After Frederick had worked feverishly with his shirt sleeves rolled up for three hours, the athlete’s muscular arm began to take shape clearly, and he felt a sense of satisfaction wholly novel to him.  In working he completely forgot who he was, and where he was.  When Willy Snyders came in, as he usually did on his way from his work to luncheon for the purpose of saying “how-do-you-do” to Bonifacius Ritter and art, it seemed to Frederick that he had been awakened from a dream and called back to a strange life.

“I am sorry to have to leave work and go to lunch.  Lunch is really a very disturbing thing,” he confessed.

When Ritter entered, they all laughed heartily at his genuine passion for sculpture.

“When I return to Europe,” he said, “I must immediately make portraits of my three children.”

Miss Burns and Willy Snyders had actually made Frederick proud by their praise, though in Ritter’s presence they turned silent awaiting the master’s verdict.

“You must certainly have modelled in clay before,” said Ritter.  Frederick could honestly deny that he ever had.  “Well,” Ritter rejoined, “then you have handled your material like a man who has art in his blood.  To judge by this first attempt, it seems to me you have merely been waiting for the clay and the clay has been waiting for you.”

“We’ll see,” said Frederick, and added, “Unfortunately there is a serious drawback.  The saying is that all beginnings are difficult.  My former experiences lead me to believe that with me the reverse is generally true.  As a rule I win the first and second round of chess, or cards, or billiards, and lose in the end.  I succeeded at first in my practice and my bacteriological researches.  If I write a book, only the first and second chapters are worth anything.”

The artists refused to believe this, though there was a grain of truth in what he said.  Nevertheless, Frederick left the studio with them in a healthier frame of mind than he had been in for years.

But his spirits departed in a measure after he had spoken with Ingigerd Hahlstroem in the club-house.  The girl listened unsympathetically, if not ironically, to his account of his new occupation.  Ritter, Willy and Lobkowitz were secretly outraged at her disdainful remarks, especially since they observed that Frederick was still entangled in the girl’s meshes, body and soul.

She told him he must go to Webster and Forster and insist on their withdrawing a notification which they had sent to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  Since her new contract with Lilienfeld meant the loss of the money that she was worth to them, they wanted revenge, at least, and were going to put a spoke in their competitor’s wheel.  Ingigerd, beside herself with rage, told Frederick that in the morning she had had a brief rehearsal in the theatre, and a representative of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had announced his intention of attending the rehearsal the next day.  She was bent upon letting her light shine in New York and receiving twofold homage, the homage of pity and the homage of admiration.  Besides, she did not want to lose the money in prospect.  If she were prevented from appearing in New York, there was no chance for her anywhere in the United States.