Ingeborg sat listening with half an ear and eyes bright with longing to be out in the streets again. She was fidgeting to get away from the shop, and was sorry he should choose just that moment to smoke so great a number of cigarettes. Even the young lady who guarded the cakes appeared to think the visit for one based only on tea and rusks had lasted long enough, and came and cleared away and inquired in English, it being her native tongue, whether she could not, now, get them anything else.
"The curious admixture in you," said Ingram, starting out with the intention of comparing her to light in the darkness and immediately getting off the rails, "the curious admixture in you of streaks of childishness and spasmodic maturity! You are at one moment so entirely impulsive and irresponsible, and a moment before you were quite intelligent and reasonable, and a moment afterwards you are splendid in courage and recklessness."
"When was I splendid in courage and recklessness?" she asked, bringing more attention to bear on him.
"When you left your home to come to me. The start off was splendid. Who could dream it would fizzle out into—well, into this?"
"But has it fizzled out? You're not"—she leaned across the table a little anxiously—"you're not scolding me?"
"On the contrary, I'm trying to tell you all you are to me."
"Oh," said Ingeborg.
"I intend somehow to isolate my consciousness of your streaks—"
"Streaks?"
"As bees wax up a dead invader."