"No, no, no," said Ingram, smiting his forehead, "and I don't believe a word of it. You're just making it up. Look here," he said, clearing away his things to make room for her, "sit down and let us talk. Are you real?"
"Yes, and I live at Kökensee, just round the corner behind the reeds. But I told you that before," said Ingeborg.
"You do live?" he said, pushing his things aside. "You're not just a flame-headed little dream that will presently disappear again?"
"My name's Dremmel. Frau Dremmel. But I told you that before, too."
"The things a man forgets!" he exclaimed, spreading a silk handkerchief over the coarse grass. "There! Sit on that."
"You're laughing at me," she said, sitting down, "and I don't mind a bit. I'm much too glad to see you."
"If I laugh it's with pleasure," he said, staring at the effect of her against the pale green of the reeds—where had he seen just that before, that Scandinavian colouring, that burning sort of brightness in the hair? "It's so amusing of you to be Frau anything."
She smiled at him with the frankness of a pleased boy.
"You're very nice, you know," he said, smiling back.
"You didn't think so last time. You called me your dear lady, and asked me if I never read."