ine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
comprehension.

Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
rejection of her offering.

Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."

Sibyl Andres finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last