day, perhaps the very next hour.  He obeys the iron impulse to throw off the entire world, his next of kin, his dearest friends, and be alone with himself, so alone that he passes into oblivion and may even count as dead.  It is a similar state, though perhaps not so pathologic in its character, a state conditioned rather by strokes of fortune, that has uprooted me.  Don’t forget, all social connections signify an immense consumption of nerve force and attach a person to his surroundings by a thousand threads and fibres.  Ingigerd Hahlstroem is not the only one that is enmeshed and throttled in a spider’s web.  Every now and then all of us have to pant for air and tear away wrappings.  Then the moment comes when we no longer do the thing that has been well considered, the thing that convention has established, but the very thing that has not been considered, that takes heed of nothing, the purely instinctive thing.  Call it what you will, fermentation, folly, passion, shipwreck, storm.  Whatever it may be, the fact is, all at once a man again feels the desire for life expanding his lungs.”

Frederick now drew from his pocket the photographs of his three children, which his father and mother had sent along with their letters.  In their great happiness that he had escaped drowning and was safe and sound, his parents had completely forgotten their solicitude for him.

Miss Burns took a friendly interest in the pictures and found a word of praise for each child.  There was some discussion, pedagogic and non-pedagogic, of the characteristics of the little people.  Frederick again spoke of his wife, this time without any critical reflections, dwelling only on her good and lovely and excellent qualities, really native to her.

The meal was over.  Frederick had eaten heartily of the vegetarian dishes.  He rose, shook hands warmly with Miss Burns, and thanked her for having listened so patiently.  He left hastily, and jumped into a cab in order to keep his promise to Ingigerd Hahlstroem to come before luncheon was over at Lilienfeld’s house.

XXI

The Lilienfelds lived in a one-family house, an exact replica of the other houses on the same block on 124th Street.  Frederick found the company drinking coffee in a reception-room on the first floor, richly furnished with oriental rugs, expensive lamps, Japanese vases, and fine, dark, highly polished walnut furniture.  The shades were drawn, and the electric bulbs of a gorgeous chandelier imparted a certain splendour to the room.  The air was heavy with the smoke of Lilienfeld’s strong imported cigars, at which the reporters were puffing away comfortably.

Ingigerd, smoking a cigarette, was reclining in an easy-chair surrounded by the reporters.  Her hair was hanging loose about her shoulders and down her back.  Altogether her appearance was not prepossessing.  Since she looked impossible dressed as a grown lady in long skirts, she wore schoolgirl clothes and was tempted to furbish herself up like a tight-rope dancer with ribbons, openwork stockings, and white shoes.