He was so confused, however, that he was not at all sure he had not
blurted out "Good Lord!"

For a moment he stood as still as the sea would let him in front of
the door, burning to open it again and see if the girls were really
there. But, of course, he could not do that. He would have been almost
inclined to believe they were wax figures if they had not moved, but
they had moved.

They had been--sprawling is not a word to use in connection with
dryads--yet certainly reclining, in easy chairs and on sofas, and had
started up as the door opened to stare at him. One had laughed. Peter
had shut the door on her laugh. He had brought away a vague impression
that chairs, sofas, and carpet were pale gray, and that the dryads'
dresses of wonderful tints, sparkling with gold and silver and jewels,
had been brilliant as tropical flowers against the neutral background.
Also, when he came to think of it, he wasn't sure that the walls were
not mostly made of mirrors. That was why he could not be certain
whether he had seen five dryads or five times five.

"The dryad door," he apostrophized it romantically, keeping his
balance by standing with his feet apart, as old men stand before a
fire. It was a very ordinary-looking door, and that made the romance
for Peter in giving it such a name--just a white-painted door, so new
that it smelled slightly of varnish--yet behind it lay dreamland.

Of course Peter Rolls knew that the tall, incredibly lovely beings
were not dryads and not dreams, although they wore low necks, and
pearls and diamonds in their wonderful, waved hair, at eleven o'clock
of a stormy morning on board an Atlantic liner. Still, he was blessed