Pelleas slipped his arm about me to help me up the stairs.
“Etarre,” he said, “I am glad that now is now—and not then!”
VI
THE HONEYMOON
I have often deplored that unlucky adjustment which allotted to the medicines, countries, flavouring extracts, and the like, names which should have been reserved for women. For example what beautiful names for beautiful women are Arnica, Ammonia, and Magnesia; as for Syria, one could fall in love with a woman called Syria; and it would be sufficient to make a poet out of any lover to sit all day at the feet of a woman named Vanilla.
This occurred to me again as a fortnight later Pelleas and I took our seats in the train for the sea, since across the aisle sat a pale and pretty little invalid girl whose companions called her “Phenie.” I do not know what this term professed to abbreviate, but I myself would have preferred to be known by the name of some euphonious disease, say Pneumonia. Monia would make a very pretty love-name, as they say.
Our little neighbour should have had a beautiful name. She looked not a day past ten, though I learned that she was sixteen; and she was pale and spiritless, but her great dark eyes were filled with the fervour which might have been hers if life had been more kind. She had a merry laugh, and a book; not what I am wont to call a tramp book, seeking to interest people, but a book of dignity and parts which solicits nobody, a book which may have a bookplate under its leather wing.
I puzzled pleasantly over the two in whose charge she appeared to be and finally I took Pelleas in my confidence.
“Pelleas,” said I, “do you think that those two can be her parents?”
“Bless you, no, dear,” he answered; “they are not old enough. She is more likely to be sister to one of them. They are very much in love.”