ened, cannot
be put to sleep in a minute, and Peter Rolls's heart beat with
excitement or shyness, he was not sure which, as Lady Eileen O'Neill
knocked at the dryad door.

CHAPTER II

BALM OF GILEAD

It was the worst possible moment for the dryads. But when their
tear-wet eyes beheld a girl and two men, some deep-down primordial
pride of womanhood rushed to their rescue and, flowing through their
veins, performed a miracle beyond the power of any patent remedy. The
five forlorn girls became at need the five stately goddesses Mme.
Nadine paid them to be. (Winifred Child, by the way, was not paid, for
she was not a goddess by profession. But she got her passage free. It
was for that she was goddessing.)

Miss Devereux was the leader, by virtue, not of extra age, no indeed!
but of height, manner, and experience. She apologized, with the most
refined accent, for Mme. Nadine, who was "quite prostrated"; for Mme.
Nadine's manageress, who was even worse; and for themselves. "I'm
afraid we must do the best we can alone," she finished with
unconscious pathos.

"It's a shame to disturb you," said Peter Rolls.

Miss Devereux and her attendant dryads turned their eyes to him. They
had fancied that he was the man who had burst in before and burst out
again; now they were sure. If he had been a woman, they would have
borne him a grudge for coming back and bringing companions worse than
himself; but as he was a man, young, and not bad looking, they forgave
him meekly.

They forgave the other man for the same reason, and forgave the girl
because she was with the men. If only they could behave themselves as
young ladies should through this ordeal! That was the effort on which
they must concentrate their minds and other organs.

"Not at all," returned Miss Devereux, every inch a princess. "We are
_here_ to be disturbed." (Alas, how true!)

She smiled at Lady Eileen, but not patronizingly, because a mysterious
instinct told her that the plain, pleasant young girl in Irish tweed
was a "swell." The men, too, were swells, or important in some way or
other. One exerted one's self to be charming to such people and to
keep the male members of the party from looking at the other girls.
"Would you like to see something else, different from what we are
showing? Evening cloaks? Day dresses? We have a number of smart little
afternoon frocks---"

"I think that white dress is the _meltingest_ thing I ever saw," said
Lady Eileen