ghted apartment was itself mysterious, a temple of
luxury quite as much as of art. Shadows lurked in the corners, the ribs
of the roof were faintly outlined; on the sombre walls gleams of color,
faces of loveliness and faces of pain, studies all of a mood or a
passion, bits of shining brass, reflections from lustred ware struggling
out of obscurity; hangings from Fez or Tetuan, bits of embroidery,
costumes in silk and in velvet, still having the aroma of balls a
hundred years ago, the faint perfume of a scented society of ladies
and gallants; a skeleton scarcely less fantastic than the draped wooden
model near it; heavy rugs of Daghestan and Persia, making the footfalls
soundless on the floor; a fountain tinkling in a thicket of japonicas
and azaleas; the stems of palmettoes, with their branches waving in the
obscurity overhead; points of light here and there where a shaded lamp
shone on a single red rose in a blue Granada vase on a toppling stand,
or on a mass of jonquils in a barbarous pot of Chanak-Kallessi; tacked
here and there on walls and hangings, colored memoranda of Capri and of
the North Woods, the armor of knights, trophies of small-arms, crossed
swords of the Union and the Confederacy, easels, paints, and palettes,
and rows of canvases leaning against the wall-the studied litter, in
short, of a successful artist, whose surroundings contribute to the
popular conception of his genius.

On the wall at one end of the apartment was stretched a white canvas; in
front of it was left a small cleared space, on the edge of which, in the
shadow, squatting on the floor, were four swarthy musicians in Oriental
garments, with a mandolin, a guitar, a ney, and a darabooka drum. About
this cleared space, in a crescent, knelt or sat upon the rugs a couple
of rows of men in evening dress; behind them, seated in chairs, a group
of ladies, whose white shoulders and arms and animated faces flashed
out in the semi-obscurity; and in their rear stood a crowd of
spectators--beautiful young gentlemen with vacant faces and the elevated
Oxford shoulders, rosy youth already blase to all this world can offer,
and gray-headed men young again in the prospect of a new sensation. So
they kneel or stand, worshipers before the shrine, expecting the advent
of the Goddess of AEsthetic Culture.

The moment has come. There is a tap on the drum, a tuning of the
strings, a flash of light from the rear of the room inundates the white
canvas, and sud