Winnie Childs | Page 8

advertisement his father
loved.
It was well that Peter senior was not on board, or he would certainly
propose a new feature for the balm department: scene, richly furnished

salon on a yacht; five fair effects in ball dresses sipping Balm of Gilead;
the whole arrangement on a rocking platform, with mechanism hidden
by realistically painted waves. But the dryads were previously engaged
by the prostrate Nadine--all except one.
When they were sufficiently restored to take an interest, Peter
smuggled grapefruit, chocolates, and novels into the nursery. The
novels his sister had brought with her to kill time during the voyage;
but as it happened, she was killing it with Lord Raygan instead and
never missed the books.
Nadine had been obliged to take first-class tickets for her models;
otherwise the rules of the ship would not have allowed them past the
barrier, even in the pursuit of business. But they sardined in one cabin,
near the bow, on the deepest down deck allotted to first-classhood, and
their private lives were scarcely more enjoyable than the professional.
They were, to be sure, theoretically able to take exercise at certain
hours, weather permitting; but weather did not permit, and four of the
dryads, when free, sought distraction in lying down rather than walking.
It was only the fifth who would not take the weather's "no" for an
answer.
She had a mackintosh, and with her head looking very small and neat,
wound in a brown veil the colour of her hair, she joined the brigade of
the strong men and women who defied the winds by night. From eight
to ten she staggered and slid up and down the wet length of the
least-frequented deck, or flopped and gasped joyously for a few
minutes in an unclaimed chair.
Being "not a bit like the rest" of her sister dryads, she refrained from
mentioning this habit to Mr. Rolls, whose prowling place was on higher
decks. Not that she was still what he would have called "standoffish"
with him. That would have been silly and Victorian after the grapefruit
and chocolates and novels, to say nothing of balm by the bottleful. The
last dress she had worn on the first day of their acquaintance, the
"Yielding Heart," had to a certain extent prophesied her attitude with
the one man who knocked at the dryad door. Miss Child not only
thought Mr. Rolls "might be rather nice," but was almost sure he was.

She was nice to him, too, in dryad land, when he paid his visits to the
sisterhood, but she did not "belong on his deck."
By and by, however, he discovered her in the mackintosh and veil. It
was one night when a young playwright who had seized on him as prey
wished to find a quiet place to be eloquent about the plot.
"There's a deck two below," said the aspirant for fame, "where nobody
prowls except a young female panther tied up in a veil."
Five minutes later Peter Rolls took off his cap to the female panther.
The playwright noticed this, but was too much interested in himself and
the hope of securing a capitalist to care. In sketching out his comedy he
was blind to any other possibilities of drama, and so did not see Peter's
eagerness to get rid of him. He was even pleased when, after a few
compliments, Rolls junior said: "Look here, you'd better leave me to
think over what you've told me. I fix things in my memory that way.
And maybe when I've got it straight in my head I'll--er--mention it to a
man I know."
As the playwright was shivering, he obeyed with alacrity; and in the
warmth of the smoking-room revelled in the picture of his tame
capitalist pacing a cold deck, lost to the sea's welter in thoughts of that
marvellous last act.
But it was a first act which was engaging Peter Rolls's attention, and he,
though the only male character in it (by choice), had to learn his part as
he went on.
The play began by his joining the leading lady. (This has been done
before, but seldom with such a lurch and on such sloping boards.)
It would have been a mockery to say "good evening" on a night so vile,
and Mr. Rolls began by asking Miss Child if he might walk with her.
"Or tango," said she. "This deck is teaching me some wonderful new
steps."

"I wish you'd teach them to me," said Peter.
"I can't, but the ship can."
"Did you ever dance the tango?" he wanted to know.
"Yes. In another state of existence."
This silenced him for an instant. Then he skipped at least two speeches
ahead, whither his thoughts had flown. "Say, Miss Child, I wish you'd
tell me