"Time is money, especially here in New York," she declared. "Even if Miss Hahlstroem cannot dance to-night, she must begin to think of to-morrow. I should be willing to accommodate her, but this is only one of a hundred cases that I have to look after. And if Miss Hahlstroem is to appear to-morrow, she must go with me this very minute to"--she mentioned the Gerson of New York--"so that they can work on her costume over night. The establishment is on Broadway, and a cab is waiting in front of the door." The lady said all this in Ingigerd's room, intentionally refraining from lowering her voice. Several times Frederick and Willy interrupted to ask her to moderate her tones. "Miss Hahlstroem will not dance at all," said Frederick, finally. "Indeed?" said the agent. "Then she'll be involved in a very unpleasant law suit." "Miss Hahlstroem is a minor," said Frederick, "and her father, with whom you concluded the contract, probably lost his life in the sinking of the _Roland_." "And I," said the agent, "don't want to lose a thousand dollars for nothing." "Miss Hahlstroem is sick." "Very well, then I'll send my physician." "I myself am a physician." "A German physician, I suppose," she said. "The only physicians that count for us are Americans." Perhaps this American woman, equipped with a masculine intellect, masculine energy, and a masculine voice would have put through her will, had not Ingigerd's heavy sleep defied all the noise about her, even the shaking to which she had been subjected. At length Frederick displayed a degree of determination so unambiguous that the agent had to recede from her position and temporarily withdraw from the field. Besides, Willy hit upon an idea, the far-reaching significance of which Frederick did not realise until later. He declared that if the agent did not desist, he would notify the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, since Miss Hahlstroem was not yet seventeen years old. "Gentlemen," said the lady, evidently taken aback and coming round a bit, "remember that both Webster and Forster and myself have been spending enormous sums on advertising for four weeks. I reckoned on a tour as far as San Francisco. Now that Miss Hahlstroem happens to be one of the survivors of the _Roland_ and has lost her father besides, she has become the sensation of the season. If she were to appear now, she could return to Europe in three months with fifty thousand dollars over and above the sum contracted for. Would you be responsible to Miss Hahlstroem for such an enormous loss?"