She was in it when he arrived.  And pluck, mingled with excitement, having had a truly bracing effect on the girls, in the absence of the peer they were nice to the plebeian.  The girl in the “Young Moon,” to be sure, had scarcely anything to say, but she had a peculiarly fascinating way of not saying it.

By the time Mr. Rolls had bought the “Moon” for his sister, he had become quite friendly with the other dryads, on the strength of a few simple jokes about green cheese and blue moons and never having dreamed he could obtain one by crying for it.

“I was wondering,” he said at last, when he was about to go, “whether you’d care for me to bring you some Balm of Gilead?”

“Balm of Gilead?” all five, even the girl in the “Moon,” exclaimed.

“Yes.  Stuff for seasickness.  Not that you are seasick of course.  But the balm’s a good preventive.  Did you never hear of it?”

They shook their heads.

“It’s the great thing our side of the water.  I don’t need it myself, but I know it’s all right, because it’s making my father a fortune.”

“Did he invent it?” inquired Miss Carroll.

“No.  But he named it and he sells it.  It’s the men who name things and sell things, not the ones who invent them, that get the money.  My father is Peter Rolls, and I—–­”

“I hope you spell Rolls with an ‘e,’” broke in Miss Vedrine.  “Else it would remind me of something I want to forget.”

“Something you—­But maybe I can guess!  What the ship does now?”

“Don’t speak of it!” they groaned.

“I won’t!  Or my name, either, if you’d rather not, especially as only my sister spells it with an ‘e.’  I mentioned the name on account of the balm.  The barber has no end of bottles.  I’ll go and buy you one now.  It tastes good.  Back in ten minutes.”  And he was gone.

“His father must be a chemist,” sniffed Miss Devereux, as she unhooked the “Young Moon.”

When Peter returned Miss Child was wearing a robe like an illuminated cobweb on a background of violets.  This was the “Yielding Heart.”  Peter had brought a bottle and a clean napkin and five teaspoons.  “I got these things off a dining-room steward,” he explained.

“Sounds like a conjurer,” murmured the girl who laughed.

“How rude of you!” Miss Devereux scolded in a whisper.  “Don’t mind her, Mr. Rolls.  She isn’t a bit like the rest of us.”

Peter had noticed that.

“She’s always laughing at everything, and everybody, too,” went on Miss Devereux.

“She’s welcome to laugh at me,” said Peter.  “I enjoy it.”

“Ladies don’t.  She’d never do for a permanence with Mme. Nadine.  Clients wouldn’t stand being grinned at by models.”

“I don’t laugh at people.  I laugh at the world,” the model defended herself.

“Why?” inquired Peter, with a straight look at the queer, arresting face.