on its hinges, and a tall, stately,
noble-looking old man was ushered in. He carried his hat in his hand. His
hair was silvery grey, and his clear-cut face was clean shaven. He was a
gentleman, "every inch of him." The young man who had led the stranger
in, dashed out again, and the gentleman seated himself near the door by
which he had entered. Director Lilienfeld appeared and, turning and
twisting like an eel around the awe-inspiring old man, officiously begged
him to be seated in one of the front rows.

The gentleman, Mr. Garry, President of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children and many other organisations, declined with a wave of
his hand and fixed his attention upon the performance. Ingigerd had been
confused by the creaking of the door, the arrival of a new spectator, and
the mumbled greeting of her impresario. She stopped dancing.

"Keep on! Keep on!" cried Lilienfeld. But the girl stepped to the edge of
the stage.

"What's the matter?" she inquired.

"Nothing, nothing at all," the director assured her, all impatience.

Ingigerd called for Doctor von Kammacher. Frederick, who was reminded of
his father by the old gentleman and had been looking at him with respect,
was not a little startled when he heard his name echo through the
theatre. It was fearfully painful and humiliating to him to have to step
up to the platform and speak to Ingigerd. She bent down and told him to
go "sound that old guy from the Society and try to bring him around."

"If I am not allowed to dance, I will jump from Brooklyn Bridge, and you
can go fishing for me where my father is," she cried.

Amid convulsive jerkings of her body, throttled by the spider's threads,
Ingigerd ended what was apparently her life, though in reality nothing
but her dance. Lilienfeld introduced Frederick to Mr. Garry. The stiff
old descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers, who had come over in the
_Mayflower_ and founded the New England States, measured Frederick with a
cold, penetrating glance of his steely grey eyes, a glance hostile as
a cat's and as capable, it seemed to Frederick, as a cat's to see in
utter darkness. Mr. Garry spoke very quietly, but what he said scarcely
aroused hopes that his attitude would be tolerant.

"Evidently," he said after Lilienfeld had got done with an eager
harangue, "evidently, the girl's father has already misused her for low
purposes, and evidently, the child's education has been neglected. The
creature is t