The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
silently bade him wait.
Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
repainting Mrs. Taine'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.
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