"
"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.
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