The upper floor, which the doctor had rented, consisted mainly of a long loft for manufacturing, and a square room beyond it, formerly the counting-room. We had passed through the loft first (through which ran the spinning leather band), and I had noticed a forest of glass rods along the wall, but massed together like the pipes of an organ, and opposite them a row of steel bars like levers. “A mere physical experiment,” said the doctor, as we sank into couches covered with white fur, in his inner apartment. Strangely disguised, the room in the old factory loft, hung with silk and furs, glittering with glass and gilding; there was no mirror, however, but, in front of me, one large picture. It represented a fainting anchorite, wan and yellow beneath his single sheepskin cloak, his eyes closing, the crucifix he was bearing just fallen in the desert sand; supporting him, the arms of a beautiful woman, roseate with perfect health, with laughing, red lips, and bold eyes resting on his wearied lids. I never had seen such a room; it realized what I had fancied of those sensuous, evil Trianons of the older and corrupt world. And yet I looked upon this picture; and as I looked, some tremor in the air, some evil influence in that place, dissolved all my intellect in wild desire. “You admire the picture?” said Materialismus. “I painted it; she was my model.” I am conscious to-day that I looked at him with a jealous envy, like some hungry beast. I had never seen such a woman. He laughed silently, and going to the wall touched what I supposed to be a bell. Suddenly my feelings changed. “Your Althea Hardy,” went on the doctor, “who is she?” “She is not _my_ Althea Hardy,” I replied, with an indignation that I then supposed unreasoning. “She is the daughter of a retired sea-captain, and I see her because she alone can rank me in the class. Our minds are sympathetic. And Miss Hardy has a noble soul.” “She has a fair body,” answered he; “of that much we are sure.” I cast a fierce look upon the man; my eye followed his to that picture on the wall; and some false shame kept me foolishly silent. I should have spoken then.... But many such fair carrion must strew the path of so lordly a vulture as this doctor was; unlucky if they thought (as he knew better) that aught of soul they bore entangled in their flesh. “You do not strain a morbid consciousness about a chemical reaction,” said he. “Two atoms rush together to make a world, or burn one, as we saw last night; it may be pleasure or it may be pain; conscious organs choose the former.”