writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and, in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them that which they were incapable of receiving—­it was all there upon the canvas, as the artist had seen it that night.  The picture cried aloud the intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who, arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.

Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel, saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face.  Once, she turned toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the canvas.  She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, “Really, I don’t believe I care for you to do this sort of thing.”  She laughed shortly.  “It reminds one a little of that dinner at our house.  Don’t you think?  It’s the girl with the violin, I suppose.”

“There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine,” said the artist, quietly.

“No?  Well, I think you’d better stick to your portraits.  This is a great picture though,” she admitted thoughtfully.  “It, it grips you so.  I can’t seem to get away from it.  I can see that it will create a sensation.  But just the same, I don’t like it.  It’s not nice, like your portrait of me.  By the way”—­and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to escape a distasteful subject—­“do you remember that I have never seen my picture yet?  Where do you keep it?”

The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at work, “It is there, Mrs. Taine.”

“Oh,” she said with a pleased smile.  “You keep it on the easel, still!” Playfully, she added, “Do you look at it often?—­that you have it so handy?”

“Yes,” said the artist, “I must admit that I have looked at it frequently.”  He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was working upon the larger picture.

“How nice of you,” she answered “Please let me see it now.  I remember when you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what you thought of me; have you?  I wonder!”

“I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine,” he answered, and drew the curtain that hid the painting.

As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though stunned.  Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really was.