he stool again.

"In Berlin, while I danced, I always had to look at you," she continued,
holding her doll against her lips so that her little nose was a bit
flattened. "The very first time I saw you, I felt something like a bond
between us; I knew we should meet again."

Frederick started, though not for an instant deceived, knowing this must
be an oft-used formula for establishing a relationship, and in essence a
lie.

"Are you married?" he heard before he had fully recovered his balance. He
turned pale. His answer was hard and repellent.

"It would be well, Miss Hahlstroem, if you were to examine me more closely
before you treat me as one among many. So far, I don't believe in the
bond that unites us. During your dance you looked not only at me, but at
everybody else." He spoke with increasing coldness. "At any rate, it
doesn't in the least concern you whether I am, or am not, married--just
as little as it concerns me what repulsive personages, whom nothing but a
depraved instinct can enjoy, you keep company with." He meant Achleitner.

Ingigerd gave a short laugh. "Do you take me for Joan of Arc?"

"Not exactly that," rejoined Frederick, "but if you would allow me, I
should like to regard you as still a girl, a distinguished little lady,
whose reputation cannot be too carefully guarded against the faintest
blemish."

"Reputation!" sneered the girl. "You are very much mistaken if you think
I ever cared for anything of the sort. I'd rather be disreputable ten
times over and live as I please, than have a good reputation and die of
boredom. I must enjoy my life, Doctor von Kammacher."

Frederick's teeth clenched. Outwardly composed, he was suffering the
pangs of torture.

Ingigerd proceeded to reveal her life in a series of confidences of such
shocking content as to be worthy of a Lais or a Phryne. Doctor von
Kammacher, she said, might be sorry for her if he wanted to, but nobody
was to make a mistake about her. Everybody associating with her was to
know exactly who she was. In this she betrayed a certain dread, as one
who would absolutely guard others as well as herself against the
catastrophe of disillusionment.

When the sun had set, and Ingigerd, still with that suggestive, sensual,
evil smile on her lips, had finished her hideous confession, Frederick
found himself confronting the knowledge of a childhood so outrageous as
to be worse than anything he had met with in all his experience as a
physician.