised his head and looked at her. Staring back at him in misery and fear, and yet beside the fear with a dreadful courage, she recognised the look. It was the look he had when he was collecting his attention, bringing it up from distant deep places to the surface, to herself. How strange that he should at this moment have to collect it, that it did not instantly spring at her, that she and the havoc she had brought into his life should not be soaked into every part of his consciousness! "What did you say, Ingeborg?" he said, looking at her with that so recognisable look. For all her study of him she felt she did not yet know Robert. "I only said," she stammered, "that I--that here--that here I _was_." He looked at her for a further space of silence. Then it flashed upon her that he was, dreadfully, pretending. He was acting. He was going to torment her before punishing her. He was going to be slowly cruel. Herr Dremmel, as though he were gathering himself together--gathering himself, she thought watching him and growing cold at his uncanniness, for a horrible spring--inquired of her if she had walked. "Yes," said Ingeborg even more faintly, her eyes full of watchful fear. He continued to look at her, but his hand while he did so felt about on the table for the pen he had laid down. She recognized this look, too--amazing, horrible, how he could act--it was the one he had when, talking to somebody, a new illumination of the subject he was writing about came into his mind. She felt sure now that the worst was going to happen to her; but first there was to be torture, a long playing about. These revealed depths of cunning cruelty in him, of talent for cleverest acting, froze her blood. Where was Robert, the man of large simplicities she believed she had known? It was a strange man, then, she had been living with? He had never, through all the years, been the one she thought she had married. "Please--" she said, holding out both her hands, "Robert--don't. Won't you--won't you be natural?" He still looked at her in silence. Then he said with a sudden air of remembering, "Did you get your boots, Ingeborg?" This was dreadful. That he should even talk about the boots! Throw in her face that paltry preliminary lying. "You _know_ I didn't," she said, tears of shame for him that he could be so cruel coming into her eyes. Again Herr Dremmel looked at her as though collecting, as though endeavouring to remember and to find.