"Yes, I expect so."
She looked about her with great, roving eyes. Then she got up; she had been sitting all this time as though about to spring at me. I rose, too. An unhappy woman--I saw that plainly enough; but good heavens, what could I do? She had come to tell me she was engaged, and at the same time looked very unhappy. Was that a way to behave? But as she got up, I could see her face better under her hat--I could see her hair--the hair that was beginning to show silken and silver at the temples--how beautiful it was! She was tall and handsome, and her breast was rising and falling--her great breast--what a great breast she had, rising and falling! Her face was brown, and her mouth open, just a little open, dry, feverishly dry--
"Miss Ingeborg!"
It was the first time I called her this. And I moved my hand toward her slightly, longing to touch her, perhaps to fondle her--I don't know--
But she had collected herself now, and stood erect and hard. Her eyes had grown cold; they looked at me, putting me in my place again, as she walked toward the door. A cry of "No!" escaped me.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Don't go, not yet, not at once; sit down again and talk to me more."
"No, you're quite right," she said. "I'm not the center of the universe. Here I come to bother you with my unimportant troubles, and you--well, of course, you're busy with your extensive correspondence."
"Look here, sit down again, won't you? I shan't even read the letters; they're nothing, only two or three letters perhaps, probably from complete strangers. Now sit down; tell me everything; you owe me that much. Look, I shan't even read the letters."
And with that I swept them up and threw them into the fire.