The reporters grinned at one another significantly.  The secret hate of the Irish Catholic toward the native Puritan of English descent had broken through the surface.  Mr. Garry arose and shook his enemy’s hand with cold dignity.  Then he walked away, drawn up to his full height.  His other adversary, of a very different nature from the Mayor, did not succeed in darting in his face his look of hate, also of a very different nature from the Mayor’s; for Mr. Garry’s eyes did not rest upon Lilienfeld for the fraction of a second.

Everybody crowded about Ingigerd, overwhelming the girl, the impresario and his wife with congratulations.  In her joyous excitement Ingigerd’s small face beamed sweetly.  She looked very lovely.  It was something to her heart’s desire, this struggle to possess her carried on, as it were, before the eyes of two continents.  Indeed, the extreme importance to which her person had attained almost humbled her a bit; but her pride and pleasure every now and then showed in her glances, even in the glances she sent Frederick.  The men fairly courted her and did homage to her.  Had a princess of the royal blood come along at that moment, their attention could not have been diverted for an instant from the little dancer, whom the delight, even gratitude shining in her face made very attractive.

Lilienfeld immediately invited all the reporters to luncheon.  Mr. Samuelson declined the invitation, pleading an urgent appointment in the Court House.  This may have been a pretext, for Frederick noticed, not without peculiar sympathy, that he was suffering under the consciousness of his failure.  The poor man, so famous and influential, but now totally disregarded, was extremely grateful when Frederick, descending the City Hall stairs beside him, said a few words of appreciation of Samuelson’s presentation of the case, though he actually felt no appreciation.

To excuse himself from taking part in the luncheon, Frederick said he had several business engagements.  Nevertheless he had to promise Ingigerd that he would return in time for the demi-tasse.

XX

Frederick crossed the park to the main Post Office, a huge building, in which twenty-five hundred clerks and officials worked.  Here he despatched a telegram, and then turned back into the noise of the streets, where the people, bending their heads before a cutting wind, ran about in hurrying swarms.  The unceasing traffic, the cars and cabs and trucks, produced a deafening din.  Frederick drew out his watch.  It was half-past twelve, the exact time at which Miss Burns was wont to take her modest lunch in the little restaurant near the Grand Central Station.  Frederick hailed a cab and drove to the restaurant.  If on this occasion Miss Burns had failed to be lunching there, he would have been sadly disappointed.  But there she was, happy as usual to see the young German scholar.