f, he had suffered a
disenchantment in Ingigerd's dance; to judge by which, the demon's spell
was broken. This time that alluring seductive dance had seemed
inconceivably empty. Nor was his compassion aroused to nearly the same
extent as formerly.

Franck, the gypsy painter, burst in. He behaved like a madman. His
enthusiasm, which somewhat improved Ingigerd's temper, was of the sort
that stammers and stutters and cannot find the words to express itself.
Frederick looked at him in disgust, but the next moment started when he
recognised in his behaviour the marks of his own former obsession.
Ingigerd let the painter take her hand and cover it with wild, passionate
kisses, which travelled from her wrist to her elbow, a demonstration that
seemed to her to be perfectly natural and quite in order.

"I wish you would go visit Mr. Garry again and try to influence him with
pleas and threats and money," she said to Frederick.

"That would be foolish and useless," Frederick declared; whereupon
Ingigerd wept.

"The only friends I have," she wailed, "are friends that exploit me. Why
isn't Achleitner here? Why did Achleitner have to lose his life, and not
somebody else? Achleitner was my real friend. He knew how to go about
things in the world, and he was rich and unselfish, too."

XVII

The very next day the injunction was issued, restraining Ingigerd
Hahlstroem from dancing in public. The girl conducted herself wildly.
Lilienfeld said the time had come to place the matter before the Mayor of
New York. In order to protect Ingigerd from slander and from being sent
to an orphan asylum, Lilienfeld, who was married but had no children,
offered her a refuge in his own home on 124th Street near Lenox Avenue.
Whether she wanted to or not, Ingigerd had to accept.

The morning after Ingigerd's departure to Mr. Lilienfeld's home, when
Frederick sat in front of his modelling in a new smock of unbleached
linen of Miss Burns's buying, he experienced a sense of relief on
Ingigerd's account. A burden had been lifted from him. Her change of home
had removed a part of the responsibility from his shoulders and made a
break in the feeling he had had of their belonging to each other.

After the rehearsal, Ingigerd was much discussed in the studio. Ritter
had expressed to Miss Burns and his friends a desire to make a model of
the dancing girl for a bronze statuette. Miss Burns told Frederick of his
wish. But Frederick, who was still re