tan Opera House yet?"

Mrs. Liebling continued to put similar lively interrogations, to which
she demanded small responses from Frederick, supplying most of the
answers herself.

He thought of Rosa and Siegfried and had time to inspect and reinspect
the signor's brand-new patent leather shoes, the straight creases down
his trousers, his watch chain, his diamond scarf pin, his monocle, his
high hat, and his expensive fur coat.

"What have you got to do with our famous tenor of the Metropolitan Opera
Company?" Lilienfeld asked Frederick, when he returned to the portico
with a "Whew!" of relief. Frederick did not understand, and Lilienfeld
repeated the same Italian name that Mrs. Liebling had mentioned in
introducing the signor to Frederick. He was astonished that Frederick did
not know what a world-renowned star this new friend of Mrs. Liebling's
was.

XIX

The meeting had so clearly put before Frederick the tragi-comedy of
existence that his sense of humour was stirred and he was capable of
taking the painful situation less seriously.

The cab with the ladies drove up. Simultaneously half a dozen reporters
stepped into the lobby. Frederick, to his surprise, observed that most of
them were on a rather free and easy footing with Ingigerd, and shook
hands with her familiarly. She looked very dainty and pretty.

Her rather numerous body-guard, which now included Mr. Samuelson and his
assistant, were ushered into the audience chamber, a lofty wainscoted
room with bay windows. When they entered, they saw Mr. Garry's tall
figure already seated at a long table near the empty chair that the Mayor
was to occupy. He was dressed in black, almost like an English clergyman,
and the theological spirit of the Puritan shone from his face. Yet there
was too much worldly acumen, too much cold determination in his
impressive features for a clergyman. He held his eye-glasses in his hand
and now and then turned over the pages of his notes. Mr. Samuelson and
Mr. Lilienfeld took seats on the other side of the Mayor's chair, without
greeting him. The rest of the space about the table was occupied by a few
clerks, the reporters, and other persons interested, among whom sat
Frederick, Lilienfeld's wife, prepossessing and stately, and Ingigerd
Hahlstroem, the _casus belli_.

The Mayor entered by a high folding door a few feet behind his chair. He
was an Irishman, somewhere between forty and fifty, wearing a smile of
mixed shrewdne