"I know?" he repeated, after a pause of reflective gazing during which Ingeborg had flushed vividly and gone white again, so much shocked was she at the glimpse she was getting into inhumanity. It was devilish, she thought. But Robert devilish? Her universe seemed tumbling about her ears. "I think," she said, lifting her head with the pride he ought to have felt and so evidently, so lamentably, didn't, "one should give one's punishment like a man." There was another pause, during which Herr Dremmel, with his eyes on hers, appeared to ruminate. Then he said, "Did you have a pleasant time?" This was fiendish. Even when acting, thought Ingeborg, there were depths of baseness the decent refused to portray. "I think," she said in a trembling voice, "if you wouldn't mind leaving off pretending--oh," she broke off, pressing her hands together, "what's the good, Robert? What's the _good_? Don't let us waste time. Don't make it worse, more hideous--you got my letter--you know all about it--" "Your letter?" said Herr Dremmel. She begged him, she entreated him to leave off pretending. "Don't, don't keep on like this," she besought--"it's such a dreadful way of doing it--it's so unworthy--" "Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, "will you not cultivate calm? _You_ have journeyed and you have walked, but you have done neither sufficiently to justify intemperateness. Perhaps, if you must be intemperate, you will have the goodness to go and be so in your own room. Then we shall neither of us disturb the other." "No," said Ingeborg, wringing her hands, "no. I won't go. I won't go into any other room till you've finished with me." "But," said Herr Dremmel, "I have finished with you. And I wish," he added, pulling out his watch, "to have tea. I am driving to my fields at five o'clock." "Oh, Robert," she begged, inexpressibly shocked, he meant to go on tormenting her then indefinitely? "please, please do whatever you're going to do to me and get it over. Here I am only _waiting_ to be punished--" "Punished?" repeated Herr Dremmel. "Why," cried Ingeborg, her eyes bright with grief and shame for this steady persistence in baseness, "why, I don't think you're to punish me! You're not _fit_ to punish a decent woman. You're contemptible!" Herr Dremmel stared. "This," he then said, "is abuse. At least," he added, "it bears a close resemblance to that which in a reasonable human being would be abuse. However, Ingeborg, speech in you does not, as I have often observed, accurately represent meaning. I should rather say," he amended, "a meaning." She moved across to the table to him, her eyes shining. He held his pen ready to go on writing so soon as she should be good enough to leave off interrupting. "Robert," she said, leaning with both hands on the table, her voice shaking, "I--I never thought I'd have to be _ashamed_ of you. I could bear anything but having to be _ashamed_ of you--"