sion in an unalterable past. Everything in it urged and impelled
forward. Here was the present, nothing but the present.

Arthur Stoss seemed already to have one foot planted on Webster and
Forster's stage. There was much parleying in regard to Ingigerd's
appearance in theatre. She and Stoss had been engaged for the same time,
which was already past. With the uncertainty in her heart as to her
father's fate, she said she could not possibly dance; while Arthur Stoss
declared if he got there in time, he would appear for his number that
very evening.

"I've already lost two evenings," he said, "at a round five hundred
dollars an evening. Besides, I must work, I must get among people."

He advised Ingigerd for her own advantage to do the same, and cited
instances of persons who had not allowed the greatest griefs to keep them
from the exercise of their calling. He knew of a scholar, he said, who
delivered his lecture while his wife was dying, of a clown who cracked
his jokes on the stage, though his wife had eloped with another man and
his heart was bleeding.

"That's our profession," Stoss continued, "and not only our profession,
but everybody's profession--to do his duty, whether with liking or
disliking, whether with happiness or with anguish in his soul. Every man
is a tragi-comic clown, although he doesn't pass for one, perhaps, as we
do. To me it is a triumph, after what I have gone through, to stand on
the stage this evening without trembling, among three thousand
sensation-seeking spectators, and shoot the middle out of an ace."

By degrees Stoss fell more and more into a lively strain of boasting,
which, though not disagreeable, utterly lacked wit. "If you haven't
anything better to do," he said, turning to the physicians, "you
might come to Webster and Forster's and see me cut my capers. Work!
Work!"--this was meant for Ingigerd--"I very much wish you would make up
your mind to dance. Work is medicine, work is everything. To lament the
past is of no use. Besides," he said, turning serious, "don't forget,
stocks in us are booming. Actors must not reject such an opportunity.
Just wait and see how we'll be surrounded by reporters the moment we set
foot on land."

"How so?" said Frederick. "Don't you suppose that all the details of
the sinking of the _Roland_ have been telegraphed to New York from
quarantine? Look at those great skyscrapers, that one with the cupola is
the _World_ building. We have already gone