No mistletoe drooped
from the apex of the tentroom. Instead, he filled his flat with flowers,
brought from English conservatories or from abroad. Crowds of strange and
spotted orchids stood together in the drawing-room, staring upon the
hurly-burly of furniture and ornaments. In the corners of the room were
immense red flowers, such as hang among the crawling green jungles of
the West Indies. They gleamed, like flames, amid a shower of cunningly
arranged green leaves, and palms sheltered them from the electric rays
of the ceiling. The tentroom was a maze of tulips, in vases, in pots,
in china bowls that hung by thin chains from the sloping green roof.
Few of these tulips were whole coloured. They were slashed, and striped,
and spotted with violent hues. Some were of the most vivid scarlet
streaked with black. Others were orange-coloured with livid pink spots,
circus-pink, such as you see round the eyes of horses bred specially for
the ring. There were white tulips, stained as if with blood, pale pink
tulips tipped with deepest brown, rose-coloured tulips barred with wounds
whose edges were saffron-hued, tulips of a warm wallflower tint dashed
with the stormy yellow of an evening sky. And hidden among those
scentless flowers, in secret places cunningly contrived, were great
groups of hyacinths, which poured forth their thick and decadent scent,
breathing heavily their hearts into the small atmosphere of the room,
and giving a strange and unnatural soul to the tulips who had spent
all their efforts in the attainment of form and daring combinations of
colour.
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