“But you see,” Pelleas persisted gently, “after all they are so appallingly young, Etarre. And if Dudley Manners were to be angry and if he were to disinherit Lisa, and so on—”
“As for things going wrong,” said I, “can anything be so wrong as for two who love each other to be separated?”
“No,” Pelleas admitted justly, “nothing can be. All the same—”
“Pelleas!” I cried in despair, “we could have that young rector over here, and they could be married in the little round drawing-room—or in the rose arbour—or in the garden at large. Think of it—cream sherbet and little cakes afterward and us for parents and wedding party and all. Then you and I could go straight to Dudley Manners at Chynmere and tell him how it was, and I know he would forgive them. Pelleas! Can you really think of that dear child spending two years with an authority on plant life in Alaska?”
“Instead of going to him afterward,” said Pelleas boldly then, “suppose you and I leave here after luncheon and drive to Chynmere and make Dudley Manners consent? And bring him and Miss Constance Wortley back to the wedding!” he finished with triumphant daring.
“And not be married secretly?” I said lingeringly, as if the secret wedding were our own.
“Ah, well,” said Pelleas, “at all events we won’t tell him on any account where they are.”
So it was settled, and when presently we four went out to our tiny dining-room courage and gayety were in the air. Our dining-room was white and dull blue with a wreath of roses outside every window and a bowl of roses on the table. And if Nichola considered it reprehensible to assist at a “runaway match” she manifestly had no such scruple about the luncheon to precede it for she set before us the daintiest dishes. I could see the while how her little, quick-lidded eyes were fixed disapprovingly on the young lovers; but then Nichola’s eyes disapprove of the very moon in the sky. I wondered, as I looked at Lisa in the noon of her fresh young beauty, and at Eric, so adoringly in love, how Nichola could even pretend to disapproval at sight of them; and if she had been any one but Nichola I would have suspected her conversion, for of her own will she served our coffee in the rose arbour. Whereupon Pelleas and I became absorbingly interested in the progress of some slips which had been in the ground about six hours and we wandered away to look at them, cups in hand, and left those two to take their coffee in the arbour—in memory of a certain day when we had been left to drink our coffee alone. And when we came back we scrupulously refrained from looking whether they had so much as sipped a thimbleful.
Then, feeling deliciously guilty, we announced to our guests that we had an errand which would keep us away for an hour. And that if it should seem best there would be ample time for the wedding on our return. And that at all events they must decide whether they would be married in the round drawing-room, or in the rose arbour, or in the garden at large. Also, not knowing what warning or summons we might wish hurriedly to send, I added to Lisa:—
“And if the telephone rings, dear, you would better answer it yourself. For it may be Cupid and ministers of grace. No one can tell.”