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.