He was attired in a light tweed suit cut in an American pattern, and out from his low collar flowed a black French knot.
Olaf van Noord rose to meet Helen Cumberly and Denise Ryland, advancing across the floor with the measured gait of a tragic actor. He greeted them aloofly, and a little negro boy proffered tiny cups of China tea. Denise Ryland distended her nostrils as her gaze swept the picture-covered walls; but she seemed to approve of the tea.
The artist next extended to them an ivory box containing little yellow-wrapped cigarettes. Helen Cumberly smilingly refused, but Denise Ryland took one of the cigarettes, sniffed at it superciliously—and then replaced it in the box.
“It has a most…egregiously horrible…odor,” she commented.
“They are a special brand,” explained Olaf van Noord, distractedly, “which I have imported for me from Smyrna. They contain a small percentage of opium.”
“Opium!” exclaimed Denise Ryland, glaring at the speaker and then at Helen Cumberly, as though the latter were responsible in some way for the vices of the painter.
“Yes,” he said, reclosing the box, and pacing somberly to the door to greet a new arrival.
“Did you ever in all your life,” said Denise Ryland, glancing about her, “see such an exhibition…of nightmares?”
