She then went and sat on his knee and caught hold of his ears and pulled his head up so that he should look at her.
"But Robert—" she said.
"Well, little sheep?"
Since their marriage he had instinctively left off calling her a lamb. The universe, which for a time she had managed to reduce into just a setting for one little female thing, had arranged itself into its proper lines again; the lamb had become a sheep—a little one, but yet no longer and never again a lamb. He was glad he had been able to be so thoroughly in love. He was glad he had so promptly applied the remedy of marriage. His affection for his wife was quite satisfactory: it was calm, it was deep, it interfered with nothing. She held the honourable position he had always, even at his most enamoured moments, known she would ultimately fill, the position next best in his life after the fertilizers. His house, so long murky with widows, was now a bright place because of her. Approaching poetry, he likened her to a little flitting busy bird in spring. Always he was pleased when she came and perched on his knee.
"Well, little sheep?" he said, smiling at her as she looked very close into his eyes.
Her face, seen so near, was charming in its delicate detail, in its young perfection of texture and colouring. Scrutinizing her eyes he was glad to notice once again how intelligent they were. Presently there would be sturdy boys tumbling about the garden with eyes like that, grey and honest and intelligent. His boys. Carrying on, far more efficiently, the work he had begun.
"Well, little sheep?" he said, suddenly moved.
"Oughtn't one to love one's mother?" she asked.
"Perhaps. But one does not. Do you?"
"Oh, poor mother—" said Ingeborg quickly.