while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
he placed another canvas before her--something so unrefined, so animal,
so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
a degenerate demon--an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.

Bertha stared at it--fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
him.

Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.

It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?

She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
as s