The Lilienfelds lived in a one-family house, an exact replica of the
other houses on the same block on 124th Street. Frederick found the
company drinking coffee in a reception-room on the first floor, richly
furnished with oriental rugs, expensive lamps, Japanese vases, and fine,
dark, highly polished walnut furniture. The shades were drawn, and the
electric bulbs of a gorgeous chandelier imparted a certain splendour to
the room. The air was heavy with the smoke of Lilienfeld's strong
imported cigars, at which the reporters were puffing away comfortably.
Ingigerd, smoking a cigarette, was reclining in an easy-chair surrounded
by the reporters. Her hair was hanging loose about her shoulders and
down her back. Altogether her appearance was not prepossessing. Since
she looked impossible dressed as a grown lady in long skirts, she
wore schoolgirl clothes and was tempted to furbish herself up like a
tight-rope dancer with ribbons, openwork stockings, and white shoes.
When Frederick von Kammacher entered the room, she blushed slightly, and
held her hand out to him indolently. Unfortunately, this hand had short,
ordinary fingers, probably the plebeian heritage from her mother, her
father having had long, beautiful hands. Frederick was at least a head
taller than anybody in the room and was distinguished from the other
gentlemen by his air of good breeding. He kissed Mrs. Lilienfeld's hand,
German fashion, and begged her pardon for having come so late.
The subject of discussion, of course, was the hearing in the City Hall.
Lilienfeld ran about, offering the reporters cigars and cordials, so
importunate in his hospitality as not to shrink from sticking long
Havanas into their coat pockets and cigarettes into their cases. There
was design in this. Every now and then he would take a reporter aside to
force upon him information regarding Ingigerd's past, her birth, her
rescue, her father, her European success, and the way in which her talent
had been discovered. It was a rather garish mixture of truth and fiction.
Lilienfeld knew that this story of her life would appear in the New York
newspapers that very same evening in connection with the report of the
audience in the City Hall. He had brewed the concoction according to his
own recipe from various details that he had heard, and he felt certain of
its effectiveness.
Ingigerd looked very tired. But she had received orders to be as lavish
as possible with her amiabilities so long as a single reporter remained
in the house. Frederick felt sorry for her. He saw that her severe
professional duties had begun.
Mrs. Lilienfeld was a calm, refined woman of nearly forty, with a look of
suffering on her face, yet extremely attractive. She was dressed with
tasteful simplicity. One got the impression that her husband worshipped
her blindly and was accustomed to act, or to refrain from acting,
according to a scarcely perceptible glance from her soft, grave eyes. For
all his noisiness the bull-necked man, coarse, brutal, sensual, was like
a timid child before her.
She devoted herself for a while to Frederick, who felt he had found grace
in the lady's eyes and that for some reason she wished to be helpful to
him in leading him away from the aberrations of his passion. Had he not
had a sense of security in the firmness of his decision, he might perhaps
have given more serious attention to her searching questions, which
showed that she had done some thinking about him.
Her method was far from flattering to Ingigerd. With an infinitely
disdainful smile, she called the girl, who was chattering nonsense to a
circle of flirtatious reporters and was overwhelmed with their tokens of
approval, "a mechanical doll with a light head of porcelain filled with
sawdust."
"A good plaything," she said, "a plaything for a man, an article of
merchandise, but nothing more. She may be worth money, but she is not
worth anything else. She is not worth more than any piece of emptiness,
any trifle, or knickknack."
Ingigerd, moved perhaps by a little wave of jealousy, came up and asked
Frederick, without suspecting the significance the question had in his
eyes, whether he had packed his things.
"Not yet. Why should I pack my things?"
"Mr. Lilienfeld," she said, "has made a contract for me for two evenings
a week in Boston. You must get ready and go to Boston with me day after
to-morrow."
"To the ends of the world," said Frederick lightly, "to the ends of the
world, dear lady."
She was contented, and gave Mrs. Lilienfeld a look of satisfaction.