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.
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