Part 69

The lady of the tiger skins was surrounded by an admiring group of unusuals, and Helen, who had turned again to the big canvas, suddenly became aware that the little cross-eyed man was bowing and beaming radiantly before her.

“May I be allowed,” said Olaf van Noord who stood beside him, “to present my friend Mr. Gianapolis, my dear Miss Cumberly?”...

Helen Cumberly found herself compelled to acknowledge the introduction, although she formed an immediate, instinctive distaste for Mr. Gianapolis. But he made such obvious attempts to please, and was so really entertaining a talker, that she unbent towards him a little. His admiration, too, was unconcealed; and no pretty woman, however great her common sense, is entirely admiration-proof.

“Do you not think 'Our Lady of the Poppies' remarkable?” said Gianapolis, pleasantly.

“I think,” replied Denise Ryland,--to whom, also, the Greek had been presented by Olaf van Noord, “that it indicates... a disordered... imagination on the part of... its creator.”

“It is a technical masterpiece,” replied the Greek, smiling, “but hardly a work of imagination; for you have seen the original of the principal figure, and”--he turned to Helen Cumberly--“one need not go very far East for such an interior as that depicted.”

“What!” Helen knitted her brows, prettily--“you do not suggest that such an apartment actually exists either East or West?”

Gianapolis beamed radiantly.

“You would, perhaps, like to see such an apartment?” he suggested.

“I should, certainly,” replied Helen Cumberly. “Not even in a stage setting have I seen anything like it.”

“You have never been to the East?”

“Never, unfortunately. I have desired to go for years, and hope to go some day.”

“In Smyrna you may see such rooms; possibly in Port Said--certainly in Cairo. In Constantinople--yes! But perhaps in Paris; and--who knows?--Sir Richard Burton explored Mecca, but who has explored London?”

Helen Cumberly watched him curiously.

“You excite my curiosity,” she said. “Don't you think”--turning to Denise Ryland--“he is most tantalizing?”

Denise Ryland distended her nostrils scornfully.

“He is telling... fairy tales,” she declared. “He thinks... we are... silly!”

“On the contrary,” declared Gianapolis; “I flatter myself that I am too good a judge of character to make that mistake.”

Helen Cumberly absorbed his entire attention; in everything he sought to claim her interest; and when, ere taking their departure, the girl and her friend walked around the studio to view the other pictures, Gianapolis was the attendant cavalier, and so well as one might judge, in his case, his glance rarely strayed from the piquant beauty of Helen.

When they departed, it was Gianapolis, and not Olaf van Noord, who escorted them to the door and downstairs to the street. The red lips of the Eurasian smiled upon her circle of adulators, but her eyes--her unfathomable eyes--followed every movement of the Greek.

XXVII

GROVE OF A MILLION APES

Four men sauntered up the grand staircase and entered the huge smoking-room of the Radical Club as Big Ben was chiming the hour of eleven o'clock. Any curious observer who had cared to consult the visitor's book in the hall, wherein the two lines last written were not yet dry, would have found the following entries:

VISITOR RESIDENCE INTROD'ING MEMBER Dr. Bruce Cumberly London John Exel M. Gaston Paris Brian Malpas

The smoking-room was fairly full, but a corner near the big open grate had just been vacated, and here, about a round table, the four disposed themselves. Our French acquaintance being in evening dress had perforce confined himself in his sartorial eccentricities to a flowing silk knot in place of the more conventional, neat bow. He was already upon delightfully friendly terms with the frigid Exel and the aristocratic Sir Brian Malpas. Few natures were proof against the geniality of the brilliant Frenchman.

Conversation drifted, derelict, from one topic to another, now seized by this current of thought, now by that; and M. Gaston Max made no perceptible attempt to steer it in any given direction. But presently:

“I was reading a very entertaining article,” said Exel, turning his monocle upon the physician, “in the Planet to-day, from the pen of Miss Cumberly; Ah! dealing with Olaf van Noord.”

Sir Brian Malpas suddenly became keenly interested.