The lady led the way to a drawing-room. Luxury and taste appeared there to have been carried to their highest point. Northcote, whose delicately poised sensibilities vibrated to the simplest of external things, was fain to believe that paradise itself could not have shaped a bolder contrast to that bleak squalor which he had been doomed to inhabit year after year. Somewhere apart in the sanctuary of the spirit, the home of so many complex and marvellous things, were chords responsive to the challenge of the beautiful. They could thrill before the manifestation of its power, even in that which was exterior, material, unmeaning. These cushioned enchantments, this bright bower, with so exquisite an occupant casting slim jewelled fingers across a wonderful instrument, sent a shock of intoxication into his blood. At the same instant he was conscious of a stab of shame. It was the flesh, the draperies, the trappings to which his pulses responded; it was not the magical secret which was contained in the miniatures upon the walls, in the passionate delicacy of the cadences which sobbed themselves out liquidly under the siren’s touch of this beautiful woman. He stood in front of the cosy fire, glass in hand. A soft warmth overspread his being. His eyes glanced from the white shoulders of the enchantress to the thousand and one hues which were blended so cunningly in the carpets and tapestries. The subtle playings of light and shadow, the mellow effects of the atmosphere, the softness of the music, began to assail his senses with indescribable pangs. He feasted his eyes, his ears, his nostrils; they rewarded him with gladness. His heart beat violently. “These rare kinds of genius, are they not barbarous?” he said, when the siren had ceased to cast her fingers. “It is like children lisping,” she said, half-turning her head, with a smile that curved her mouth entrancingly. “Yes,” said the young man, “poetry, romance, imagination are primitive; they belong to the childhood of nations, to the dawn of new worlds. What a divine inspiration these sweet-voiced children of nature who are bought out of due time, these unhappy Poles, Germans, and Frenchmen bring to their despair. Instead of sitting down in black coats to make their music into beef and mutton, they should be tripping through the glades piping to the birds, the trees, the bright air.” “This is a mad fellow, my angel,” said Mr. Whitcomb indulgently, “but if you are gentle with him you may find him amusing.” “Mr. Northcote will amuse me enormously,” said the lady, with a demure glance. “Is it thus you rebuke his madness?” the young man asked. “On the contrary, I don’t think I have ever seen a sanity that is quite so perfect.”