"Oh—a dead invader?"
"I don't, you see, believe in the damning effect of one specific outbreak, nor of one or two—"
"You're not—you're not really scolding me?" she asked, again a little anxiously.
"On the contrary, I'm believing in and clinging to your dear innermost."
"Oh," said Ingeborg.
"I believe these streaks and patches and spots your superficial self has may be good in their ultimate effect, may save us, by interrupting, from those too serene spells that dogs'-ear love with usage and carelessness."
She gazed at him, her mouth a little open. He lit yet another cigarette.
"But it's rather like," he said, flinging the match away into a corner whither the young lady followed it and with a pursed reproachfulness trod it out, "it's rather like finding a crock of gold in one's garden and only being able to peep at it sometimes, and having to go away and work very hard for eleven shillings a week."
She went on gazing at him in silence.
"And not even for eleven shillings," said Ingram, reflecting on all he had already endured. "Work very hard for nothing."