work ... of a madman... a perfect... madman!"

"I, also, begin to be conscious of an uncomfortable sensation," said
Helen, glancing about her almost apprehensively. "Am I dreaming, or did
SOME ONE ELSE enter the studio, immediately behind that girl?"

"A squinting man... yes!"

"But a THIRD person?"

"No, my dear... look for yourself. As you say... you are ... dreaming.
It's not to be wondered... at!"

Helen laughed, but very uneasily. Evidently it had been an illusion, but
an unpleasant illusion; for she should have been prepared to swear that
not two, but THREE people had entered! Moreover, although she was
unable to detect the presence of any third stranger in the studio, the
persuasion that this third person actually was present remained with
her, unaccountably, and uncannily.

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?"

"Neve