"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.
"To keep it from laughing at me first. And to make it laugh _with_
me--if I can."
"Do you think you can?"
"I shall try hard--against the biggest odds. And whatever it does to
me, I shan't _cry_."
"I shouldn't wonder if that wasn't the whole secret of life!" said
Peter Rolls, continuing to look at the face.
Suddenly it flashed a smile at him. "Shouldn't you? Give _me_ the Balm
of Gilead, and the rest would be easy!"
Peter was not stupid as a rule, yet he could not be quite sure what
she meant. If he guessed right, the rest wasn't as easy as she
thought. Yet the words made him wish that he could give the girl who
laughed--the girl who was not to be a "permanence" with Nadine--more
than a teaspoonful of balm.
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