So they cleared their throats and wished her joy. "Thank you," said Ingeborg a little faintly, looking from one to the other, "it's so kind of you--but--" They then shook hands with Herr Dremmel and said they were sure they wished him joy, too, and he thanked them with propriety and bows. "Such a thing has never happened on a Dent's Tour before--oh, no, never before at all I'm sure," said the most elderly lady nervously, with a number of nods. "There isn't time enough, that's what I sometimes think," said the young lady who had hurried her companion away to the sunset the evening before. "What's a week?" And she stared at the cake and frowned. "Dent's had a funeral once," said a square small lady who kept her hands plunged in the pockets of a grey jersey. "Now Miss Jewks, really--" protested the elderly lady. "One doesn't mention--" "Well, it wasn't their fault, Miss Andrews. They didn't _want_ to have it, I'm sure. It was a gentleman from Gipsy Hill--" "What a beautiful--er--cake," hastily interrupted the elderly lady. "Funny thing, I sometimes think," continued Miss Jewks, "to go for a holiday and die instead." "Those silver leaves--" said the elderly lady, raising her voice, "I call them dainty." "It's like a wedding-cake, isn't it?" said the young lady of the sunset, peering close at it with a face of gloom. "Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her for the first time by her name, "cut the cake? And perhaps these ladies will do us the honour of tasting it." [Illustration: "Will you not, Ingeborg," said Herr Dremmel, calling her for the first time by her name, "cut the cake?"] She did not recognise him in this persistent ceremoniousness. Every trace of his usual lax behaviour was gone, his ease and familiarity of speech, and he was as stiff and correct and grave as if he were laying a foundation stone or opening a museum. They were the manners, though she did not know it, which all Germans are trained to produce on public occasions. "Oh, thank you--" "Oh, you're really very kind--" "Oh, thank you very much I'm sure--" There was a murmur of awkward and reluctant thanks. The seven ladies were not at all certain that their cordiality ought to stretch as far as cake. They had been moved by an impulse that did honour to their womanliness to offer congratulations, but they did not for all that forget the dreadful things the couple had constantly been heard talking about and the many clear proofs it had provided that it was what Dent's Tours were accustomed to describe as no class; and though they all liked cake, and were getting steadily hungrier as the Dent week drew to its close, they were doubtful as to the social wisdom of eating it. It would be very unpleasant if these people, encouraged, were later on to presume; if they were to try to use the eaten cake as a weapon for forcing their way into English society. If, in a word, when the Tour got back to England, they were to want to call.