Raphael, a modern sculptor, dreams that in the days of Phydias, about five hundred years before Christ, he lived as Phydias, the sculptor, and was the friend of Diogenes and that he made some beautiful statues on commission for Georgias, the richest man in Asia. His female statues come to life, and disdaining his love, smile upon the wealthy man. Raphael awakens and in real life his of poor love swept aside by great wealth and how misery, ruin and death follows in the train of Marco, a beautiful and merciless coquette, termed "the marble heart" on account of her cold nature.