Below stairs I told Pelleas about it and he sighed and looked in the fire and said, “Bless me, I used to wheel her mother about in a go-cart!”
“Pelleas,” said I, thoughtfully, “I have seen that young Eric Chartres only once or twice in a crowded room, but do you know that I thought he looks a little—just a very little—as you looked at his age?”
“Does he really?” Pelleas asked, vastly pleased, and “Pooh!” he instantly added to prove how little vanity he has.
“He does,” I insisted; “the first time I caught sight of him I could have believed—”
Pelleas turned to me with a look almost startled.
“Do you know,” he confessed, “more than once when I have looked at Lisa—especially Lisa in that gown with flowers in and the spingley things that shine,” described Pelleas laboriously,—“I could almost have thought that it was you as you used to be, Etarre. Yes—really. There is something about the way that she turns her head—”
“And so Eric Chartres may call?” said I eagerly, with nothing but certainty.
“Of course he may call,” Pelleas said heartily; “any fine fellow who is honestly in love is as welcome here as a king.”
“Then,” I continued, making a base advantage of his enthusiasm, “let us go down together and tell Nichola to have tea, served in her best fashion, at five this afternoon.”
Pelleas looked doubtful. “She’s making raised doughnuts,” he demurred.