“But,” I reasoned, “her tea rose bloomed yesterday. She is bound to believe in a beautiful thing or two. Let us risk it.”
Nichola was picking her doughnuts from the hot lard as delicately as if she had been selecting violets for essences near her native Capri. She did not deign to turn or to speak as we slipped in at the door. Even when Pelleas had put the case to her, diplomatically dwelling on the lightness of the delicacies desired, she did not reply until she had brought to the table a colander of her hot brown dainties. Then she rested her hands on each side of the pan and leaned forward. As I looked at her, her gray hair brushed smoothly back from her rugged face, her little eyes quick-winking—as if the air were filled with dust—I caught on her face an expression which I have seldom seen there: a look as if her features were momentarily out of drawing; as if, say, old Nichola’s face were printed on cloth and the cloth had been twitched a bit awry.
“Who’s a-comin’?” she demanded; but if Nichola were to ask to see our visiting list I think that we should hardly deny her.
“It’s a friend of Miss Lisa’s,” Pelleas explained.
“Man?” Nichola inquired grimly.
Pelleas admitted it. I, now fancying myself wiser in the conceits of Nichola, ventured something else.
“I think, Nichola,” I said, “that they—that he—that they—and I thought if you had some absolutely simple sandwiches—”
“Yah!” Nichola exclaimed. “So there’s to be two pair o’ you!”
Then something wonderful happened. Nichola slipped both hands beneath her floury apron and rolled up her arms in its calico length and put her head on one side and smiled—such a strange, crinkled smile interfering with all her worn features at once.
“My father had many goats,” Nichola said without warning, “and one Summer I went with him to buy more, though that was before my bones were all turned to cracked iron, you may be sure. And there was a young shepherd—”