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diff --git a/14646-0.txt b/14646-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19fcf62 --- /dev/null +++ b/14646-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13381 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14646 *** + +CHRISTOPHER AND COLUMBUS + +By the Author of _Elizabeth and Her German Garden_ + +Frontispiece by Arthur Litle + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1919 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "Oh, yes. You're both very fond of me," said Mr. Twist, +pulling his mouth into a crooked and unhappy smile. + +"We love you." said Anna-Felicitas simply.] + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Their names were really Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas; but they decided, +as they sat huddled together in a corner of the second-class deck of the +American liner _St. Luke_, and watched the dirty water of the Mersey +slipping past and the Liverpool landing-stage disappearing into mist, +and felt that it was comfortless and cold, and knew they hadn't got a +father or a mother, and remembered that they were aliens, and realized +that in front of them lay a great deal of gray, uneasy, dreadfully wet +sea, endless stretches of it, days and days of it, with waves on top of +it to make them sick and submarines beneath it to kill them if they +could, and knew that they hadn't the remotest idea, not the very +remotest, what was before them when and if they did get across to the +other side, and knew that they were refugees, castaways, derelicts, two +wretched little Germans who were neither really Germans nor really +English because they so unfortunately, so complicatedly were both,--they +decided, looking very calm and determined and sitting very close +together beneath the rug their English aunt had given them to put round +their miserable alien legs, that what they really were, were Christopher +and Columbus, because they were setting out to discover a New World. + +"It's very pleasant," said Anna-Rose. "It's very pleasant to go and +discover America. All for ourselves." + +It was Anna-Rosa who suggested their being Christopher and Columbus. She +was the elder by twenty minutes. Both had had their seventeenth +birthday--and what a birthday: no cake, no candles, no kisses and +wreaths and home-made poems; but then, as Anna-Felicitas pointed out, to +comfort Anna-Rose who was taking it hard, you can't get blood out of an +aunt--only a month before. Both were very German outside and very +English inside. Both had fair hair, and the sorts of chins Germans have, +and eyes the colour of the sky in August along the shores of the Baltic. +Their noses were brief, and had been objected to in Germany, where, if +you are a Junker's daughter, you are expected to show it in your nose. +Anna-Rose had a tight little body, inclined to the round. +Anna-Felicitas, in spite of being a twin, seemed to have made the most +of her twenty extra minutes to grow more in; anyhow she was tall and +thin, and she drooped; and having perhaps grown quicker made her eyes +more dreamy, and her thoughts more slow. And both held their heads up +with a great air of calm whenever anybody on the ship looked at them, as +who should say serenely, "We're _thoroughly_ happy, and having the time +of our lives." + +For worlds they wouldn't have admitted to each other that they were even +aware of such a thing as being anxious or wanting to cry. Like other +persons of English blood, they never were so cheerful nor pretended to +be so much amused as when they were right down on the very bottom of +their luck. Like other persons of German blood, they had the squashiest +corners deep in their hearts, where they secretly clung to cakes and +Christmas trees, and fought a tendency to celebrate every possible +anniversary, both dead and alive. + +The gulls, circling white against the gloomy sky over the rubbish that +floated on the Mersey, made them feel extraordinarily forlorn. Empty +boxes, bits of straw, orange-peel, a variety of dismal dirtiness lay +about on the sullen water; England was slipping away, England, their +mother's country, the country of their dreams ever since they could +remember--and the _St. Luke_ with a loud screech had suddenly stopped. + +Neither of them could help jumping a little at that and getting an inch +closer together beneath the rug. Surely it wasn't a submarine already? + +"We're Christopher and Columbus," said Anna-Rose quickly, changing as it +were the unspoken conversation. + +As the eldest she had a great sense of her responsibility toward her +twin, and considered it one of her first duties to cheer and encourage +her. Their mother had always cheered and encouraged them, and hadn't +seemed to mind anything, however awful it was, that happened to +her,--such as, for instance, when the war began and they three, their +father having died some years before, left their home up by the Baltic, +just as there was the most heavenly weather going on, and the garden was +a dream, and the blue Chinchilla cat had produced four perfect kittens +that very day,--all of whom had to be left to what Anna-Felicitas, whose +thoughts if slow were picturesque once she had got them, called the +tender mercies of a savage and licentious soldiery,--and came by slow +and difficult stages to England; or such as when their mother began +catching cold and didn't seem at last ever able to leave off catching +cold, and though she tried to pretend she didn't mind colds and that +they didn't matter, it was plain that these colds did at last matter +very much, for between them they killed her. + +Their mother had always been cheerful and full of hope. Now that she was +dead, it was clearly Anna-Rose's duty, as the next eldest in the family, +to carry on the tradition and discountenance too much drooping in +Anna-Felicitas. Anna-Felicitas was staring much too thoughtfully at the +deepening gloom of the late afternoon sky and the rubbish brooding on +the face of the waters, and she had jumped rather excessively when the +_St. Luke_ stopped so suddenly, just as if it were putting on the brake +hard, and emitted that agonized whistle. + +"We're Christopher and Columbus," said Anna-Rose quickly, "and we're +going to discover America." + +"Very well," said Anna-Felicitas. "I'll be Christopher." + +"No. I'll be Christopher," said Anna-Rose. + +"Very well," said Anna-Felicitas, who was the most amiable, acquiescent +person in the world. "Then I suppose I'll have to be Columbus. But I +think Christopher sounds prettier." + +Both rolled their r's incurably. It was evidently in their blood, for +nothing, no amount of teaching and admonishment, could get them out of +it. Before they were able to talk at all, in those happy days when +parents make astounding assertions to other parents about the +intelligence and certain future brilliancy of their offspring, and the +other parents, however much they may pity such self-deception, can't +contradict, because after all it just possibly may be so, the most +foolish people occasionally producing geniuses,--in those happy days of +undisturbed bright castle-building, the mother, who was English, of the +two derelicts now huddled on the dank deck of the _St. Luke_, said to +the father, who was German, "At any rate these two blessed little +bundles of deliciousness"--she had one on each arm and was tickling +their noses alternately with her eyelashes, and they were screaming for +joy--"won't have to learn either German or English. They'll just _know_ +them." + +"Perhaps," said the father, who was a cautious man. + +"They're born bi-lingual," said the mother; and the twins wheezed and +choked with laughter, for she was tickling them beneath their chins, +softly fluttering her eyelashes along the creases of fat she thought so +adorable. + +"Perhaps," said the father. + +"It gives them a tremendous start," said the mother; and the twins +squirmed in a dreadful ecstasy, for she had now got to their ears. + +"Perhaps," said the father. + +But what happened was that they didn't speak either language. Not, that +is, as a native should. Their German bristled with mistakes. They spoke +it with a foreign accent. It was copious, but incorrect. Almost the last +thing their father, an accurate man, said to them as he lay dying, had +to do with a misplaced dative. And when they talked English it rolled +about uncontrollably on its r's, and had a great many long words in it +got from Milton, and Dr. Johnson, and people like that, whom their +mother had particularly loved, but as they talked far more to their +mother than to their father, who was a man of much briefness in words +though not in temper, they were better on the whole at English than +German. + +Their mother, who loved England more the longer she lived away from +it,--"As one does; and the same principle," Anna-Rose explained to +Anna-Felicitas when they had lived some time with their aunt and uncle, +"applies to relations, aunts' husbands, and the clergy,"--never tired of +telling her children about it, and its poetry, and its spirit, and the +greatness and glory of its points of view. They drank it all in and +believed every word of it, for so did their mother; and as they grew up +they flung themselves on all the English books they could lay hands +upon, and they read with their mother and learned by heart most of the +obviously beautiful things; and because she glowed with enthusiasm they +glowed too--Anna-Rose in a flare and a flash, Anna-Felicitas slow and +steadily. They adored their mother. Whatever she loved they loved +blindly. It was a pity she died. She died soon after the war began. They +had been so happy, so _dreadfully_ happy.... + +"You can't be Christopher," said Anna-Rose, giving herself a shake, for +here she was thinking of her mother, and it didn't do to think of one's +mother, she found; at least, not when one is off to a new life and +everything is all promise because it isn't anything else, and not if +one's mother happened to have been so--well, so fearfully sweet. "You +can't be Christopher, because, you see, I'm the eldest." + +Anna-Felicitas didn't see what being the eldest had to do with it, but +she only said, "Very well," in her soft voice, and expressed a hope that +Anna-Rose would see her way not to call her Col for short. "I'm afraid +you will, though," she added, "and then I shall feel so like Onkel +Nicolas." + +This was their German uncle, known during his life-time, which had +abruptly left off when the twins were ten, as Onkel Col; a very ancient +person, older by far even than their father, who had seemed so very old. +But Onkel Col had been older than anybody at all, except the pictures of +the _liebe Gott_ in Blake's illustrations to the Book of Job. He came to +a bad end. Neither their father nor their mother told them anything +except that Onkel Col was dead; and their father put a black band round +the left sleeve of his tweed country suit and was more good-tempered +than ever, and their mother, when they questioned her, just said that +poor Onkel Col had gone to heaven, and that in future they would speak +of him as Onkel Nicolas, because it was more respectful. + +"But why does mummy call him poor, when he's gone to heaven?" +Anna-Felicitas asked Anna-Rose privately, in the recesses of the garden. + +"First of all," said Anna-Rose, who, being the eldest, as she so often +explained to her sister, naturally knew more about everything, "because +the angels won't like him. Nobody _could_ like Onkel Col. Even if +they're angels. And though they're obliged to have him there because he +was such a very good man, they won't talk to him much or notice him much +when God isn't looking. And second of all, because you _are_ poor when +you get to heaven. Everybody is poor in heaven. Nobody takes their +things with them, and all Onkel Col's money is still on earth. He +couldn't even take his clothes with him." + +"Then is he quite--did Onkel Col go there quite--" + +Anna-Felicitas stopped. The word seemed too awful in connection with +Onkel Col, that terrifying old gentleman who had roared at them from the +folds of so many wonderful wadded garments whenever they were led in, +trembling, to see him, for he had gout and was very terrible; and it +seemed particularly awful when one thought of Onkel Col going to heaven, +which was surely of all places the most _endimanché_. + +"Of course," nodded Anna-Rose; but even she dropped her voice a little. +She peeped about among the bushes a moment, then put her mouth close to +Anna-Felicitas's ear, and whispered, "Stark." + +They stared at one another for a space with awe and horror in their +eyes. + +"You see," then went on Anna-Rose rather quickly, hurrying away from the +awful vision, "one knows one doesn't have clothes in heaven because they +don't have the moth there. It says so in the Bible. And you can't have +the moth without having anything for it to go into." + +"Then they don't have to have naphthalin either," said Anna-Felicitas, +"and don't all have to smell horrid in the autumn when they take their +furs out." + +"No. And thieves don't break in and steal either in heaven," continued +Anna-Rose, "and the reason why is that there _isn't_ anything to steal." + +"There's angels," suggested Anna-Felicitas after a pause, for she didn't +like to think there was nothing really valuable in heaven. + +"Oh, nobody ever steals _them_," said Anna-Rose. + +Anna-Felicitas's slow thoughts revolved round this new uncomfortable +view of heaven. It seemed, if Anna-Rose were right, and she always was +right for she said so herself, that heaven couldn't be such a safe place +after all, nor such a kind place. Thieves could break in and steal if +they wanted to. She had a proper horror of thieves. She was sure the +night would certainly come when they would break into her father's +_Schloss_, or, as her English nurse called it, her dear Papa's slosh; +and she was worried that poor Onkel Col should be being snubbed up +there, and without anything to put on, which would make being snubbed so +much worse, for clothes did somehow comfort one. + +She took her worries to the nursemaid, and choosing a moment when she +knew Anna-Rose wished to be unnoticed, it being her hour for +inconspicuously eating unripe apples at the bottom of the orchard, an +exercise Anna-Felicitas only didn't indulge in because she had learned +through affliction that her inside, fond and proud of it as she was, was +yet not of that superior and blessed kind that suffers green apples +gladly--she sought out the nursemaid, whose name, too, confusingly, was +Anna, and led the conversation up to heaven and the possible conditions +prevailing in it by asking her to tell her, in strict confidence and as +woman to woman, what she thought Onkel Col exactly looked like at that +moment. + +"Unrecognizable," said the nursemaid promptly. + +"Unrecognizable?" echoed Anna-Felicitas. + +And the nursemaid, after glancing over her shoulder to see if the +governess were nowhere in sight, told Anna-Felicitas the true story of +Onkel Col's end: which is so bad that it isn't fit to be put in any book +except one with an appendix. + +A stewardess passed just as Anna-Felicitas was asking Anna-Rose not to +remind her of these grim portions of the past by calling her Col, a +stewardess in such a very clean white cap that she looked both reliable +and benevolent, while secretly she was neither. + +"Can you please tell us why we're stopping?" Anna-Rose inquired of her +politely, leaning forward to catch her attention as she hurried by. + +The stewardess allowed her roving eye to alight for a moment on the two +objects beneath the rug. Their chairs were close together, and the rug +covered them both up to their chins. Over the top of it their heads +appeared, exactly alike as far as she could see in the dusk; round +heads, each with a blue knitted cap pulled well over its ears, and round +eyes staring at her with what anybody except the stewardess would have +recognized as a passionate desire for some sort of reassurance. They +might have been seven instead of seventeen for all the stewardess could +tell. They looked younger than anything she had yet seen sitting alone +on a deck and asking questions. But she was an exasperated widow, who +had never had children and wasn't to be touched by anything except a +tip, besides despising, because she was herself a second-class +stewardess, all second-class passengers,--"As one does," Anna-Rose +explained later on to Anna-Felicitas, "and the same principle applies to +Jews." So she said with an acidity completely at variance with the +promise of her cap, "Ask the Captain," and disappeared. + +The twins looked at each other. They knew very well that captains on +ships were mighty beings who were not asked questions. + +"She's trifling with us," murmured Anna-Felicitas. + +"Yes," Anna-Rose was obliged to admit, though the thought was repugnant +to her that they should look like people a stewardess would dare trifle +with. + +"Perhaps she thinks we're younger than we are," she said after a +silence. + +"Yes. She couldn't see how long our dresses are, because of the rug." + +"No. And it's only that end of us that really shows we're grown up." + +"Yes. She ought to have seen us six months ago." + +Indeed she ought. Even the stewardess would have been surprised at the +activities and complete appearance of the two pupæ now rolled motionless +in the rug. For, six months ago, they had both been probationers in a +children's hospital in Worcestershire, arrayed, even as the stewardess, +in spotless caps, hurrying hither and thither with trays of food, +sweeping and washing up, learning to make beds in a given time, and be +deft, and quick, and never tired, and always punctual. + +This place had been got them by the efforts and influence of their Aunt +Alice, that aunt who had given them the rug on their departure and who +had omitted to celebrate their birthday. She was an amiable aunt, but +she didn't understand about birthdays. It was the first one they had had +since they were complete orphans, and so they were rather sensitive +about it. But they hadn't cried, because since their mother's death they +had done with crying. What could there ever again be in the world bad +enough to cry about after that? And besides, just before she dropped +away from them into the unconsciousness out of which she never came +back, but instead just dropped a little further into death, she had +opened her eyes unexpectedly and caught them sitting together in a row +by her bed, two images of agony, with tears rolling down their swollen +faces and their noses in a hopeless state, and after looking at them a +moment as if she had slowly come up from some vast depth and distance +and were gradually recognizing them, she had whispered with a flicker of +the old encouraging smile that had comforted every hurt and bruise they +had ever had, "_Don't cry_ ... little darlings, _don't_ cry...." + +But on that first birthday after her death they had got more and more +solemn as time passed, and breakfast was cleared away, and there were no +sounds, prick up their ears as they might, of subdued preparations in +the next room, no stealthy going up and down stairs to fetch the +presents, and at last no hope at all of the final glorious flinging open +of the door and the vision inside of two cakes all glittering with +candles, each on a table covered with flowers and all the things one has +most wanted. + +Their aunt didn't know. How should she? England was a great and beloved +country, but it didn't have proper birthdays. + +"Every country has one drawback," Anna-Rose explained to Anna-Felicitas +when the morning was finally over, in case she should by any chance be +thinking badly of the dear country that had produced their mother as +well as Shakespeare, "and not knowing about birthdays is England's." + +"There's Uncle Arthur," said Anna-Felicitas, whose honest mind groped +continually after accuracy. + +"Yes," Anna-Rose admitted after a pause. "Yes. There's Uncle Arthur." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Uncle Arthur was the husband of Aunt Alice. He didn't like foreigners, +and said so. He never had liked them and had always said so. It wasn't +the war at all, it was the foreigners. But as the war went on, and these +German nieces of his wife became more and more, as he told her, a +blighted nuisance, so did he become more and more pointed, and said he +didn't mind French foreigners, nor Russian foreigners; and a few weeks +later, that it wasn't Italian foreigners either that he minded; and +still later, that nor was it foreigners indigenous to the soil of +countries called neutral. These things he said aloud at meals in a +general way. To his wife when alone he said much more. + +Anna-Rose, who was nothing if not intrepid, at first tried to soften his +heart by offering to read aloud to him in the evenings when he came home +weary from his daily avocations, which were golf. Her own suggestion +instantly projected a touching picture on her impressionable imagination +of youth, grateful for a roof over its head, in return alleviating the +tedium of crabbed age by introducing its uncle, who from his remarks was +evidently unacquainted with them, to the best productions of the great +masters of English literature. + +But Uncle Arthur merely stared at her with a lacklustre eye when she +proposed it, from his wide-legged position on the hearthrug, where he +was moving money about in trouser-pockets of the best material. And +later on she discovered that he had always supposed the "Faery Queen," +and "Adonais," and "In Memoriam," names he had heard at intervals during +his life, for he was fifty and such things do sometimes get mentioned +were well-known racehorses. + +Uncle Arthur, like Onkel Col, was a very good man, and though he said +things about foreigners he did stick to these unfortunate alien nieces +longer than one would have supposed possible if one had overheard what +he said to Aunt Alice in the seclusion of their bed. His ordered +existence, shaken enough by the war, Heaven knew, was shaken in its +innermost parts, in its very marrow, by the arrival of the two Germans. +Other people round about had Belgians in their homes, and groaned; but +who but he, the most immensely British of anybody, had Germans? And he +couldn't groan, because they were, besides being motherless creatures, +his own wife's flesh and blood. Not openly at least could he groan; but +he could and did do it in bed. Why on earth that silly mother of theirs +couldn't have stayed quietly on her Pomeranian sand-heap where she +belonged, instead of coming gallivanting over to England, and then when +she had got there not even decently staying alive and seeing to her +children herself, he at frequent intervals told Aunt Alice in bed that +he would like to know. + +Aunt Alice, who after twenty years of life with Uncle Arthur was both +silent and sleek (for he fed her well), sighed and said nothing. She +herself was quietly going through very much on behalf of her nieces. +Jessup didn't like handing dishes to Germans. The tradespeople twitted +the cook with having to cook for them and were facetious about sausages +and asked how one made sauerkraut. Her acquaintances told her they were +very sorry for her, and said they supposed she knew what she was doing +and that it was all right about spies, but really one heard such strange +things, one never could possibly tell even with children; and regularly +the local policeman bicycled over to see if the aliens, who were +registered at the county-town police-station, were still safe. And then +they looked so very German, Aunt Alice felt. There was no mistaking +them. And every time they opened their mouths there were all those r's +rolling about. She hardly liked callers to find her nieces in her +drawing-room at tea-time, they were so difficult to explain; yet they +were too old to shut up in a nursery. + +After three months of them, Uncle Arthur suggested sending them back to +Germany; but their consternation had been so great and their entreaties +to be kept where they were so desperate that he said no more about that. +Besides, they told him that if they went back there they would be sure +to be shot as spies, for over there nobody would believe they were +German, just as over here nobody would believe they were English; and +besides, this was in those days of the war when England was still +regarding Germany as more mistaken than vicious, and was as full as ever +of the tradition of great and elaborate indulgence and generosity toward +a foe, and Uncle Arthur, whatever he might say, was not going to be +behind his country in generosity. + +Yet as time passed, and feeling tightened, and the hideous necklace of +war grew more and more frightful with each fresh bead of horror strung +upon it, Uncle Arthur, though still in principle remaining good, in +practice found himself vindictive. He was saddled; that's what he was. +Saddled with this monstrous unmerited burden. He, the most patriotic of +Britons, looked at askance by his best friends, being given notice by +his old servants, having particular attention paid his house at night by +the police, getting anonymous letters about lights seen in his upper +windows the nights; the Zeppelins came, which were the windows of the +floor those blighted twins slept on, and all because he had married Aunt +Alice. + +At this period Aunt Alice went to bed with reluctance. It was not a +place she had ever gone to very willingly since she married Uncle +Arthur, for he was the kind of husband who rebukes in bed; but now she +was downright reluctant. It was painful to her to be told that she had +brought this disturbance into Uncle Arthur's life by having let him +marry her. Inquiring backwards into her recollections it appeared to her +that she had had no say at all about being married, but that Uncle +Arthur had told her she was going to be, and then that she had been. +Which was what had indeed happened; for Aunt Alice was a round little +woman even in those days, nicely though not obtrusively padded with +agreeable fat at the corners, and her skin, just as now, had the moist +delicacy that comes from eating a great many chickens. Also she +suggested, just as now, most of the things most men want to come home +to,--slippers, and drawn curtains, and a blazing fire, and peace within +one's borders, and even, as Anna-Rose pointed out privately to +Anna-Felicitas after they had come across them for the first time, she +suggested muffins; and so, being in these varied fashions succulent, she +was doomed to make some good man happy. But she did find it real hard +work. + +It grew plain to Aunt Alice after another month of them that Uncle +Arthur would not much longer endure his nieces, and that even if he did +she would not be able to endure Uncle Arthur. The thought was very +dreadful to her that she was being forced to choose between two duties, +and that she could not fulfil both. It came to this at last, that she +must either stand by her nieces, her dead sister's fatherless children, +and face all the difficulties and discomforts of such a standing by, go +away with them, take care of them, till the war was over; or she must +stand by Arthur. + +She chose Arthur. + +How could she, for nieces she had hardly seen, abandon her husband? +Besides, he had scolded her so steadily during the whole of their +married life that she was now unalterably attached to him. Sometimes a +wild thought did for a moment illuminate the soothing dusk of her mind, +the thought of doing the heroic thing, leaving him for them, and helping +and protecting the two poor aliens till happier days should return. If +there were any good stuff in Arthur would he not recognize, however +angry he might be, that she was doing at least a Christian thing? But +this illumination would soon die out. Her comforts choked it. She was +too well-fed. After twenty years of it, she no longer had the figure for +lean and dangerous enterprises. + +And having definitely chosen Arthur, she concentrated what she had of +determination in finding an employment for her nieces that would remove +them beyond the range of his growing wrath. She found it in a children's +hospital as far away as Worcestershire, a hospital subscribed to very +largely by Arthur, for being a good man he subscribed to hospitals. The +matron objected, but Aunt Alice overrode the matron; and from January to +April Uncle Arthur's house was pure from Germans. + +Then they came back again. + +It had been impossible to keep them. The nurses wouldn't work with them. +The sick children had relapses when they discovered who it was who +brought them their food, and cried for their mothers. It had been +arranged between Aunt Alice and the matron that the unfortunate +nationality of her nieces should not be mentioned. They were just to be +Aunt Alice's nieces, the Miss Twinklers,--("We will leave out the von," +said Aunt Alice, full of unnatural cunning. "They have a von, you know, +poor things--such a very labelling thing to have. But Twinkler without +it might quite well be English. Who can possibly tell? It isn't as +though they had had some shocking name like Bismarck.") + +Nothing, however, availed against the damning evidence of the rolled +r's. Combined with the silvery fair hair and the determined little +mouths and chins, it was irresistible. Clearly they were foreigners, and +equally clearly they were not Italians, or Russians, or French. Within a +week the nurses spoke of them in private as Fritz and Franz. Within a +fortnight a deputation of staff sisters went to the matron and asked, on +patriotic grounds, for the removal of the Misses Twinkler. The matron, +with the fear of Uncle Arthur in her heart, for he was altogether the +biggest subscriber, sharply sent the deputation about its business; and +being a matron of great competence and courage she would probably have +continued to be able to force the new probationers upon the nurses if it +had not been for the inability, which was conspicuous, of the younger +Miss Twinkler to acquire efficiency. + +In vain did Anna-Rose try to make up for Anna-Felicitas's shortcomings +by a double zeal, a double willingness and cheerfulness. Anna-Felicitas +was a born dreamer, a born bungler with her hands and feet. She not only +never from first to last succeeded in filling the thirty hot-water +bottles, which were her care, in thirty minutes, which was her duty, but +every time she met a pail standing about she knocked against it and it +fell over. Patients and nurses watched her approach with apprehension. +Her ward was in a constant condition of flood. + +"It's because she's thinking of something else," Anna-Rose tried eagerly +to explain to the indignant sister-in-charge. + +"Thinking of something else!" echoed the sister. + +"She reads, you see, a lot--whenever she gets the chance she reads--" + +"Reads!" echoed the sister. + +"And then, you see, she gets thinking--" + +"Thinking! Reading doesn't make _me_ think." + +"With much regret," wrote the matron to Aunt Alice, "I am obliged to +dismiss your younger niece, Nurse Twinkler II. She has no vocation for +nursing. On the other hand, your elder niece is shaping well and I shall +be pleased to keep her on." + +"But I can't stop on," Anna-Rose said to the matron when she announced +these decisions to her. "I can't be separated from my sister. I'd like +very much to know what would become of that poor child without me to +look after her. You forget I'm the eldest." + +The matron put down her pen,--she was a woman who made many notes--and +stared at Nurse Twinkler. Not in this fashion did her nurses speak to +her. But Anna-Rose, having been brought up in a spot remote from +everything except love and laughter, had all the fearlessness of +ignorance; and in her extreme youth and smallness, with her eyes shining +and her face heated she appeared to the matron rather like an indignant +kitten. + +"Very well," said the matron gravely, suppressing a smile. "One should +always do what one considers one's first duty." + +So the Twinklers went back to Uncle Arthur, and the matron was greatly +relieved, for she certainly didn't want them, and Uncle Arthur said +Damn. + +"Arthur," gently reproved his wife. + +"I say Damn and I mean Damn," said Uncle Arthur. "What the hell can +we--" + +"Arthur," said his wife. + +"I say, what the hell can we do with a couple of Germans? If people +wouldn't swallow them last winter are they going to swallow them any +better now? God, what troubles a man lets himself in for when he +marries!" + +"I do beg you, Arthur, not to use those coarse words," said Aunt Alice, +tears in her gentle eyes. + +There followed a period of desperate exertion on the part of Aunt Alice. +She answered advertisements and offered the twins as nursery +governesses, as cheerful companions, as mothers' helps, even as orphans +willing to be adopted. She relinquished every claim on salaries, she +offered them for nothing, and at last she offered them accompanied by a +bonus. "Their mother was English. They are quite English," wrote Aunt +Alice innumerable times in innumerable letters. "I feel bound, however, +to tell you that they once had a German father, but of course it was +through no fault of their own," etc., etc. Aunt Alice's hand ached with +writing letters; and any solution of the problem that might possibly +have been arrived at came to nothing because Anna-Rose would not be +separated from Anna-Felicitas, and if it was difficult to find anybody +who would take on one German nobody at all could be found to take on +two. + +Meanwhile Uncle Arthur grew nightly more dreadful in bed. Aunt Alice was +at her wits' end, and took to crying helplessly. The twins racked their +brains to find a way out, quite as anxious to relieve Uncle Arthur of +their presence as he was to be relieved. If only they could be +independent, do something, work, go as housemaids,--anything. + +They concocted an anonymous-advertisement and secretly sent it to _The +Times_, clubbing their pocket-money together to pay for it. The +advertisement was: + + Energetic Sisters of belligerent ancestry but unimpeachable + Sympathies wish for any sort of work consistent with respectability. + No objection to being demeaned. + +Anna-Felicitas inquired what that last word meant for it was Anna-Rose's +word, and Anna-Rose explained that it meant not minding things like +being housemaids. "Which we don't," said Anna-Rose. "Upper and Under. +I'll be Upper, of course, because I'm the eldest." + +Anna-Felicitas suggested putting in what it meant then, for she regarded +it with some doubt, but Anna-Rose, it being her word, liked it, and +explained that it Put a whole sentence into a nut-shell, and wouldn't +change it. + +No one answered this advertisement except a society in London for +helping alien enemies in distress. + +"Charity," said Anna-Rose, turning up her nose. + +"And fancy thinking _us_ enemies," said Anna-Felicitas, "Us. While +mummy--" Her eyes filled with tears. She kept them back, however, +behind convenient long eye-lashes. + +Then they saw an advertisement in the front page of _The Times_ that +they instantly answered without saying a word to Aunt Alice. The +advertisement was: + + Slightly wounded Officer would be glad to find intelligent and + interesting companion who can drive a 14 h.p. Humber. Emoluments by + arrangement. + +"We'll _tell_ him we're intelligent and interesting," said Anna-Rose, +eagerly. + +"Yes--who knows if we wouldn't be really, if we were given a chance?" +said Anna-Felicitas, quite flushed with excitement. + +"And if he engages us we'll take him on in turns, so that the emoluments +won't have to be doubled." + +"Yes--because he mightn't like paying twice over." + +"Yes--and while the preliminaries are being settled we could be learning +to drive Uncle Arthur's car." + +"Yes--except that it's a Daimler, and aren't they different?" + +"Yes--but only about the same difference as there is between a man and a +woman. A man and a woman are both human beings, you know. And Daimlers +and Humbers are both cars." + +"I see," said Anna-Felicitas; but she didn't. + +They wrote an enthusiastic answer that very day. + +The only thing they were in doubt about, they explained toward the end +of the fourth sheet, when they had got to politenesses and were +requesting the slightly wounded officer to allow them to express their +sympathy with his wounds, was that they had not yet had an opportunity +of driving a Humber car, but that this opportunity, of course, would be +instantly provided by his engaging them. Also, would he kindly tell them +if it was a male companion he desired to have, because if so it was very +unfortunate, for neither of them were males, but quite the contrary. + +They got no answer to this for three weeks, and had given up all hope +and come to the depressing conclusion that they must have betrayed their +want of intelligence and interestingness right away, when one day a +letter came from General Headquarters in France, addressed _To Both the +Miss Twinklers_, and it was a long letter, pages long, from the slightly +wounded officer, telling them he had been patched up again and sent back +to the front, and their answer to his advertisement had been forwarded +to him there, and that he had had heaps of other answers to it, and that +the one he had liked best of all was theirs; and that some day he hoped +when he was back again, and able to drive himself, to show them how +glorious motoring was, if their mother would bring them,--quick motoring +in his racing car, sixty miles an hour motoring, flashing through the +wonders of the New Forest, where he lived. And then there was a long bit +about what the New Forest must be looking like just then, all quiet in +the spring sunshine, with lovely dappled bits of shade underneath the +big beeches, and the heather just coming alive, and all the winding +solitary roads so full of peace, so empty of noise. + +"Write to me, you two children," said the letter at the end. "You've no +idea what it's like getting letters from home out here. Write and tell +me what you do and what the garden is like these fine afternoons. The +lilacs must be nearly done, but I'm sure there's the smell of them +still about, and I'm sure you have a beautiful green close-cut lawn, and +tea is brought out on to it, and there's no sound, no sort of sound, +except birds, and you two laughing, and I daresay a jolly dog barking +somewhere just for fun and not because he's angry." + +The letter was signed (Captain) John Desmond, and there was a scrawl in +the corner at the end: "It's for jolly little English kids like you that +we're fighting, God bless you. Write to me again soon." + +"English kids like us!" + +They looked at each other. They had not mentioned their belligerent +ancestry in their letter. They felt uncomfortable, and as if Captain +Desmond were fighting for them, as it were, under false pretences. They +also wondered why he should conclude they were kids. + +They wrote to him again, explaining that they were not exactly what +could be described as English, but on the other hand neither were they +exactly what could be described as German. "We would be very glad indeed +if we were really _something_," they added. + +But after their letter had been gone only a few days they saw in the +list of casualties in _The Times_ that Captain John Desmond had been +killed. + +And then one day the real solution was revealed, and it was revealed to +Uncle Arthur as he sat in his library on a wet Sunday morning +considering his troubles in detail. + +Like most great ideas it sprang full-fledged into being,--obvious, +unquestionable, splendidly simple,--out of a trifle. For, chancing to +raise his heavy and disgusted eyes to the bookshelves in front of him, +they rested on one particular book, and on the back of this book stood +out in big gilt letters the word + + AMERICA + +There were other words on its back, but this one alone stood out, and it +had all the effect of a revelation. + +There. That was it. Of course. That was the way out. Why the devil +hadn't Alice thought of _that_? He knew some Americans; he didn't like +them, but he knew them; and he would write to them, or Alice would write +to them, and tell them the twins were coming. He would give the twins +£200,--damn it, nobody could say that wasn't handsome, especially in +war-time, and for a couple of girls who had no earthly sort of claim on +him, whatever Alice might choose to think they had on her. Yet it was +such a confounded mixed-up situation that he wasn't at all sure he +wouldn't come under the Defence of the Realm Act, by giving them money, +as aiding the enemy. Well, he would risk that. He would risk anything to +be rid of them. Ship 'em off, that was the thing to do. They would fall +on their feet right enough over there. America still swallowed Germans +without making a face. + +Uncle Arthur reflected for a moment with extreme disgust on the +insensibility of the American palate. "Lost their chance, that's what +_they've_ done," he said to himself--for this was 1916, and America had +not yet made her magnificent entry into the war--as he had already said +to himself a hundred times. "Lost their chance of coming in on the side +of civilization, and helping sweep the world up tidy of barbarism. +Shoulder to shoulder with us, that's where _they_ ought to have been. +English-speaking races--duty to the world--" He then damned the +Americans; but was suddenly interrupted by perceiving that if they had +been shoulder to shoulder with him and England he wouldn't have been +able to send them his wife's German nieces to take care of. There was, +he conceded, that advantage resulting from their attitude. He could not, +however, concede any others. + +At luncheon he was very nearly gay. It was terrible to see Uncle +Arthur very nearly gay, and both his wife and the twins were most +uncomfortable. "I wonder what's the matter now," sighed Aunt Alice +to herself, as she nervously crumbled her toast. + +It could mean nothing good, Arthur in such spirits on a wet Sunday, when +he hadn't been able to get his golf and the cook had overdone the joint. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +And so, on a late September afternoon, the _St. Luke_, sliding away from +her moorings, relieved Uncle Arthur of his burden. + +It was final this time, for the two alien enemies once out of it would +not be let into England again till after the war. The enemies themselves +knew it was final; and the same knowledge that made Uncle Arthur feel so +pleasant as he walked home across his park from golf to tea that for a +moment he was actually of a mind to kiss Aunt Alice when he got in, and +perhaps even address her in the language of resuscitated passion, which +in Uncle Arthur's mouth was Old Girl,--an idea he abandoned, however, in +case it should make her self-satisfied and tiresome--the same knowledge +that produced these amiable effects in Uncle Arthur, made his alien +nieces cling very close together as they leaned over the side of the +_St. Luke_ hungrily watching the people on the wharf. + +For they loved England. They loved it with the love of youth whose +enthusiasms have been led by an adored teacher always in one direction. +And they were leaving that adored teacher, their mother, in England. It +seemed like losing her a second time to go away, so far away, and leave +her there. It was nonsense, they knew, to feel like that. She was with +them just the same; wherever they went now she would be with them, and +they could hear her saying at that very moment, "Little darlings, +_don't_ cry...." But it was a gloomy, drizzling afternoon, the sort of +afternoon anybody might be expected to cry on, and not one of the people +waving handkerchiefs were waving handkerchiefs to them. + +"We ought to have hired somebody," thought Anna-Rose, eyeing the +handkerchiefs with miserable little eyes. + +"I believe I've gone and caught a cold," remarked Anna-Felicitas in her +gentle, staid voice, for she was having a good deal of bother with her +eyes and her nose, and could no longer conceal the fact that she was +sniffing. + +Anna-Rose discreetly didn't look at her. Then she suddenly whipped out +her handkerchief and waved it violently. + +Anna-Felicitas forgot her eyes and nose and craned her head forward. +"Who are you waving to?" she asked, astonished. + +"Good-bye!" cried Anna-Rose, waving, "Good-bye! Good-bye!" + +"Who? Where? Who are you talking to?" asked Anna-Felicitas. "Has any one +come to see us off?" + +"Good-bye! Good-bye!" cried Anna-Rose. + +The figures on the wharf were getting smaller, but not until they had +faded into a blur did Anna-Rose leave off waving. Then she turned round +and put her arm through Anna-Felicitas's and held on to her very tight +for a minute. + +"There wasn't anybody," she said. "Of course there wasn't. But do you +suppose I was going to have us _looking_ like people who aren't seen +off?" + +And she drew Anna-Felicitas away to the chairs, and when they were +safely in them and rolled up to their chins in the rug, she added, "That +man--" and then stopped. "What man?" + +"Standing just behind us--" + +"Was there a man?" asked Anna-Felicitas, who never saw men any more than +she, in her brief career at the hospital, had seen pails. + +"Yes. Looking as if in another moment he'd be sorry for us," said +Anna-Rose. + +"Sorry for us!" repeated Anna-Felicitas, roused to indignation. + +"Yes. Did you ever?" + +Anna-Felicitas said, with a great deal of energy while she put her +handkerchief finally and sternly away, that she didn't ever; and after a +pause Anna-Rose, remembering one of her many new responsibilities and +anxieties--she had so many that sometimes for a time she didn't remember +some of them--turned her head to Anna-Felicitas, and fixing a worried +eye on her said, "You won't go forgetting your Bible, will you, Anna +F.?" + +"My Bible?" repeated Anna-Felicitas, looking blank. + +"Your German Bible. The bit about _wenn die bösen Buben locken, so folge +sie nicht_." + +Anna-Felicitas continued to look blank, but Anna-Rose with a troubled +brow said again, "You won't go and forget that, will you, Anna F.?" + +For Anna-Felicitas was very pretty. In most people's eyes she was very +pretty, but in Anna-Rose's she was the most exquisite creature God had +yet succeeded in turning out. Anna-Rose concealed this conviction from +her. She wouldn't have told her for worlds. She considered it wouldn't +have been at all good for her; and she had, up to this, and ever since +they could both remember, jeered in a thoroughly sisterly fashion at her +defects, concentrating particularly on her nose, on her leanness, and +on the way, unless constantly reminded not to, she drooped. + +But Anna-Rose secretly considered that the same nose that on her own +face made no sort of a show at all, directly it got on to +Anna-Felicitas's somehow was the dearest nose; and that her leanness was +lovely,--the same sort of slender grace her mother had had in the days +before the heart-breaking emaciation that was its last phase; and that +her head was set so charmingly on her neck that when she drooped and +forgot her father's constant injunction to sit up,--"For," had said her +father at monotonously regular intervals, "a maiden should be as +straight as a fir-tree,"--she only seemed to fall into even more +attractive lines than when she didn't. And now that Anna-Rose alone had +the charge of looking after this abstracted and so charming younger +sister, she felt it her duty somehow to convey to her while tactfully +avoiding putting ideas into the poor child's head which might make her +conceited, that it behoved her to conduct herself with discretion. + +But she found tact a ticklish thing, the most difficult thing of all to +handle successfully; and on this occasion hers was so elaborate, and so +carefully wrapped up in Scriptural language, and German Scripture at +that, that Anna-Felicitas's slow mind didn't succeed in disentangling +her meaning, and after a space of staring at her with a mild inquiry in +her eyes, she decided that perhaps she hadn't got one. She was much too +polite though, to say so, and they sat in silence under the rug till the +_St. Luke_ whistled and stopped, and Anna-Rose began hastily to make +conversation about Christopher and Columbus. + +She was ashamed of having shown so much of her woe at leaving England. +She hoped Anna-Felicitas hadn't noticed. She certainly wasn't going on +like that. When the _St. Luke_ whistled, she was ashamed that it wasn't +only Anna-Felicitas who jumped. And the amount of brightness she put +into her voice when she told Anna-Felicitas it was pleasant to go and +discover America was such that that young lady, who if slow was sure, +said to herself, "Poor little Anna-R., she's really taking it dreadfully +to heart." + +The _St. Luke_ was only dropping anchor for the night in the Mersey, and +would go on at daybreak. They gathered this from the talk of passengers +walking up and down the deck in twos and threes and passing and +repassing the chairs containing the silent figures with the round heads +that might be either the heads of boys or of girls, and they were +greatly relieved to think they wouldn't have to begin and be sea-sick +for some hours yet. "So couldn't we walk about a little?" suggested +Anna-Felicitas, who was already stiff from sitting on the hard cane +chair. + +But Aunt Alice had told them that the thing to do on board a ship if +they wished, as she was sure they did, not only to avoid being sick but +also conspicuous, was to sit down in chairs the moment the ship got +under way, and not move out of them till it stopped again. "Or, at +least, as rarely as possible," amended Aunt Alice, who had never herself +been further on a ship than to Calais, but recognized that it might be +difficult to avoid moving sooner or later if it was New York you were +going to. "Two such young girls travelling alone should be seen as +seldom as ever you can manage. Your Uncle is sending you second-class +for that very reason, because it is so much less conspicuous." + +It was also very much less expensive, and Uncle Arthur's generosities +were of the kind that suddenly grow impatient and leave off. Just as in +eating he was as he said, for plain roast and boiled, and messes be +damned, so in benefactions he was for lump sums and done with it; and +the extras, the driblets, the here a little and there a little that were +necessary, or were alleged by Aunt Alice to be necessary, before he +finally got rid of those blasted twins, annoyed him so profoundly that +when it came to taking their passage he could hardly be got not to send +them in the steerage. This was too much, however, for Aunt Alice, whose +maid was going with them as far as Euston and therefore would know what +sort of tickets they had, and she insisted with such quiet obstinacy +that they should be sent first-class that Uncle Arthur at last split the +difference and consented to make it second. To her maid Aunt Alice also +explained that second-class was less conspicuous. + +Anna-Rose, mindful of Aunt Alice's words, hesitated as to the wisdom of +walking about and beginning to be conspicuous already, but she too was +stiff, and anything the matter with one's body has a wonderful effect, +as she had already in her brief career had numerous occasions to +observe, in doing away with prudent determinations. So, after cautiously +looking round the corners to see if the man who was on the verge of +being sorry for them were nowhere in sight, they walked up and down the +damp, dark deck; and the motionlessness, and silence, and mist gave them +a sensation of being hung mid-air in some strange empty Hades between +two worlds. + +Far down below there was a faint splash every now and then against the +side of the _St. Luke_ when some other steamer, invisible in the mist, +felt her way slowly by. Out ahead lay the sea, the immense uneasy sea +that was to last ten days and nights before they got to the other side, +hour after hour of it, hour after hour of tossing across it further and +further away; and forlorn and ghostly as the ship felt, it yet, because +on either side of it were still the shores of England, didn't seem as +forlorn and ghostly as the unknown land they were bound for. For +suppose, Anna-Felicitas inquired of Anna-Rose, who had been privately +asking herself the same thing, America didn't like them? Suppose the +same sort of difficulties were waiting for them over there that had +dogged their footsteps in England? + +"First of all," said Anna-Rose promptly, for she prided herself on the +readiness and clearness of her explanations, "America will like us, +because I don't see why it shouldn't. We're going over to it in exactly +the same pleasant spirit, Anna-F.,--and don't you go forgetting it and +showing your disagreeable side--that the dove was in when it flew across +the waters to the ark, and with olive branches in our beaks just the +same as the dove's, only they're those two letters to Uncle Arthur's +friends." + +"But do you think Uncle Arthur's friends--" began Anna-Felicitas, who +had great doubts as to everything connected with Uncle Arthur. + +"And secondly," continued Anna-Rose a little louder, for she wasn't +going to be interrupted, and having been asked a question liked to give +all the information in her power, "secondly, America is the greatest of +the neutrals except the _liebe Gott_, and is bound particularly to +prize us because we're so unusually and peculiarly neutral. What ever was +more neutral than you and me? We're neither one thing nor the other, and +yet at the same time we're both." Anna-Felicitas remarked that it sounded +rather as if they were the Athanasian Creed. + +"And thirdly," went on Anna-Rose, waving this aside, "there's £200 +waiting for us over there, which is a very nice warm thing to think of. +We never had £200 waiting for us anywhere in our lives before, did +we,--so you remember that, and don't get grumbling." + +Anna-Felicitas mildly said that she wasn't grumbling but that she +couldn't help thinking what a great deal depended on the goodwill of +Uncle Arthur's friends, and wished it had been Aunt Alice's friends they +had letters to instead, because Aunt Alice's friends were more likely to +like her. + +Anna-Rose rebuked her, and said that the proper spirit in which to start +on a great adventure was one of faith and enthusiasm, and that one +didn't have doubts. + +Anna-Felicitas said she hadn't any doubts really, but that she was very +hungry, not having had anything that could be called a meal since +breakfast, and that she felt like the sheep in "Lycidas," the hungry +ones who looked up and were not fed, and she quoted the lines in case +Anna-Rose didn't recollect them (which Anna-Rose deplored, for she knew +the lines by heart, and if there was any quoting to be done liked to do +it herself), and said she felt just like that,--"Empty," said +Anna-Felicitas, "and yet swollen. When do you suppose people have food +on board ships? I don't believe we'd mind nearly so much about--oh well, +about leaving England, if it was after dinner." + +"I'm not minding leaving England," said Anna-Rose quickly. "At least, +not more than's just proper." + +"Oh, no more am I, of course," said Anna-Felicitas airily. "Except +what's proper." + +"And even if we were feeling it _dreadfully_," said Anna-Rose, with a +little catch in her voice, "which, of course, we're not, dinner wouldn't +make any difference. Dinner doesn't alter fundamentals." + +"But it helps one to bear them," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Bear!" repeated Anna-Rose, her chin in the air. "We haven't got much to +bear. Don't let me hear you talk of bearing things, Anna-F." + +"I won't after dinner," promised Anna-Felicitas. + +They thought perhaps they had better ask somebody whether there wouldn't +soon be something to eat, but the other passengers had all disappeared. +They were by themselves on the gloomy deck, and there were no lights. +The row of cabin windows along the wall were closely shuttered, and the +door they had come through when first they came on deck was shut too, +and they couldn't find it in the dark. It seemed so odd to be feeling +along a wall for a door they knew was there and not be able to find it, +that they began to laugh; and the undiscoverable door cheered them up +more than anything that had happened since seeing the last of Uncle +Arthur. + +"It's like a game," said Anna-Rose, patting her hands softly and vainly +along the wall beneath the shuttered windows. + +"It's like something in 'Alice in Wonderland,'" said Anna-Felicitas, +following in her tracks. + +A figure loomed through the mist and came toward them. They left off +patting, and stiffened into straight and motionless dignity against the +wall till it should have passed. But it didn't pass. It was a male +figure in a peaked cap, probably a steward, they thought, and it stopped +in front of them and said in an American voice, "Hello." + +Anna-Rose cast rapidly about in her mind for the proper form of reply +to Hello. + +Anna-Felicitas, instinctively responsive to example murmured "Hello" +back again. + +Anna-Rose, feeling sure that nobody ought to say just Hello to people +they had never seen before, and that Aunt Alice would think they had +brought it on themselves by being conspicuous, decided that perhaps +"Good-evening" would regulate the situation, and said it. + +"You ought to be at dinner," said the man, taking no notice of this. + +"That's what _we_ think," agreed Anna-Felicitas earnestly. + +"Can you please tell us how to get there?" asked Anna-Rose, still +distant, but polite, for she too very much wanted to know. + +"But _don't_ tell us to ask the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas, even more +earnestly. + +"No," said Anna-Rose, "because we won't." + +The man laughed. "Come right along with me," he said, striding on; and +they followed him as obediently as though such persons as possible _böse +Buben_ didn't exist. + +"First voyage I guess," said the man over his shoulder. + +"Yes," said the twins a little breathlessly, for the man's legs were +long and they could hardly keep up with him. + +"English?" said the man. + +"Ye--es," said Anna-Rose. + +"That's to say, practically," panted the conscientious Anna-Felicitas. + +"What say?" said the man, still striding on. "I said," Anna-Felicitas +endeavoured to explain, hurrying breathlessly after him so as to keep +within reach of his ear, "practically." + +"Ah," said the man; and after a silence, broken only by the pantings for +breath of the twins, he added: "Mother with you?" + +They didn't say anything to that, it seemed such a dreadful question to +have to answer, and luckily he didn't repeat it, but, having got to the +door they had been searching for, opened it and stepped into the bright +light inside, and putting out his arm behind him pulled them in one +after the other over the high wooden door-frame. + +Inside was the same stewardess they had seen earlier in the afternoon, +engaged in heatedly describing what sounded like grievances to an +official in buttons, who seemed indifferent. She stopped suddenly when +the man appeared, and the official took his hands out of his pockets and +became alert and attentive, and the stewardess hastily picked up a tray +she had set down and began to move away along a passage. + +The man, however, briefly called "Hi," and she turned round and came +back even more quickly than she had tried to go. + +"You see," explained Anna-Rose in a pleased whisper to Anna-Felicitas, +"it's Hi she answers to." + +"Yes," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "It's waste of good circumlocutions to +throw them away on her." + +"Show these young ladies the dining-room," said the man. + +"Yes, sir," said the stewardess, as polite as you please. + +He nodded to them with a smile that developed for some reason into a +laugh, and turned away and beckoned to the official to follow him, and +went out again into the night. + +"Who was that nice man?" inquired Anna-Rose, following the stewardess +down a broad flight of stairs that smelt of india-rubber and machine-oil +and cooking all mixed up together. + +"And please," said Anna-Felicitas with mild severity, "don't tell us to +ask the Captain, because we really do know better than that." + +"I thought you must be relations," said the stewardess. + +"We are," said Anna-Rose. "We're twins." + +The stewardess stared. "Twins what of?" she asked. + +"What of?" echoed Anna-Rose. "Why, of each other, of course." + +"I meant relations of the Captain's," said the stewardess shortly, +eyeing them with more disfavour than ever. + +"You seem to have the Captain greatly on your mind," said +Anna-Felicitas. "He is no relation of ours." + +"You're not even friends, then?" asked the stewardess, pausing to stare +round at them at a turn in the stairs as they followed her down +arm-in-arm. + +"Of course we're friends," said Anna-Rose with some heat. "Do you +suppose we quarrel?" + +"No, I didn't suppose you quarrelled with the Captain," said the +stewardess tartly. "Not on board this ship anyway." + +She didn't know which of the two she disliked most, the short girl or +the long girl. + +"You seem to be greatly obsessed by the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas +gently. "Obsessed!" repeated the stewardess, tossing her head. She was +unacquainted with the word, but instantly suspected it of containing a +reflection on her respectability. "I've been a widow off and on for ten +years now," she said angrily, "and I guess it would take more than even +the Captain to obsess _me_." + +They had reached the glass doors leading into the dining-room, and the +stewardess, having carried out her orders, paused before indignantly +leaving them and going upstairs again to say, "If you're friends, what +do you want to know his name for, then?" + +"Whose name?" asked Anna-Felicitas. + +"The Captain's," said the stewardess. + +"We don't want to know the Captain's name," said Anna-Felicitas +patiently. "We don't want to know anything about the Captain." + +"Then--" began the stewardess. She restrained herself, however, and +merely bitterly remarking: "That gentleman _was_ the Captain," went +upstairs and left them. + +Anna-Rose was the first to recover. "You see we took your advice," she +called up after her, trying to soften her heart, for it was evident that +for some reason her heart was hardened, by flattery. "You _told_ us to +ask the Captain." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +In their berths that night before they went to sleep, it occurred to +them that perhaps what was the matter with the stewardess was that she +needed a tip. At first, with their recent experiences fresh in their +minds, they thought that she was probably passionately pro-Ally, and had +already detected all those Junkers in their past and accordingly +couldn't endure them. Then they remembered how Aunt Alice had said, "You +will have to give your stewardess a little something." + +This had greatly perturbed them at the time, for up to then they had +been in the easy position of the tipped rather than the tippers, and +anyhow they had no idea what one gave stewardesses. Neither, it +appeared, had Aunt Alice; for, on being questioned, she said vaguely +that as it was an American boat they were going on she supposed it would +have to be American money, which was dollars, and she didn't know much +about dollars except that you divided them by four and multiplied them +by five, or else it was the other way about; and when, feeling still +uninformed, they had begged her to tell them why one did that, she said +it was the quickest way of finding out what a dollar really was, and +would they mind not talking any more for a little while because her head +ached. + +The tips they had seen administered during their short lives had all +been given at the end of things, not at the beginning; but Americans, +Aunt Alice told them, were in some respects, in spite of their talking +English, different, and perhaps they were different just on this point +and liked to be tipped at both ends. Anna-Rose wanted to crane out her +head and call up to Anna-Felicitas and ask her whether she didn't think +that might be so, but was afraid of disturbing the people in the +opposite berths. + +Anna-Felicitas was in the top berth on their side of the cabin, and +Anna-Rose as the elder and accordingly as she explained to +Anna-Felicitas, needing more comfort, in the lower one. On the opposite +side were two similar berths, each containing as Anna-Felicitas +whispered after peeping cautiously through their closed curtains,--for +at first on coming in after dinner to go to bed the cabin seemed empty, +except for inanimate things, like clothes hanging up and an immense +smell,--its human freight. They were awed by this discovery, for the +human freight was motionless and speechless, and yet made none of the +noises suggesting sleep. + +They unpacked and undressed as silently and quickly as possible, but it +was very difficult, for there seemed to be no room for anything, not +even for themselves. Every now and then they glanced a little uneasily +at the closed curtains, which bulged, and sniffed cautiously and +delicately, trying to decide what the smell exactly was. It appeared to +be a mixture of the sauce one had with plum pudding at Christmas, and +German bedrooms in the morning. It was a smell they didn't like the idea +of sleeping with, but they saw no way of getting air. They thought of +ringing for the stewardess and asking her to open a window, though they +could see no window, but came to the conclusion it was better not to +stir her up; not yet, at least, not till they had correctly diagnosed +what was the matter with her. They said nothing out loud, for fear of +disturbing whatever it was behind the curtains, but they knew what each +was thinking, for one isn't, as they had long ago found out, a twin for +nothing. + +There was a slight scuffle before Anna-Felicitas was safely hoisted up +into her berth, her legs hanging helplessly down for some time after the +rest of her was in it, and Anna-Rose, who had already neatly inserted +herself into her own berth, after watching these legs in silence and +fighting a desire to give them a tug and see what would happen, had to +get out at last on hearing Anna-Felicitas begin to make sounds up there +as though she were choking, and push them up in after her. Her head was +then on a level with Anna-Felicitas's berth, and she could see how +Anna-Felicitas, having got her legs again, didn't attempt to do anything +with them in the way of orderly arrangement beneath the blankets, but +lay huddled in an irregular heap, screwing her eyes up very tight and +stuffing one of her pigtails into her mouth, and evidently struggling +with what appeared to be an attack of immoderate and ill-timed mirth. + +Anna-Rose observed her for a moment in silence, then was suddenly seized +herself with a dreadful desire to laugh, and with a hasty glance round +at the bulging curtains scrambled back into her own berth and pulled the +sheet over her mouth. + +She was sobering herself by going over her different responsibilities, +checking them off on her fingers,--the two five-pound notes under her +pillow for extra expenses till they were united in New York to their +capital, the tickets, the passports, and Anna-Felicitas,--when two thick +fair pigtails appeared dangling over the edge of her berth, followed by +Anna-Felicitas's head. + +"You've forgotten to turn out the light," whispered Anna-Felicitas, her +eyelashes still wet from her late attack; and stretching her neck still +further down till her face was scarlet with the effort and the blood +rushing into it, she expressed a conviction to Anna-Rose that the human +freight behind the curtains, judging from the suspicious negativeness of +its behaviour, had no business in their cabin at all and was really +stowaways. + +"German stowaways," added Anna-Felicitas, nodding her head emphatically, +which was very skilful of her, thought Anna-Rose, considering that it +was upside down. "_German_ stowaways," whispered Anna-Felicitas, +sniffing expressively though cautiously. + +Anna-Rose raised herself on her elbows and stared across at the bulging +curtains. They certainly were very motionless and much curved. In spite +of herself her flesh began to creep a little. + +"They're men," whispered Anna-Felicitas, now dangerously congested. +"Stowaways are." + +There had been no one in the cabin when first they came on board and +took their things down, and they hadn't been in it since till they came +to bed. + +"_German_ men," whispered Anna-Felicitas, again with a delicate +expressive sniff. + +"Nonsense," whispered Anna-Rose, stoutly. "Men never come into ladies' +cabins. And there's skirts on the hooks." + +"Disguise," whispered Anna-Felicitas, nodding again. "Spies' disguise." +She seemed quite to be enjoying her own horrible suggestions. + +"Take your head back into the berth," ordered Anna-Rose quickly, for +Anna-Felicitas seemed to be on the very brink of an apoplectic fit. + +Anna-Felicitas, who was herself beginning to feel a little +inconvenienced, obeyed, and was thrilled to see Anna-Rose presently +very cautiously emerge from underneath her and on her bare feet creep +across to the opposite side. She knew her to be valiant to recklessness. +She sat up to watch, her eyes round with interest. + +Anna-Rose didn't go straight across, but proceeded slowly, with several +pauses, to direct her steps toward the pillow-end of the berths. Having +got there she stood still a moment listening, and then putting a careful +finger between the curtain of the lower berth and its frame, drew it the +smallest crack aside and peeped in. + +Instantly she started back, letting go the curtain. "I beg your pardon," +she said out loud, turning very red. "I--I thought--" + +Anna-Felicitas, attentive in her berth, felt a cold thrill rush down her +back. No sound came from the berth on the other side any more than +before the raid on it, and Anna-Rose returned quicker than she had gone. +She just stopped on the way to switch off the light, and then felt along +the edge of Anna-Felicitas's berth till she got to her head, and pulling +it near her by its left pigtail whispered with her mouth close to its +left ear, "Wide awake. Watching me all the time. Not a man. Fat." + +And she crawled into her berth feeling unnerved. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The lady in the opposite berth was German, and so was the lady in the +berth above her. Their husbands were American, but that didn't make them +less German. Nothing ever makes a German less German, Anna-Rose +explained to Anna-Felicitas. + +"Except," replied Anna-Felicitas, "a judicious dilution of their blood +by the right kind of mother." + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Only to be found in England." + +This conversation didn't take place till the afternoon of the next day, +by which time Anna-Felicitas already knew about the human freight being +Germans, for one of their own submarines came after the _St. Luke_ and +no one was quite so loud in expression of terror and dislike as the two +Germans. + +They demanded to be saved first, on the ground that they were Germans. +They repudiated their husbands, and said marriage was nothing compared +to how one had been born. The curtains of their berths, till then so +carefully closed, suddenly yawned open, and the berths gave up their +contents just as if, Anna-Felicitas remarked afterwards to Anna-Rose, it +was the resurrection and the berths were riven sepulchres chucking up +their dead. + +This happened at ten o'clock the next morning when the _St. Luke_ was +pitching about off the southwest coast of Ireland. The twins, waking +about seven, found with a pained surprise that they were not where they +had been dreaming they were, in the sunlit garden at home playing +tennis happily if a little violently, but in a chilly yet stuffy place +that kept on tilting itself upside down. They lay listening to the +groans coming from the opposite berths, and uneasily wondering how long +it would be before they too began to groan. Anna-Rose raised her head +once with the intention of asking if she could help at all, but dropped +it back again on to the pillow and shut her eyes tight and lay as quiet +as the ship would let her. Anna-Felicitas didn't even raise her head, +she felt so very uncomfortable. + +At eight o'clock the stewardess looked in--the same stewardess, they +languidly noted, with whom already they had had two encounters, for it +happened that this was one of the cabins she attended to--and said that +if anybody wanted breakfast they had better be quick or it would be +over. + +"Breakfast!" cried the top berth opposite in a heart-rending tone; and +instantly was sick. + +The stewardess withdrew her head and banged the door to, and the twins, +in their uneasy berths, carefully keeping their eyes shut so as not to +witness the behaviour of the sides and ceiling of the cabin, feebly +marvelled at the stewardess for suggesting being quick to persons who +were being constantly stood on their heads. And breakfast,--they +shuddered and thought of other things; of fresh, sweet air, and of the +scent of pinks and apricots warm with the sun. + +At ten o'clock the stewardess came in again, this time right in, and +with determination in every gesture. + +"Come, come," she said, addressing the twins, and through them talking +at the heaving and groaning occupants of the other side, "you mustn't +give way like this. What you want is to be out of bed. You must get up +and go on deck. And how's the cabin to get done if you stay in it all +the time?" + +Anna-Felicitas, the one particularly addressed, because she was more on +the right level for conversation than Anna-Rose, who could only see the +stewardess's apron, turned her head away and murmured that she didn't +care. + +"Come, come," said the stewardess. "Besides, there's life-boat drill at +mid-day, and you've got to be present." + +Anna-Felicitas, her eyes shut, again murmured that she didn't care. + +"Come, come," said the stewardess. "Orders are orders. Every soul on the +ship, sick or not, has got to be present at life-boat drill." + +"Oh, I'm not a soul," murmured Anna-Felicitas, who felt at that moment +how particularly she was a body, while the opposite berths redoubled +their groans. + +"Come, come--" said the stewardess. + +Then the _St. Luke_ whistled five times, and the stewardess turned pale. +For a brief space, before they understood what had happened, the twins +supposed she was going to be sick. But it wasn't that that was the +matter with her, for after a moment's staring at nothing with horror on +her face she pounced on them and pulled them bodily out of their berths, +regardless by which end, and threw them on the floor anyhow. Then she +plunged about and produced life-jackets; then she rushed down the +passage flinging open the doors of the other cabins; then she whirled +back again and tried to tie the twins into their life-jackets, but with +hands that shook so that the strings immediately came undone again; and +all the time she was calling out "Quick--quick--quick--" There was a +great tramping of feet on deck and cries and shouting. + +The curtains of the opposite berths yawned asunder and out came the +Germans, astonishingly cured of their sea-sickness, and struggled +vigorously into their life-jackets and then into fur coats, and had the +fur coats instantly pulled off again by a very energetic steward who ran +in and said fur coats in the water were death-traps,--a steward so much +bent on saving people that he began to pull off the other things the +German ladies had on as well, saying while he pulled, disregarding their +protests, that in the water Mother Nature was the best. "Mother +Nature--Mother Nature," said the steward, pulling; and he was only +stopped just in the nick of time by the stewardess rushing in again and +seeing what was happening to the helpless Germans. + +Anna-Rose, even at that moment explanatory, pointed out to +Anna-Felicitas, who had already grasped the fact, that no doubt there +was a submarine somewhere about. The German ladies, seizing their +valuables from beneath their pillows, in spite of the steward assuring +them they wouldn't want them in the water, demanded to be taken up and +somehow signalled to the submarine, which would never dare do anything +to a ship containing its own flesh and blood--and an American ship, +too--there must be some awful mistake--but anyhow they must be +saved--there would be terrible trouble, that they could assure the +steward and the twins and the scurrying passers-by down the passage, if +America allowed two Germans to be destroyed--and anyhow they would +insist on having their passage money refunded.... + +The German ladies departed down the passage, very incoherent and very +unhappy but no longer sick, and Anna-Felicitas, clinging to the edge of +her berth, feeling too miserable to mind about the submarine, feebly +wondered, while the steward tied her properly into her life-jacket, at +the cure effected in them. Anna-Rose seemed cured too, for she was +buttoning a coat round Anna-Felicitas's shoulders, and generally seemed +busy and brisk, ending by not even forgetting their precious little bag +of money and tickets and passports, and fastening it round her neck in +spite of the steward's assuring her that it would drag her down in the +water like a stone tied to a kitten. + +"You're a _very_ cheerful man, aren't you," Anna-Rose said, as he pushed +them out of the cabin and along the corridor, holding up Anna-Felicitas +on her feet, who seemed quite unable to run alone. + +The steward didn't answer, but caught hold of Anna-Felicitas at the foot +of the stairs and carried her up them, and then having got her on deck +propped her in a corner near the life-boat allotted to the set of cabins +they were in, and darted away and in a minute was back again with a big +coat which he wrapped round her. + +"May as well be comfortable till you do begin to drown," he said +briskly, "but mind you don't forget to throw it off, Missie, the minute +you feel the water." + +Anna-Felicitas slid down on to the deck, her head leaning against the +wall, her eyes shut, a picture of complete indifference to whatever +might be going to happen next. Her face was now as white as the frill of +the night-gown that straggled out from beneath her coat, for the journey +from the cabin to the deck had altogether finished her. Anna-Rose was +thankful that she felt too ill to be afraid. Her own heart was black +with despair,--despair that Anna-Felicitas, the dear and beautiful one, +should presently, at any moment, be thrown into that awful heaving +water, and certainly be hurt and frightened before she was choked out of +life. + +She sat down beside her, getting as close as possible to keep her warm. +Her own twin. Her own beloved twin. She took her cold hands and put them +away beneath the coat the steward had brought. She slid an arm round her +and laid her cheek against her sleeve, so that she should know somebody +was there, somebody who loved her. "What's the _good_ of it all--_why_ +were we born--" she wondered, staring at the hideous gray waves as +they swept up into sight over the side of the ship and away again as the +ship rose up, and at the wet deck and the torn sky, and the +miserable-looking passengers in their life-jackets collected together +round the life-boat. + +Nobody said anything except the German ladies. They, indeed, kept up a +constant wail. The others were silent, the men mostly smoking +cigarettes, the women holding their fluttering wraps about them, all of +them staring out to sea, watching for the track of the torpedo to +appear. One shot had been fired already and had missed. The ship was +zig-zagging under every ounce of steam she could lay on. An official +stood by the life-boat, which was ready with water in it and provisions. +That the submarine must be mad, as the official remarked, to fire on an +American ship, didn't console anybody, and his further assurance that +the matter would not be allowed to rest there left them cold. They felt +too sure that in all probability they themselves were going to rest +there, down underneath that repulsive icy water, after a struggle that +was going to be unpleasant. + +The man who had roused Anna-Rose's indignation as the ship left the +landing-stage by looking as though he were soon going to be sorry for +her, came across from the first class, where his life-boat was, to watch +for the track of the expected torpedo, and caught sight of the twins +huddled in their corner. + +Anna-Rose didn't see him, for she was staring with wide eyes out at the +desolate welter of water and cloud, and thinking of home: the home that +was, that used to be till such a little while ago, the home that now +seemed to have been so amazingly, so unbelievably beautiful and blest, +with its daily life of love and laughter and of easy confidence that +to-morrow was going to be just as good. Happiness had been the ordinary +condition there, a simple matter of course. Its place was taken now by +courage. Anna-Rose felt sick at all this courage there was about. There +should be no occasion for it. There should be no horrors to face, no +cruelties to endure. Why couldn't brotherly love continue? Why must +people get killing each other? She, for her part, would be behind nobody +in courage and in the defying of a Fate that could behave, as she felt, +so very unlike her idea of anything even remotely decent; but it +oughtn't to be necessary, this constant condition of screwed-upness; it +was waste of effort, waste of time, waste of life,--oh the _stupidity_ +of it all, she thought, rebellious and bewildered. + +"Have some brandy," said the man, pouring out a little into a small cup. + +Anna-Rose turned her eyes on him without moving the rest of her. She +recognized him. He was going to be sorry for them again. He had much +better be sorry for himself now, she thought, because he, just as much +as they were, was bound for a watery bier. + +"Thank you," she said distantly, for not only did she hate the smell of +brandy but Aunt Alice had enjoined her with peculiar strictness on no +account to talk to strange men, "I don't drink." + +"Then I'll give the other one some," said the man. + +"She too," said Anna-Rose, not changing her position but keeping a +drearily watchful eye on him, "is a total abstainer." + +"Well, I'll go and fetch some of your warm things for you. Tell me where +your cabin is. You haven't got enough on." + +"Thank you," said Anna-Rose distantly, "we have quite enough on, +considering the occasion. We're dressed for drowning." + +The man laughed, and said there would be no drowning, and that they had +a splendid captain, and were outdistancing the submarine hand over fist. +Anna-Rose didn't believe him, and suspected him of supposing her to be +in need of cheering, but a gleam of comfort did in spite of herself +steal into her heart. + +He went away, and presently came back with a blanket and some pillows. + +"If you _will_ sit on the floor," he said, stuffing the pillows behind +their backs, during which Anna-Felicitas didn't open her eyes, and her +head hung about so limply that it looked as if it might at any moment +roll off, "you may at least be as comfortable as you can." + +Anna-Rose pointed out, while she helped him arrange Anna-Felicitas's +indifferent head on the pillow, that she saw little use in being +comfortable just a minute or two before drowning. "Drowning be hanged," +said the man. + +"That's how Uncle Arthur used to talk," said Anna-Rose, feeling suddenly +quite at home, "except that _he_ would have said 'Drowning be damned.'" + +The man laughed. "Is he dead?" he asked, busy with Anna-Felicitas's +head, which defied their united efforts to make it hold itself up. + +"Dead?" echoed Anna-Rose, to whom the idea of Uncle Arthur's ever being +anything so quiet as dead and not able to say any swear words for such a +long time as eternity seemed very odd. + +"You said he _used_ to talk like that." + +"Oh, no he's not dead at all. Quite the contrary." + +The man laughed again, and having got Anna-Felicitas's head arranged in +a position that at least, as Anna-Rose pointed out, had some sort of +self-respect in it, he asked who they were with. + +Anna-Rose looked at him with as much defiant independence as she could +manage to somebody who was putting a pillow behind her back. He was +going to be sorry for them. She saw it coming. He was going to say "You +poor things," or words to that effect. That's what the people round +Uncle Arthur's had said to them. That's what everybody had said to them +since the war began, and Aunt Alice's friends had said it to her too, +because she had to have her nieces live with her, and no doubt Uncle +Arthur's friends who played golf with him had said it to him as well, +except that probably they put in a damn so as to make it clearer for him +and said "You poor damned thing," or something like that, and she was +sick of the very words poor things. Poor things, indeed! "We're with +each other," she said briefly, lifting her chin. + +"Well, I don't think that's enough," said the man. "Not half enough. +You ought to have a mother or something." + +"_Everybody_ can't have mothers," said Anna-Rose very defiantly indeed, +tears rushing into her eyes. + +The man tucked the blanket round their resistless legs. "There now," he +said. "That's better. What's the good of catching your deaths?" + +Anna-Rose, glad that he hadn't gone on about mothers, said that with +so much death imminent, catching any of it no longer seemed to her +particularly to matter, and the man laughed and pulled over a chair +and sat down beside her. + +She didn't know what he saw anywhere in that dreadful situation to laugh +at, but just the sound of a laugh was extraordinarily comforting. It +made one feel quite different. Wholesome again. Like waking up to +sunshine and one's morning bath and breakfast after a nightmare. He +seemed altogether a very comforting man. She liked him to sit near them. +She hoped he was a good man. Aunt Alice had said there were very few +good men, hardly any in fact except one's husband, but this one did seem +one of the few exceptions. And she thought that by now, he having +brought them all those pillows, he could no longer come under the +heading of strange men. When he wasn't looking she put out her hand +secretly and touched his coat where he wouldn't feel it. It comforted +her to touch his coat. She hoped Aunt Alice wouldn't have disapproved of +seeing her sitting side by side with him and liking it. + +Aunt Alice had been, as her custom was, vague, when Anna-Rose, having +given her the desired promise not to talk or let Anna-Felicitas talk to +strange men, and desiring to collect any available information for her +guidance in her new responsible position had asked, "But when are men +_not_ strange?" + +"When you've married them," said Aunt Alice. "After that, of course, you +love them." + +And she sighed heavily, for it was bed-time. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Nothing more was seen of the submarine. + +The German ladies were certain the captain had somehow let them know he +had them on board, and were as full of the credit of having saved the +ship as if it had been Sodom and Gomorrah instead of a ship, and they +the one just man whose presence would have saved those cities if he had +been in them; and the American passengers were equally sure that the +submarine, on thinking it over, had decided that President Wilson was +not a man to be trifled with, and had gone in search of some prey which +would not have the might and majesty of America at its back. + +As the day went on, and the _St. Luke_ left off zig-zagging, the relief +of those on board was the relief of a reprieve from death. Almost +everybody was cured of sea-sickness, and quite everybody was ready to +overwhelm his neighbour with cordiality and benevolence. Rich people +didn't mind poor people, and came along from the first class and talked +to them just as if they had been the same flesh and blood as themselves. +A billionairess native to Chicago, who had crossed the Atlantic forty +times without speaking to a soul, an achievement she was as justly proud +of as an artist is of his best creations, actually asked somebody in a +dingy mackintosh, whose little boy still looked pale, if he had been +frightened; and an exclusive young man from Boston talked quite a long +while to an English lady without first having made sure that she was +well-connected. What could have been more like heaven? The tone on the +_St. Luke_ that day was very like what the tone in the kingdom of heaven +must be in its simple politeness. "And so you see," said Anna-Rose, who +was fond of philosophizing in season and out of season, and particularly +out of season, "how good comes out of evil." + +She made this observation about four o'clock in the afternoon to +Anna-Felicitas in an interval of absence on the part of Mr. Twist--such, +the amiable stranger had told them, was his name--who had gone to see +about tea being brought up to them; and Anna-Felicitas, able by now to +sit up and take notice, the hours of fresh air having done their work, +smiled the ready, watery, foolishly happy smile of the convalescent. It +was so nice not to feel ill; it was so nice not to have to be saved. If +she had been able to talk much, she would have philosophized too, about +the number and size of one's negative blessings--all the things one +hasn't got, all the very horrid things; why, there's no end to them once +you begin to count up, she thought, waterily happy, and yet people +grumble. + +Anna-Felicitas was in that cleaned-out, beatific, convalescent mood in +which one is sure one will never grumble again. She smiled at anybody +who happened to pass by and catch her eye. She would have smiled just +like that, with just that friendly, boneless familiarity at the devil if +he had appeared, or even at Uncle Arthur himself. + +The twins, as a result of the submarine's activities, were having the +pleasantest day they had had for months. It was the realization of this +that caused Anna-Rose's remark about good coming out of evil. The +background, she could not but perceive, was a very odd one for their +pleasantest day for months--a rolling steamer and a cold wind flicking +at them round the corner; but backgrounds, she pointed out to +Anna-Felicitas, who smiled her agreement broadly and instantly, are +negligible things: it is what goes on in front of them that matters. Of +what earthly use, for instance, had been those splendid summer +afternoons in the perfect woods and gardens that so beautifully framed +in Uncle Arthur? + +No use, agreed Anna-Felicitas, smiling fatuously. + +In the middle of them was Uncle Arthur. You always got to him in the +end. + +Anna-Felicitas nodded and shook her head and was all feeble agreement. + +She and Anna-Felicitas had been more hopelessly miserable, Anna-Rose +remarked, wandering about the loveliness that belonged to him than they +could ever have dreamed was possible. She reminded Anna-Felicitas how +they used to rub their eyes to try and see more clearly, for surely +these means of happiness, these elaborate arrangements for it all round +them, couldn't be for nothing? There must be some of it somewhere, if +only they could discover where? And there was none. Not a trace of it. +Not even the faintest little swish of its skirts. + +Anna-Rose left off talking, and became lost in memories. For a long +time, she remembered, she had told herself it was her mother's death +blotting the light out of life, but one day Anna-Felicitas said aloud +that it was Uncle Arthur, and Anna-Rose knew it was true. Their mother's +death was something so tender, so beautiful, that terrible as it was to +them to be left without her they yet felt raised up by it somehow, +raised on to a higher level than where they had been before, closer in +their hearts to real things, to real values. But Uncle Arthur came into +possession of their lives as a consequence of that death, and he had +towered up between them and every glimpse of the sun. Suddenly there was +no such thing as freedom and laughter. Suddenly everything one said and +did was wrong. "And you needn't think," Anna-Felicitas had said wisely, +"that he's like that because we're Germans--or _seem_ to be Germans," +she amended. "It's because he's Uncle Arthur. Look at Aunt Alice. +_She's_ not a German. And yet look at her." + +And Anna-Rose had looked at Aunt Alice, though only in her mind's eye, +for at that moment the twins were three miles away in a wood picnicking, +and Aunt Alice was at home recovering from a _tête-à-tête_ luncheon with +Uncle Arthur who hadn't said a word from start to finish; and though she +didn't like most of his words when he did say them, she liked them still +less when he didn't say them, for then she imagined them, and what she +imagined was simply awful,--Anna-Rose had, I say, looked at Aunt Alice +in her mind's eye, and knew that this too was true. + +Mr. Twist reappeared, followed by the brisk steward with a tray of tea +and cake, and their corner became very like a cheerful picnic. + +Mr. Twist was most pleasant and polite. Anna-Rose had told him quite +soon after he began to talk to her, in order, as she said, to clear his +mind of misconceptions, that she and Anna-Felicitas, though their +clothes at that moment, and the pigtails in which their flair was done, +might be misleading, were no longer children, but quite the contrary; +that they were, in fact, persons who were almost ripe for going to +dances, and certainly in another year would be perfectly ripe for dances +supposing there were any. + +Mr. Twist listened attentively, and begged her to tell him any other +little thing she might think of as useful to him in his capacity of +friend and attendant,--both of which, said Mr. Twist, he intended to be +till he had seen them safely landed in New York. + +"I hope you don't think we _need_ anybody," said Anna-Rose. "We shall +like being friends with you very much, but only on terms of perfect +equality." + +"Sure," said Mr. Twist, who was an American. + +"I thought--" + +She hesitated a moment. + +"You thought?" encouraged Mr. Twist politely. + +"I thought at Liverpool you looked as if you were being sorry for us." + +"Sorry?" said Mr. Twist, in the tone of one who repudiates. + +"Yes. When we were waving good-bye to--to our friends." + +"Sorry?" repeated Mr. Twist. + +"Which was great waste of your time." + +"I should think so," said Mr. Twist with heartiness. + +Anna-Rose, having cleared the ground of misunderstandings, an activity +in which at all times she took pleasure, accepted Mr. Twist's attentions +in the spirit in which they were offered, which was, as he said, one of +mutual friendliness and esteem. As he was never sea-sick, he could move +about and do things for them that might be difficult to do for +themselves; as he knew a great deal about stewardesses, he could tell +them what sort of tip theirs expected; as he was American, he could +illuminate them about that country. He had been doing Red Cross work +with an American ambulance in France for ten months, and was going home +for a short visit to see how his mother, who, Anna-Rose gathered, was +ancient and widowed, was getting on. His mother, he said, lived in +seclusion in a New England village with his sister, who had not married. + +"Then she's got it all before her," said Anna-Rose. + +"Like us," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"I shouldn't think she'd got as much of it before her as you," said Mr. +Twist, "because she's considerably more grown up--I mean," he added +hastily, as Anna-Rose's mouth opened, "she's less--well, less completely +young." + +"We're not completely young," said Anna-Rose with dignity. "People are +completely young the day they're born, and ever after that they spend +their time becoming less so." + +"Exactly. And my sister has been becoming less so longer than you have. +I assure you that's all I meant. She's less so even than I am." + +"Then," said Anna-Rose, glancing at that part of Mr. Twist's head where +it appeared to be coming through his hair, "she must have got to the +stage when one is called a maiden lady." + +"And if she were a German," said Anna-Felicitas suddenly, who hadn't +till then said anything to Mr. Twist but only smiled widely at him +whenever he happened to look her way, "she wouldn't be either a lady or +a maiden, but just an It. It's very rude of Germans, I think," went on +Anna-Felicitas, abstractedly smiling at the cake Mr. Twist was offering +her, "never to let us be anything but Its till we've taken on some men." + +Mr. Twist expressed surprise at this way of describing marriage, and +inquired of Anna-Felicitas what she knew about Germans. + +"The moment you leave off being sea-sick, Anna-F.," said Anna-Rose, +turning to her severely, "you start being indiscreet. Well, I suppose," +she added with a sigh to Mr. Twist, "you'd have had to know sooner or +later. Our name is Twinkler." + +She watched him to see the effect of this, and Mr. Twist, perceiving he +was expected to say something, said that he didn't mind that anyhow, and +that he could bear something worse in the way of revelations. + +"Does it convey nothing to you?" asked Anna-Rose, astonished, for in +Germany the name of Twinkler was a mighty name, and even in England it +was well known. + +Mr. Twist shook his head. "Only that it sounds cheerful," he said. + +Anna-Rose watched his face. "It isn't only Twinkler," she said, speaking +very distinctly. "It's _von_ Twinkler." + +"That's German," said Mr. Twist; but his face remained serene. + +"Yes. And so are we. That is, we would be if it didn't happen that we +weren't." + +"I don't think I quite follow," said Mr. Twist. + +"It _is_ very difficult," agreed Anna-Rose. "You see, we used to have a +German father." + +"But only because our mother married him," explained Anna-Felicitas. +"Else we wouldn't have." + +"And though she only did it once," said Anna-Rose, "ages ago, it has +dogged our footsteps ever since." + +"It's very surprising," mused Anna-Felicitas, "what marrying anybody +does. You go into a church, and before you know where you are, you're +all tangled up with posterity." + +"And much worse than that," said Anna-Rose, staring wide-eyed at her own +past experiences, "posterity's all tangled up with you. It's really +simply awful sometimes for posterity. Look at us." + +"If there hadn't been a war we'd have been all right," said +Anna-Felicitas. "But directly there's a war, whoever it is you've +married, if it isn't one of your own countrymen, rises up against you, +just as if he were too many meringues you'd had for dinner." + +"Living or dead," said Anna-Rose, nodding, "he rises up against you." + +"Till the war we never thought at all about it," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Either one way or the other," said Anna-Rose. + +"We never used to bother about what we were," said Anna-Felicitas. "We +were just human beings, and so was everybody else just human beings." + +"We didn't mind a bit about being Germans, or about other people not +being Germans." + +"But you mustn't think we mind now either," said Anna-Felicitas, +"because, you see, we're not." + +Mr. Twist looked at them in turn. His ears were a little prominent and +pointed, and they gave him rather the air, when he put his head on one +side and looked at them, of an attentive fox-terrier. "I don't think I +quite follow," he said again. + +"It _is_ very difficult," agreed Anna-Rose. + +"It's because you've got into your head that we're German because of our +father," said Anna-Felicitas. "But what's a father, when all's said and +done?" + +"Well," said Mr. Twist, "one has to have him." + +"But having got him he isn't anything like as important as a mother," +said Anna-Rose. + +"One hardly sees one's father," said Anna-Felicitas. "He's always busy. +He's always thinking of something else." + +"Except when he looks at one and tells one to sit up straight," said +Anna-Rose pointedly to Anna-Felicitas, whose habit of drooping still +persisted in spite of her father's admonishments. + +"Of course he's very kind and benevolent when he happens to remember +that one is there," said Anna-Felicitas, sitting up beautifully for a +moment, "but that's about everything." + +"And of course," said Anna-Rose, "one's father's intentions are +perfectly sound and good, but his attention seems to wander. Whereas +one's mother--" + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas, "one's mother--" + +They broke off and looked straight in front of them. It didn't bear +speaking of. It didn't bear thinking of. + +Suddenly Anna-Felicitas, weak from excessive sea-sickness, began to cry. +The tears just slopped over as though no resistance of any sort were +possible. + +Anna-Rose stared at her a moment horror-struck. "Look here, Anna-F.," +she exclaimed, wrath in her voice, "I won't _have_ you be sentimental--I +won't _have_ you be sentimental...." + +And then she too began to cry. + +Well, once having hopelessly disgraced and exposed themselves, there was +nothing for it but to take Mr. Twist into their uttermost confidence. It +was dreadful. It was awful. Before that strange man. A person they +hardly knew. Other strangers passing. Exposing their feelings. Showing +their innermost miserable places. + +They writhed and struggled in their efforts to stop, to pretend they +weren't crying, that it was really nothing but just tears,--odd ones +left over from last time, which was years and years ago,--"But _really_ +years and years ago," sobbed Anna-Rose, anxiously explaining,--"the +years one falls down on garden paths in, and cuts one's knees, and +one's mother--one's mother--c-c-c-comforts one--" + +"See here," said Mr. Twist, interrupting these incoherences, and pulling +out a beautiful clean pocket-handkerchief which hadn't even been +unfolded yet, "you've got to tell me all about it right away." + +And he shook out the handkerchief, and with the first-aid promptness his +Red Cross experience had taught him, started competently wiping up their +faces. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +There was that about Mr. Twist which, once one had begun them, +encouraged confidences; something kind about his eyes, something not too +determined about his chin. He bore no resemblance to those pictures of +efficient Americans in advertisements with which Europe is +familiar,--eagle-faced gentlemen with intimidatingly firm mouths and +chins, wiry creatures, physically and mentally perfect, offering in +capital letters to make you Just Like Them. Mr. Twist was the reverse of +eagle-faced. He was also the reverse of good-looking; that is, he would +have been very handsome indeed, as Anna-Rose remarked several days later +to Anna-Felicitas, when the friendship had become a settled +thing,--which indeed it did as soon as Mr. Twist had finished wiping +their eyes and noses that first afternoon, it being impossible, they +discovered, to have one's eyes and noses wiped by somebody without being +friends afterwards (for such an activity, said Anna-Felicitas, belonged +to the same order of events as rescue from fire, lions, or drowning, +after which in books you married him; but this having only been wiping, +said Anna-Rose, the case was adequately met by friendship)--he would +have been very handsome indeed if he hadn't had a face. + +"But you have to _have_ a face," said Anna-Felicitas, who didn't think +it much mattered what sort it was so long as you could eat with it and +see out of it. + +"And as long as one is as kind as Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose; but +secretly she thought that having been begun so successfully at his feet, +and carried upwards with such grace of long limbs and happy proportions, +he might as well have gone on equally felicitously for the last little +bit. + +"I expect God got tired of him over that last bit," she mused, "and just +put on any sort of head." + +"Yes--that happened to be lying about," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "In a +hurry to get done with him." + +"Anyway he's very kind," said Anna-Rose, a slight touch of defiance in +her voice. + +"Oh, _very_ kind," agreed Anna-Felicitas. + +"And it doesn't matter about faces for being kind," said Anna-Rose. + +"Not in the least," agreed Anna-Felicitas. + +"And if it hadn't been for the submarine we shouldn't have got to know +him. So you see," said Anna-Rose,--and again produced her favourite +remark about good coming out of evil. + +Those were the days in mid-Atlantic when England was lost in its own +peculiar mists, and the sunshine of America was stretching out towards +them. The sea was getting calmer and bluer every hour, and submarines +more and more unlikely. If a ship could be pleasant, which +Anna-Felicitas doubted, for she still found difficulty in dressing and +undressing without being sea-sick and was unpopular in the cabin, this +ship was pleasant. You lay in a deck-chair all day long, staring at the +blue sky and blue sea that enclosed you as if you were living in the +middle of a jewel, and tried not to remember--oh, there were heaps of +things it was best not to remember; and when the rail of the ship moved +up across the horizon too far into the sky, or moved down across it and +showed too much water, you just shut your eyes and then it didn't +matter; and the sun shone warm and steady on your face, and the wind +tickled the tassel on the top of your German-knitted cap, and Mr. Twist +came and read aloud to you, which sent you to sleep quicker than +anything you had ever known. + +The book he read out of and carried about with him his pocket was called +"Masterpieces You Must Master," and was an American collection of +English poetry, professing in its preface to be a Short Cut to Culture; +and he would read with what at that time, it being new to them, seemed +to the twins a strange exotic pronunciation, Wordsworth's "Ode to +Dooty," and the effect was as if someone should dig a majestic Gregorian +psalm in its ribs, and make it leap and giggle. + +Anna-Rose, who had no reason to shut her eyes, for she didn't mind what +the ship's rail did with the horizon, opened them very round when first +Mr. Twist started on his Masterpieces. She was used to hearing them read +by her mother in the adorable husky voice that sent such thrills through +one, but she listened with the courtesy and final gratitude due to the +efforts to entertain her of so amiable a friend, and only the roundness +of her eyes showed her astonishment at this waltzing round, as it +appeared to her, of Mr. Twist with the Stern Daughter of the Voice of +God. He also read "Lycidas" to her, that same "Lycidas" Uncle Arthur +took for a Derby winner, and only Anna-Rose's politeness enabled her to +refrain from stopping up her ears. As it was, she fidgeted to the point +of having to explain, on Mr. Twist's pausing to gaze at her +questioningly through the smoke-coloured spectacles he wore on deck, +which made him look so like a gigantic dragon-fly, that it was because +her deck-chair was so very much harder than she was. + +Anna-Felicitas, who considered that, if these things were short-cuts to +anywhere, seeing she knew them all by heart she must have long ago got +there, snoozed complacently. Sometimes for a few moments she would drop +off really to sleep, and then her mouth would fall open, which worried +Anna-Rose, who couldn't bear her to look even for a moment less +beautiful than she knew she was, so that she fidgeted more than ever, +unable, pinned down by politeness and the culture being administered, to +make her shut her mouth and look beautiful again by taking and shaking +her. Also Anna-Felicitas had a trick of waking up suddenly and +forgetting to be polite, as one does when first one wakes up and hasn't +had time to remember one is a lady. "To-morrow to fresh woods and +pastures noo," Mr. Twist would finish, for instance, with a sort of gulp +of satisfaction at having swallowed yet another solid slab of culture; +and Anna-Felicitas, returning suddenly to consciousness, would murmur, +with her eyes still shut and her head lolling limply, things like, +"After all, it _does_ rhyme with blue. I wonder why, then, one still +doesn't like it." + +Then Mr. Twist would turn his spectacles towards her in mild inquiry, +and Anna-Rose, as always, would rush in and elaborately explain what +Anna-Felicitas meant, which was so remote from anything resembling what +she had said that Mr. Twist looked more mildly inquiring than ever. + +Usually Anna-Felicitas didn't contradict Anna-Rose, being too sleepy or +too lazy, but sometimes she did, and then Anna-Rose got angry, and would +get what the Germans call a red head and look at Anna-Felicitas very +severely and say things, and Mr. Twist would close his book and watch +with that alert, cocked-up-ear look of a sympathetic and highly +interested terrier; but sooner or later the ship would always give a +roll, and Anna-Felicitas would shut her eyes and fade to paleness and +become the helpless bundle of sickness that nobody could possibly go on +being severe with. + +The passengers in the second class were more generally friendly than +those in the first class. The first class sorted itself out into little +groups, and whispered about each other, as Anna-Rose observed, watching +their movements across the rope that separated her from them. The second +class remained to the end one big group, frayed out just a little at the +edge in one or two places. + +The chief fraying out was where the Twinkler kids, as the second-class +young men, who knew no better, dared to call them, interrupted the +circle by talking apart with Mr. Twist. Mr. Twist had no business there. +He was a plutocrat of the first class; but in spite of the regulations +which cut off the classes from communicating, with a view apparently to +the continued sanitariness of the first class, the implication being +that the second class was easily infectious and probably overrun, there +he was every day and several times in every day. He must have heavily +squared the officials, the second-class young men thought until the day +when Mr. Twist let it somehow be understood that he had known the +Twinkler young ladies for years, dandled them in their not very remote +infancy on his already full-grown knee, and had been specially appointed +to look after them on this journey. + +Mr. Twist did not specify who had appointed him, except to the Twinkler +young ladies themselves, and to them he announced that it was no less a +thing, being, or creature, than Providence. The second-class young men, +therefore, in spite of their rising spirits as danger lay further +behind, and their increasing tendency, peculiar to those who go on +ships, to become affectionate, found themselves no further on in +acquaintance with the Misses Twinkler the last day of the voyage than +they had been the first. Not that, under any other conditions, they +would have so much as noticed the existence of the Twinkler kids. In +their blue caps, pulled down tight to their eyebrows and hiding every +trace of hair, they looked like bald babies. They never came to meals; +their assiduous guardian, or whatever he was, feeding them on deck with +the care of a mother-bird for its fledglings, so that nobody except the +two German ladies in their cabin had seen them without the caps. The +young men put them down as half-grown only, somewhere about fourteen +they thought, and nothing but what, if they were boys instead of girls, +would have been called louts. + +Still, a ship is a ship, and it is wonderful what can be managed in the +way of dalliance if one is shut up on one long enough; and the Misses +Twinkler, in spite of their loutishness, their apparent baldness, and +their constant round-eyed solemnity, would no doubt have been the +objects of advances before New York was reached if it hadn't been for +Mr. Twist. There wasn't a girl under forty in the second class on that +voyage, the young men resentfully pointed out to each other, except +these two kids who were too much under it, and a young lady of thirty +who sat manicuring her nails most of the day with her back supported by +a life-boat, and polishing them with red stuff till they flashed rosily +in the sun. This young lady was avoided for the first two days, while +the young men still remembered their mothers, because of what she looked +like; but was greatly loved for the rest of the voyage precisely for +that reason. + +Still, every one couldn't get near her. She was only one; and there +were at least a dozen active, cooped-up young men taking lithe, +imprisoned exercise in long, swift steps up and down the deck, ready for +any sort of enterprise, bursting with energy and sea-air and spirits. So +that at last the left-overs, those of the young men the lady of the rosy +nails was less kind to, actually in their despair attempted ghastly +flirtations with the two German ladies. They approached them with a kind +of angry amorousness. They tucked them up roughly in rugs. They brought +them cushions as though they were curses. And it was through this +_rapprochement_, in the icy warmth of which the German ladies expanded +like bulky flowers and grew at least ten years younger, the ten years +they shed being their most respectable ones, that the ship became aware +of the nationality of the Misses Twinkler. + +The German ladies were not really German, as they explained directly +there were no more submarines about, for a good woman, they said, +becomes automatically merged into her husband, and they, therefore, were +merged into Americans, both of them, and as loyal as you could find, but +the Twinklers were the real thing, they said,--real, unadulterated, +arrogant Junkers, which is why they wouldn't talk to anybody; for no +Junker, said the German ladies, thinks anybody good enough to be talked +to except another Junker. The German ladies themselves had by sheer luck +not been born Junkers. They had missed it very narrowly, but they had +missed it, for which they were very thankful seeing what believers they +were, under the affectionate manipulation of their husbands, in +democracy; but they came from the part of Germany where Junkers most +abound, and knew the sort of thing well. + +It seemed to Mr. Twist, who caught scraps of conversation as he came +and went, that in the cabin the Twinklers must have alienated sympathy. +They had. They had done more; they had got themselves actively disliked. + +From the first moment when Anna-Rose had dared to peep into their +shrouded bunks the ladies had been prejudiced, and this prejudice had +later flared up into a great and justified dislike. The ladies, to begin +with, hadn't known that they were von Twinklers, but had supposed them +mere Twinklers, and the von, as every German knows, makes all the +difference, especially in the case of Twinklers, who, without it, were a +race, the ladies knew, of small shopkeepers, laundresses and postmen in +the Westphalian district, but with it were one of the oldest families in +Prussia; known to all Germans; possessed of a name ensuring subservience +wherever it went. + +In this stage of preliminary ignorance the ladies had treated the two +apparently ordinary Twinklers with the severity their conduct, age, and +obvious want of means deserved; and when, goaded by their questionings, +the smaller and more active Twinkler had let out her von at them much as +one lets loose a dog when one is alone and weak against the attacks of +an enemy, instead of falling in harmoniously with the natural change of +attitude of the ladies, which became immediately perfectly polite and +conciliatory, as well as motherly in its interest and curiosity, the two +young Junkers went dumb. They would have nothing to do with the most +motherly questioning. And just in proportion as the German ladies found +themselves full of eager milk of kindness, only asking to be permitted +to nourish, so did they find themselves subsequently, after a day or +two of such uncloaked repugnance to it, left with quantities of it +useless on their hands and all going sour. + +From first to last the Twinklers annoyed them. As plain Twinklers they +had been tiresome in a hundred ways in the cabin, and as von Twinklers +they were intolerable in their high-nosed indifference. + +It had naturally been expected by the elder ladies at the beginning of +the journey, that two obscure Twinklers of such manifest youth should +rise politely and considerately each morning very early, and get +themselves dressed and out of the way in at the most ten minutes, +leaving the cabin clear for the slow and careful putting together bit by +bit of that which ultimately emerged a perfect specimen of a lady of +riper years, but the weedy Twinkler insisted on lying in her berth so +late that if the ladies wished to be in time for the best parts of +breakfast, which they naturally and passionately did wish, they were +forced to dress in her presence, which was most annoying and awkward. + +It is true she lay with closed eyes, apparently apathetic, but you never +know with persons of that age. Experience teaches not to trust them. +They shut their eyes, and yet seem, later on, to have seen; they +apparently sleep, and afterwards are heard asking their spectacled +American friend what people do on a ship, a place of so much gustiness, +if their hair gets blown off into the sea. Also the weedy one had a most +tiresome trick of being sick instantly every time Odol was used, or a +little brandy was drunk. Odol is most refreshing; it has a lovely smell, +without which no German bedroom is complete. And the brandy was not +common schnaps, but an old expensive brandy that, regarded as a smell, +was a credit to anybody's cabin. + +The German ladies would have persisted, and indeed did persist in using +Odol and drinking a little brandy, indifferent to the feeble prayer from +the upper berth which floated down entreating them not to, but in their +own interests they were forced to give it up. The objectionable child +did not pray a second time; she passed immediately from prayer to +performance. Of two disagreeables wise women choose the lesser, but they +remain resentful. + +The other Twinkler, the small active one, did get up early and take +herself off, but she frequently mixed up her own articles of toilet with +those belonging to the ladies, and would pin up her hair, preparatory to +washing her face, with their hairpins. + +When they discovered this they hid them, and she, not finding any, +having come to the end of her own, lost no time in irresolution but +picked up their nail-scissors and pinned up her pigtails with that. + +It was a particularly sacred pair of nail-scissors that almost +everything blunted. To use them for anything but nails was an outrage, +but the grossest outrage was to touch them at all. When they told her +sharply that the scissors were very delicate and she was instantly to +take them out of her hair, she tugged them out in a silence that was +itself impertinent, and pinned up her pigtails with their buttonhook +instead. + +Then they raised themselves on their elbows in their berths and asked +her what sort of a bringing up she could have had, and they raised their +voices as well, for though they were grateful, as they later on +declared, for not having been born Junkers, they had nevertheless +acquired by practice in imitation some of the more salient Junker +characteristics. + +"You are _salop_," said the upper berth lady,--which is untranslatable, +not on grounds of propriety but of idiom. It is not, however, a term of +praise. + +"Yes, that is what you are--_salop_," echoed the lower berth lady. "And +your sister is _salop_ too--lying in bed till all hours." + +"It is shameful for girls to be _salop_," said the upper berth. + +"I didn't know it was your buttonhook. I thought it was ours," said +Anna-Rose, pulling this out too with vehemence. + +"That is because you are _salop_," said the lower berth. + +"And I didn't know it wasn't our scissors either." + +"_Salop, salop_," said the lower berth, beating her hand on the wooden +edge of her bunk. + +"And--and I'm sorry." + +Anna-Rose's face was very red. She didn't look sorry, she looked angry. +And so she was; but it was with herself, for having failed in +discernment and grown-upness. She ought to have noticed that the +scissors and buttonhook were not hers. She had pounced on them with the +ill-considered haste of twelve years old. She hadn't been a lady,--she +whose business it was to be an example and mainstay to Anna-Felicitas, +in all things going first, showing her the way. + +She picked up the sponge and plunged it into the water, and was just +going to plunge her annoyed and heated face in after it when the upper +berth lady said: "Your mother should be ashamed of herself to have +brought you up so badly." + +"And send you off like this before she has taught you even the ABC of +manners," said the lower berth. + +"Evidently," said the upper berth, "she can have none herself." + +"Evidently," said the lower berth, "she is herself _salop_." + +The sponge, dripping with water, came quickly out of the basin in +Anna-Rose's clenched fist. For one awful instant she stood there in her +nightgown, like some bird of judgment poised for dreadful flight, her +eyes flaming, her knotted pigtails bristling on the top of her head. + +The wet sponge twitched in her hand. The ladies did not realize the +significance of that twitching, and continued to offer large angry faces +as a target. One of the faces would certainly have received the sponge +and Anna-Rose have been disgraced for ever, if it hadn't been for the +prompt and skilful intervention of Anna-Felicitas. + +For Anna-Felicitas, roused from her morning languor by the unusual +loudness of the German ladies' voices, and smitten into attention and +opening of her eyes, heard the awful things they were saying and saw the +sponge. Instantly she knew, seeing it was Anna-Rose who held it, where +it would be in another second, and hastily putting out a shaking little +hand from her top berth, caught hold feebly but obstinately of the +upright ends of Anna-Rose's knotted pigtails. + +"I'm going to be sick," she announced with great presence of mind and +entire absence of candour. + +She knew, however, that she only had to sit up in order to be sick, and +the excellent child--_das gute Kind_, as her father used to call her +because she, so conveniently from the parental point of view, invariably +never wanted to be or do anything particularly--without hesitation +sacrificed herself in order to save her sister's honour, and sat up and +immediately was. + +By the time Anna-Rose had done attending to her, all fury had died out. +She never could see Anna Felicitas lying back pale and exhausted after +one of these attacks without forgiving her and everybody else +everything. + +She climbed up on the wooden steps to smoothe her pillow and tuck her +blanket round her, and when Anna-Felicitas, her eyes shut, murmured, +"Christopher--don't mind _them_--" and she suddenly realized, for they +never called each other by those names except in great moments of +emotion when it was necessary to cheer and encourage, what +Anna-Felicitas had saved her from, and that it had been done +deliberately, she could only whisper back, because she was so afraid of +crying, "No, no, Columbus dear--of course--who really cares about +_them_--" and came down off the steps with no fight left in her. + +Also the wrath of the ladies was considerably assuaged. They had +retreated behind their curtains until the so terribly unsettled Twinkler +should be quiet again, and when once more they drew them a crack apart +in order to keep an eye on what the other one might be going to do next +and saw her doing nothing except, with meekness, getting dressed, they +merely inquired what part of Westphalia she came from, and only in the +tone they asked it did they convey that whatever part it was, it was +anyhow a contemptible one. + +"We don't come from Westphalia," said Anna-Rose, bristling a little, in +spite of herself, at their persistent baiting. + +Anna-Felicitas listened in cold anxiousness. She didn't want to have to +be sick again. She doubted whether she could bear it. + +"You must come from somewhere," said the lower berth, "and being a +Twinkler it must be Westphalia." + +"We don't really," said Anna-Rose, mindful of Anna-Felicitas's words +and making a great effort to speak politely. "We come from England." + +"England!" cried the lower berth, annoyed by this quibbling. "You were +born in Westphalia. All Twinklers are born in Westphalia." + +"Invariably they are," said the upper berth. "The only circumstance that +stops them is if their mothers happen to be temporarily absent." + +"But we weren't, really," said Anna-Rose, continuing her efforts to +remain bland. + +"Are you pretending--pretending to _us_," said the lower berth lady, +again beating her hand on the edge of her bunk, "that you are not +German?" + +"Our father was German," said Anna-Rose, driven into a corner, "but I +don't suppose he is now. I shouldn't think he'd want to go on being one +directly he got to a really neutral place." + +"Has he fled his country?" inquired the lower berth sternly, scenting +what she had from the first suspected, something sinister in the +Twinkler background. + +"I suppose one might call it that," said Anna-Rose after a pause of +consideration, tying her shoe-laces. + +"Do you mean to say," said the ladies with one voice, feeling themselves +now on the very edge of a scandal, "he was forced to fly from +Westphalia?" + +"I suppose one might put it that way," said Anna-Rose, again +considering. + +She took her cap off its hook and adjusted it over her hair with a +deliberation intended to assure Anna-Felicitas that she was remaining +calm. "Except that it wasn't from Westphalia he flew, but Prussia," she +said. + +"Prussia?" cried the ladies as one woman, again rising themselves on +their elbows. + +"That's where our father lived," said Anna-Rose, staring at them in her +surprise at their surprise. "So of course, as he lived there, when he +died he did that there too." + +"Prussia?" cried the ladies again. "He died? You said your father fled +his country." + +"No. _You_ said that," said Anna-Rose. + +She gave her cap a final tug down over her ears and turned to the door. +She felt as if she quite soon again in spite of Anna-Felicitas, might +not be able to be a lady. + +"After all, it _is_ what you do when you go to heaven," she said as she +opened the door, unable to resist, according to her custom, having the +last word. + +"But Prussia?" they still cried, still button-holing her, as it were, +from afar. "Then--you were born in Prussia?" + +"Yes, but we couldn't help it," said Anna-Rose; and shut the door +quickly behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Mr. Twist, who was never able to be anything but kind--he had the most +amiable mouth and chin in the world, and his name was Edward--took a +lively interest in the plans and probable future of the two Annas. He +also took a lively and solicitous interest in their present, and a +profoundly sympathetic one in their past. In fact, their three tenses +interested him to the exclusion of almost everything else, and his chief +desire was to see them safely through any shoals there might be waiting +them in the shape of Uncle Arthur's friends--he distrusted Uncle Arthur, +and therefore his friends--into the safe and pleasant waters of real +American hospitality and kindliness. + +He knew that such waters abounded for those who could find the tap. He +reminded himself of that which he had been taught since childhood, of +the mighty heart of America which, once touched, would take persons like +the twins right in and never let them out again. But it had to be +touched. It had, as it were, to be put in connection with them by means +of advertisement. America, he reflected, was a little deaf. She had to +be shouted to. But once she heard, once she thoroughly grasped ... + +He cogitated much in his cabin--one with a private bathroom, for Mr. +Twist had what Aunt Alice called ample means--on these two defenceless +children. If they had been Belgians now, or Serbians, or any persons +plainly in need of relief! As it was, America would be likely, he +feared, to consider that either Germany or England ought to be looking +after them, and might conceivably remain chilly and uninterested. + +Uncle Arthur, it appeared, hadn't many friends in America, and those he +had didn't like him. At least that was what Mr. Twist gathered from the +conversation of Anna-Rose. She didn't positively assert but she very +candidly conjectured, and Mr. Twist could quite believe that Uncle +Arthur's friends wouldn't be warm ones. Their hospitality he could +imagine fleeting and perfunctory. They would pass on the Twinklers as +soon as possible, as indeed why should they not? And presently some +dreary small job would be found for them, some job as pupil-teacher or +girls' companion in the sterile atmosphere of a young ladies' school. + +As much as a man of habitually generous impulses could dislike, Mr. +Twist disliked Uncle Arthur. Patriotism was nothing at any time to Mr. +Twist compared to humanity, and Uncle Arthur's particular kind of +patriotism was very odious to him. To wreak it on these two poor aliens! +Mr. Twist had no words for it. They had been cut adrift at a tender age, +an age Mr. Twist, as a disciplined American son and brother, was unable +to regard unmoved, and packed off over the sea indifferent to what might +happen to them so long as Uncle Arthur knew nothing about it. Having +flung these kittens into the water to swim or drown, so long as he +didn't have to listen to their cries while they were doing it, Uncle +Arthur apparently cared nothing. + +All Mr. Twist's chivalry, of which there was a great deal, rose up +within him at the thought of Uncle Arthur. He wanted to go and ask him +what he meant by such conduct, and earnestly inquire of him whether he +called himself a man; but as he knew he couldn't do this, being on a +ship heading for New York, he made up for it by taking as much care of +the ejected nieces as if he were an uncle himself,--but the right sort +of uncle, the sort you have in America, the sort that regards you as a +sacred and precious charge. + +In his mind's eye Mr. Twist saw Uncle Arthur as a typical bullying, +red-necked Briton, with short side-whiskers. He pictured him under-sized +and heavy-footed, trudging home from golf through the soppy green fields +of England to his trembling household. He was quite disconcerted one day +to discover from something Anna-Rose said that he was a tall man, and +not fat at all, except in one place. + +"Indeed," said Mr. Twist, hastily rearranging his mind's-eye view of +Uncle Arthur. + +"He goes fat suddenly," said Anna-Felicitas, waking from one of her +dozes. "As though he had swallowed a bomb, and it had stuck when it got +to his waistcoat." + +"If you can imagine it," added Anna-Rose politely, ready to explain and +describe further if required. + +But Mr. Twist could imagine it. He readjusted his picture of Uncle +Arthur, and this time got him right,--the tall, not bad-looking man, +clean-shaven and with more hair a great deal than he, Mr. Twist, had. He +had thought of him as an old ruffian; he now perceived that he could be +hardly more than middle-aged and that Aunt Alice, a lady for whom he +felt an almost painful sympathy, had a lot more of Uncle Arthur to get +through before she was done. + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose, accepting the word middle-aged as correct. +"Neither of his ends looks much older than yours do. He's aged in the +middle. That's the only place. Where the bomb is." + +"I suppose that's why it's called middle-aged," said Anna-Felicitas +dreamily. "One middle-ages first, and from there it just spreads. It +must be queer," she added pensively, "to watch oneself gradually +rotting." + +These were the sorts of observations, Mr. Twist felt, that might +prejudice his mother against the twins If they could be induced not to +say most of the things they did say when in her presence, he felt that +his house, of all houses in America, should be offered them as a refuge +whenever they were in need of one. But his mother was not, he feared, +very adaptable. In her house--it was legally his, but it never felt as +if it were--people adapted themselves to her. He doubted whether the +twins could or would. Their leading characteristic, he had observed, was +candour. They had no _savoir faire_. They seemed incapable of anything +but naturalness, and their particular type of naturalness was not one, +he was afraid, that his mother would understand. + +She had not been out of her New England village, a place called briefly, +with American economy of time, Clark, for many years, and her ideal of +youthful femininity was still that which she had been herself. She had, +if unconsciously, tried to mould Mr. Twist also on these lines, in spite +of his being a boy, and owing to his extreme considerateness had not yet +discovered her want of success. For years, indeed, she had been +completely successful, and Mr. Twist arrived at and embarked on +adolescence with the manners and ways of thinking of a perfect lady. + +Till he was nineteen he was educated at home, as it were at his mother's +knee, at any rate within reach of that sacred limb, and she had taught +him to reverence women; the reason given, or rather conveyed, being that +he had had and still was having a mother. Which he was never to forget. +In hours of temptation. In hours of danger. Mr. Twist, with his virginal +white mind, used to wonder when the hours of temptation and of danger +would begin, and rather wish, in the elegant leisure of his +half-holidays, that they soon would so that he might show how determined +he was to avoid them. + +For the ten years from his father's death till he went to Harvard, he +lived with his mother and sister and was their assiduous attendant. His +mother took the loss of his father badly. She didn't get over it, as +widows sometimes do, and grow suddenly ten years younger. The sight of +her, so black and broken, of so daily recurring a patience, of such +frequent deliberate brightening for the sake of her children, kept Mr. +Twist, as he grew up, from those thoughts which sometimes occur to young +men and have to do with curves and dimples. He was too much absorbed by +his mother to think on such lines. He was flooded with reverence and +pity. Through her, all women were holy to him. They were all mothers, +either actual or to be--after, of course, the proper ceremonies. They +were all people for whom one leapt up and opened doors, placed chairs +out of draughts, and fetched black shawls. On warm spring days, when he +was about eighteen, he told himself earnestly that it would be a +profanity, a terrible secret sinning, to think amorously--yes, he +supposed the word was amorously--while there under his eyes, pervading +his days from breakfast to bedtime, was that mourning womanhood, that +lopped life, that example of brave doing without any hope or expectation +except what might be expected or hoped from heaven. His mother was +wonderful the way she bore things. There she was, with nothing left to +look forward to in the way of pleasures except the resurrection, yet +she did not complain. + +But after he had been at Harvard a year a change came over Mr. Twist. +Not that he did not remain dutiful and affectionate, but he perceived +that it was possible to peep round the corners of his mother, the +rock-like corners that had so long jutted out between him and the view, +and on the other side there seemed to be quite a lot of interesting +things going on. He continued, however, only to eye most of them from +afar, and the nearest he got to temptation while at Harvard was to read +"Madame Bovary." + +After Harvard he was put into an engineering firm, for the Twists only +had what would in English money be five thousand pounds a year, and +belonged therefore, taking dollars as the measure of standing instead of +birth, to the middle classes. Aunt Alice would have described such an +income as ample means; Mrs. Twist called it straitened circumstances, +and lived accordingly in a condition of perpetual self-sacrifice and +doings without. She had a car, but it was only a car, not a +Pierce-Arrow; and there was a bathroom to every bedroom, but there were +only six bedrooms; and the house stood on a hill and looked over the +most beautiful woods, but they were somebody else's woods. She felt, as +she beheld the lives of those of her neighbours she let her eyes rest +on, who were the millionaires dotted round about the charming environs +of Clark, that she was indeed a typical widow,--remote, unfriended, +melancholy, poor. + +Mrs. Twist might feel poor, but she was certainly comfortable. It was +her daughter Edith's aim in life to secure for her the comfort and +leisure necessary for any grief that wishes to be thorough. The house +was run beautifully by Edith. There were three servants, of whom Edith +was one. She was the lady's maid, the head cook, and the family butler. +And Mr. Twist, till he went to Harvard, might be described as the +page-boy, and afterwards in his vacations as the odd man about the +house. Everything centred round their mother. She made a good deal of +work, because of being so anxious not to give trouble. She wouldn't get +out of the way of evil, but bleakly accepted it. She wouldn't get out of +a draught, but sat in it till one or other of her children remembered +they hadn't shut the door. When the inevitable cold was upon her and she +was lamentably coughing, she would mention the door for the first time, +and quietly say she hadn't liked to trouble them to shut it, they had +seemed so busy with their own affairs. + +But after he had been in the engineering firm a little while, a further +change came over Mr. Twist. He was there to make money, more money, for +his mother. The first duty of an American male had descended on him. He +wished earnestly to fulfil it creditably, in spite of his own tastes +being so simple that his income of £5000--it was his, not his mother's, +but it didn't feel as if it were--would have been more than sufficient +for him. Out of engineering, then, was he to wrest all the things that +might comfort his mother. He embarked on his career with as determined +an expression on his mouth as so soft and friendly a mouth could be made +to take, and he hadn't been in it long before he passed out altogether +beyond the line of thinking his mother had laid down for him, and +definitely grew up. + +The office was in New York, far enough away from Clark for him to be at +home only for the Sundays. His mother put him to board with her brother +Charles, a clergyman, the rector of the Church of Angelic Refreshment +at the back of Tenth Street, and the teapot out of which Uncle Charles +poured his tea at his hurried and uncomfortable meals--for he practised +the austerities and had no wife--dribbled at its spout. Hold it as +carefully as one might it dribbled at its spout, and added to the +confused appearance of the table by staining the cloth afresh every time +it was used. + +Mr. Twist, who below the nose was nothing but kindliness and generosity, +his slightly weak chin, his lavishly-lipped mouth, being all amiability +and affection, above the nose was quite different. In the middle came +his nose, a nose that led him to improve himself, to read and meditate +the poets, to be tenacious in following after the noble; and above were +eyes in which simplicity sat side by side with appreciation; and above +these was the forehead like a dome; and behind this forehead were +inventions. + +He had not been definitely aware that he was inventive till he came into +daily contact with Uncle Charles's teapot. In his boyhood he had often +fixed up little things for Edith,--she was three years older than he, +and was even then canning and preserving and ironing,--little +simplifications and alleviations of her labour; but they had been just +toys, things that had amused him to put together and that he forgot as +soon as they were done. But the teapot revealed to him clearly what his +forehead was there for. He would not and could not continue, being the +soul of considerateness, to spill tea on Uncle Charles's table-cloth at +every meal--they had tea at breakfast, and at luncheon, and at +supper--and if he were thirsty he spilled it several times at every +meal. For a long time he coaxed the teapot. He was thoughtful with it. +He handled it with the most delicate precision. He gave it time. He +never hurried it. He never filled it more than half full. And yet at the +end of every pouring, out came the same devastating dribble on to the +cloth. + +Then he went out and bought another teapot, one of a different pattern, +with a curved spout instead of a straight one. + +The same thing happened. + +Then he went to Wanamaker's, and spent an hour in the teapot section +trying one pattern after the other, patiently pouring water, provided by +a tipped but languid and supercilious assistant, out of each different +make of teapot into cups. + +They all dribbled. + +Then Mr. Twist went home and sat down and thought. He thought and +thought, with his dome-like forehead resting on his long thin hand; and +what came out of his forehead at last, sprang out of it as complete in +every detail as Pallas Athene when she very similarly sprang, was that +now well-known object on every breakfast table, Twist's Non-Trickler +Teapot. + +In five years Mr. Twist made a fortune out of the teapot. His mother +passed from her straitened circumstances to what she still would only +call a modest competence, but what in England would have been regarded +as wallowing in money. She left off being middle-class, and was received +into the lower upper-class, the upper part of this upper-class being +reserved for great names like Astor, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. With +these Mrs. Twist could not compete. She would no doubt some day, for +Edward was only thirty and there were still coffee-pots; but what he was +able to add to the family income helped her for a time to bear the loss +of the elder Twist with less of bleakness in her resignation. It was as +though an east wind veered round for a brief space a little to the +south. + +Being naturally, however, inclined to deprecation, when every other +reason for it was finally removed by her assiduous son she once more +sought out and firmly laid hold of the departed Twist, and hung her +cherished unhappiness up on him again as if he were a peg. When the +novelty of having a great many bedrooms instead of six, and a great deal +of food not to eat but to throw away, and ten times of everything else +instead of only once, began to wear off, Mrs. Twist drooped again, and +pulled the departed Twist out of the decent forgetfulness of the past, +and he once more came to dinner in the form of his favourite dishes, and +assisted in the family conversations by means of copious quotations from +his alleged utterances. + +Mr. Twist's income was anything between sixty and seventy thousand +pounds a year by the time the war broke out. Having invented and +patented the simple device that kept the table-cloths of America, and +indeed of Europe, spotless, all he had to do was to receive his +percentages; sit still, in fact, and grow richer. But so much had he +changed since his adolescence that he preferred to stick to his +engineering and his office in New York rather than go home and be happy +with his mother. + +She could not understand this behaviour in Edward. She understood his +behaviour still less when he went off to France in 1915, himself +equipping and giving the ambulance he drove. + +For a year his absence, and the dangers he was running, divided Mrs. +Twist's sorrows into halves. Her position as a widow with an only son in +danger touched the imagination of Clark, and she was never so much +called upon as during this year. Now Edward was coming home for a rest, +and there was a subdued flutter about her, rather like the stirring of +the funeral plumes on the heads of hearse-horses. + +While he was crossing the Atlantic and Red-Crossing the Twinklers--this +was one of Anna-Felicitas's epigrams and she tried Anna-Rose's patience +severely by asking her not once but several times whether she didn't +think it funny, whereas Anna-Rose disliked it from the first because of +the suggestion it contained that Mr. Twist regarded what he did for them +as works of mercy--while Mr. Twist was engaged in these activities, at +his home in Clark all the things Edith could think of that he used most +to like to eat were being got ready. There was an immense slaughtering +of chickens, and baking and churning. Edith, who being now the head +servant of many instead of three was more than double as hard-worked as +she used to be, was on her feet those last few days without stopping. +And she had to go and meet Edward in New York as well. Whether Mrs. +Twist feared that he might not come straight home or whether it was what +she said it was, that dear Edward must not be the only person on the +boat who had no one to meet him, is not certain; what is certain is that +when it came to the point, and Edith had to start, Mrs. Twist had +difficulty in maintaining her usual brightness. + +Edith would be a whole day away, and perhaps a night if the _St. Luke_ +got in late, for Clark is five hours' train journey from New York, and +during all that time Mrs. Twist would be uncared for. She thought Edith +surprisingly thoughtless to be so much pleased to go. She examined her +flat and sinewy form with disapproval when she came in hatted and booted +to say good-bye. No wonder nobody married Edith. And the money wouldn't +help her either now--she was too old. She had missed her chances, poor +thing. + +Mrs. Twist forgot the young man there had been once, years before, when +Edward was still in the school room, who had almost married Edith. He +was a lusty and enterprising young man, who had come to Clark to stay +with a neighbour, and he had had nothing to do through a long vacation, +and had taken to dropping in at all hours and interrupting Edith in her +housekeeping; and Edith, even then completely flat but of a healthy +young uprightness and bright of eyes and hair, had gone silly and +forgotten how to cook, and had given her mother, who surely had enough +sorrows already, an attack of indigestion. + +Mrs. Twist, however, had headed the young man off. Edith was too +necessary to her at that time. She could not possibly lose Edith. And +besides, the only way to avoid being a widow is not to marry. She told +herself that she could not bear the thought of poor Edith's running the +risk of an affliction similar to her own. If one hasn't a husband one +cannot lose him, Mrs. Twist clearly saw. If Edith married she would +certainly lose him unless he lost her. Marriage had only two solutions, +she explained to her silent daughter,--she would not, of course, discuss +with her that third one which America has so often flown to for solace +and relief,--only two, said Mrs. Twist, and they were that either one +died oneself, which wasn't exactly a happy thing, or the other one did. +It was only a question of time before one of the married was left alone +to mourn. Marriage began rosily no doubt, but it always ended black. +"And think of my having to see you like _this_" she said, with a gesture +indicating her sad dress. + +Edith was intimidated; and the young man presently went away whistling. +He was the only one. Mrs. Twist had no more trouble. He passed entirely +from her mind; and as she looked at Edith dressed for going to meet +Edward in the clothes she went to church in on Sundays, she +unconsciously felt a faint contempt for a woman who had had so much time +to get married in and yet had never achieved it. She herself had been +married at twenty; and her hair even now, after all she had gone +through, was hardly more gray than Edith's. + +"Your hat's crooked," she said, when Edith straightened herself after +bending down to kiss her good-bye; and then, after all unable to bear +the idea of being left alone while Edith, with that pleased face, went +off to New York to see Edward before she did, she asked her, if she +still had a minute to spare, to help her to the sofa, because she felt +faint. + +"I expect the excitement has been too much for me," she murmured, lying +down and shutting her eyes; and Edith, disciplined in affection and +attentiveness, immediately took off her hat and settled down to getting +her mother well again in time for Edward. + +Which is why nobody met Mr. Twist on his arrival in New York, and he +accordingly did things, as will be seen, which he mightn't otherwise +have done. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +When the _St. Luke_ was so near its journey's end that people were +packing up, and the word Nantucket was frequent in the scraps of talk +the twins heard, they woke up from the unworried condition of mind Mr. +Twist's kindness and the dreamy monotony of the days had produced in +them, and began to consider their prospects with more attention. This +attention soon resulted in anxiety. Anna-Rose showed hers by being +irritable. Anna-Felicitas didn't show hers at all. + +It was all very well, so long as they were far away from America and +never quite sure that a submarine mightn't settle their future for them +once and for all, to feel big, vague, heroic things about a new life and +a new world and they two Twinklers going to conquer it; but when the new +world was really upon them, and the new life, with all the multitudinous +details that would have to be tackled, going to begin in a few hours, +their hearts became uneasy and sank within them. England hadn't liked +them. Suppose America didn't like them either? Uncle Arthur hadn't liked +them. Suppose Uncle Arthur's friends didn't like them either? Their +hearts sank to, and remained in, their boots. + +Round Anna-Rose's waist, safely concealed beneath her skirt from what +Anna-Felicitas called the predatory instincts of their fellow-passengers, +was a chamois-leather bag containing their passports, a letter to the +bank where their £200 was, a letter to those friends of Uncle Arthur's +who were to be tried first, a letter to those other friends of his who +were to be the second line of defence supposing the first one failed, +and ten pounds in two £5 notes. + +Uncle Arthur, grievously grumbling, and having previously used in bed +most of those vulgar words that made Aunt Alice so miserable, had given +Anna-Rose one of the £5 notes for the extra expenses of the journey +till, in New York, she should be able to draw on the £200, though what +expenses there could be for a couple of girls whose passage was paid +Uncle Arthur was damned, he alleged, if he knew; and Aunt Alice had +secretly added the other. This was all Anna-Rose's ready money, and it +would have to be changed into dollars before reaching New York so as to +be ready for emergencies on arrival. She judged from the growing +restlessness of the passengers that it would soon be time to go and +change it. How many dollars ought she to get? + +Mr. Twist was absent, packing his things. She ought to have asked him +long ago, but they seemed so suddenly to have reached the end of their +journey. Only yesterday there was the same old limitless sea everywhere, +the same old feeling that they were never going to arrive. Now the waves +had all gone, and one could actually see land. The New World. The place +all their happiness or unhappiness would depend on. + +She laid hold of Anna-Felicitas, who was walking about just as if she +had never been prostrate on a deck-chair in her life, and was going to +say something appropriate and encouraging on the Christopher and +Columbus lines; but Anna-Felicitas, who had been pondering the £5 notes +problem, wouldn't listen. + +"A dollar," said Anna-Felicitas, worrying it out, "isn't like a +shilling or a mark, but on the other hand neither is it like a pound." + +"No," said Anna-Rose, brought back to her immediate business. + +"It's four times more than one, and five times less than the other," +said Anna-Felicitas. "That's how you've got to count. That's what Aunt +Alice said." + +"Yes. And then there's the exchange," said Anna-Rose, frowning. "As if +it wasn't complicated enough already, there's the exchange. Uncle Arthur +said we weren't to forget that." + +Anna-Felicitas wanted to know what was meant by the exchange, and +Anna-Rose, unwilling to admit ignorance to Anna-Felicitas, who had to be +kept in her proper place, especially when one was just getting to +America and she might easily become above herself, said that it was +something that varied. ("The exchange, you know, varies," Uncle Arthur +had said when he gave her the £5 note. "You must keep your eye on the +variations." Anna-Rose was all eagerness to keep her eye on them, if +only she had known what and where they were. But one never asked +questions of Uncle Arthur. His answers, if one did, were confined to +expressions of anger and amazement that one didn't, at one's age, +already know.) + +"Oh," said Anna-Felicitas, for a moment glancing at Anna-Rose out of the +corner of her eye, considerately not pressing her further. + +"I wish Mr. Twist would come," said Anna-Rose uneasily, looking in the +direction he usually appeared from. + +"We won't always have _him_" remarked Anna-Felicitas. + +"I never said we would," said Anna-Rose shortly. + +The young lady of the nails appeared at that moment in a hat so +gorgeous that the twins stopped dead to stare. She had a veil on and +white gloves, and looked as if she were going for a walk in Fifth Avenue +the very next minute. + +"Perhaps we ought to be getting ready too," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Yes. I wish Mr. Twist would come--" + +"Perhaps we'd better begin and practise not having Mr. Twist," said +Anna-Felicitas, as one who addresses nobody specially and means nothing +in particular. + +"If anybody's got to practise that, it'll be you," said Anna-Rose. +"There'll be no one to roll you up in rugs now, remember. I won't." + +"But I don't want to be rolled up in rugs," said Anna-Felicitas mildly. +"I shall be walking about New York." + +"Oh, _you'll_ see," said Anna-Rose irritably. + +She was worried about the dollars. She was worried about the tipping, +and the luggage, and the arrival, and Uncle Arthur's friends, whose +names were Mr. and Mrs. Clouston K. Sack; so naturally she was +irritable. One is. And nobody knew and understood this better than +Anna-Felicitas. + +"Let's go and put on our hats and get ready," she said, after a moment's +pause during which she wondered whether, in the interests of Anna-Rose's +restoration to calm, she mightn't have to be sick again. She did hope +she wouldn't have to. She had supposed she had done with that. It is +true there were now no waves, but she knew she had only to go near the +engines and smell the oil. "Let's go and put on our hats," she +suggested, slipping her hand through Anna-Rose's arm. + +Anna-Rose let herself be led away, and they went to their cabin; and +when they came out of it half an hour later, no longer with that bald +look their caps had given them, the sun catching the little rings of +pale gold hair that showed for the first time, and clad, instead of in +the disreputable jerseys that they loved, in neat black coats and +skirts--for they still wore mourning when properly dressed--with +everything exactly as Aunt Alice had directed for their arrival, the +young men of the second class could hardly believe their eyes. + +"You'll excuse me saying so," said one of them to Anna-Felicitas as she +passed him, "but you're looking very well to-day." + +"I expect that's because I _am_ well," said Anna-Felicitas amiably. + +Mr. Twist, when he saw them, threw up his hands and ejaculated "My!" + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas, who was herself puzzled by the difference +the clothes had made in Anna-Rose after ten solid days of cap and +jersey, "I think it's our hats. They do somehow seem very splendid." + +"Splendid?" echoed Mr. Twist. "Why, they'd make the very angels jealous, +and get pulling off their haloes and kicking them over the edge of +heaven." + +"What is so wonderful is that Aunt Alice should ever have squeezed them +out of Uncle Arthur," said Anna-Rose, gazing lost in admiration at +Anna-Felicitas. "He didn't disgorge nice hats easily at all." + +And one of the German ladies muttered to the other, as her eye fell on +Anna-Felicitas, "_Ja, ja, die hat Rasse._" + +And it was only because it was the other German lady's hair that spent +the night in a different part of the cabin from her head and had been +seen doing it by Anna-Felicitas, that she cavilled and was grudging. +"_Gewiss_," she muttered back, "_bis auf der Nase. Die Nase aber +entfremdet mich. Die ist keine echte Junkernase_." + +So that the Twinklers had quite a success, and their hearts came a +little way out of their boots; only a little way, though, for there were +the Clouston K. Sacks looming bigger into their lives every minute now. + +Really it was a beautiful day, and, as Aunt Alice used to say, that does +make such a difference. A clear pale loveliness of light lay over New +York, and there was a funny sprightliness in the air, a delicate dry +crispness. The trees on the shore, when they got close, were delicate +too--delicate pale gold, and green, and brown, and they seemed so +composed and calm, the twins thought, standing there quietly after the +upheavals and fidgetiness of the Atlantic. New York was well into the +Fall, the time of year when it gets nearest to beauty. The beauty was +entirely in the atmosphere, and the lights and shadows it made. It was +like an exquisite veil flung over an ugly woman, hiding, softening, +encouraging hopes. + +Everybody on the ship was crowding eagerly to the sides. Everybody was +exhilarated, and excited, and ready to be friendly and talkative. They +all waved whenever another boat passed. Those who knew America pointed +out the landmarks to those who didn't. Mr. Twist pointed them out to the +twins, and so did the young man who had remarked favourably on +Anna-Felicitas's looks, and as they did it simultaneously and there was +so much to look at and so many boats to wave to, it wasn't till they had +actually got to the statue of Liberty that Anna-Rose remembered her £10 +and the dollars. + +The young man was saying how much the statue of Liberty had cost, and +the word dollars made Anna-Rose turn with a jump to Mr. Twist. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, clutching at her chamois leather bag where it very +visibly bulged out beneath her waistband, "I forgot--I must get change. +And how much do you think we ought to tip the stewardess? I've never +tipped anybody yet ever, and I wish--I wish I hadn't to." + +She got quite red. It seemed to her dreadful to offer money to someone +so much older than herself and who till almost that very morning had +treated her and Anna-Felicitas like the naughtiest of tiresome children. +Surely she would be most offended at being tipped by people such years +younger than herself? + +Mr. Twist thought not. + +"A dollar," said the young man. "One dollar. That's the figure. Not a +cent more, or you girls'll get inflating prices and Wall Street'll bust +up." + +Anna-Rose, not heeding him and clutching nervously the place where her +bag was, told Mr. Twist that the stewardess hadn't seemed to mind them +quite so much last night, and still less that morning, and perhaps some +little memento--something that wasn't money-- + +"Give her those caps of yours," said the young man, bursting into +hilarity; but indeed it wasn't his fault that he was a low young man. + +Mr. Twist, shutting him out of the conversation by interposing a +shoulder, told Anna-Rose he had noticed stewardesses, and also stewards, +softened when journeys drew near their end, but that it didn't mean they +wanted mementos. They wanted money; and he would do the tipping for her +if she liked. + +Anna-Rose jumped at it. This tipping of the stewardess had haunted her +at intervals throughout the journey whenever she woke up at night. She +felt that, not having yet in her life tipped anybody, it was very hard +that she couldn't begin with somebody more her own size. + +"Then if you don't mind coming behind the funnel," she said, "I can give +you my £5 notes, and perhaps you would get them changed for me and +deduct what you think the stewardess ought to have." + +Mr. Twist, and also Anna-Felicitas, who wasn't allowed to stay behind +with the exuberant young man though she was quite unconscious of his +presence, went with Anna-Rose behind the funnel, where after a great +deal of private fumbling, her back turned to them, she produced the two +much-crumpled £5 notes. + +"The steward ought to have something too," said Mr. Twist. + +"Oh, I'd be glad if you'd do him as well," said Anna-Rose eagerly. "I +don't think I _could_ offer him a tip. He has been so fatherly to us. +And imagine offering to tip one's father." + +Mr. Twist laughed, and said she would get over this feeling in time. He +promised to do what was right, and to make it clear that the tips he +bestowed were Twinkler tips; and presently he came back with messages of +thanks from the tipped--such polite ones from the stewardess that the +twins were astonished--and gave Anna-Rose a packet of very dirty-looking +slices of green paper, which were dollar bills, he said, besides a +variety of strange coins which he spread out on a ledge and explained to +her. + +"The exchange was favourable to you to-day," said Mr. Twist, counting +out the money. + +"How nice of it," said Anna-Rose politely. "Did you keep your eye on +its variations?" she added a little loudly, with a view to rousing +respect in Anna-Felicitas who was lounging against a seat and showing a +total absence of every kind of appropriate emotion. + +"Certainly," said Mr. Twist after a slight pause. "I kept both my eyes +on all of them." + +Mr. Twist had, it appeared, presented the steward and stewardess each +with a dollar on behalf of the Misses Twinkler, but because the exchange +was so favourable this had made no difference to the £5 notes. Reducing +each £5 note into German marks, which was the way the Twinklers, in +spite of a year in England, still dealt in their heads with money before +they could get a clear idea of it, there would have been two hundred +marks; and as it took, roughly, four marks to make a dollar, the two +hundred marks would have to be divided by four; which, leaving aside +that extra complication of variations in the exchange, and regarding the +exchange for a moment and for purposes of simplification as keeping +quiet for a bit and resting, should produce, also roughly, said +Anna-Rose a little out of breath as she got to the end of her +calculation, fifty dollars. + +"Correct," said Mr. Twist, who had listened with respectful attention. +"Here they are." + +"I said roughly," said Anna-Rose. "It can't be _exactly_ fifty dollars. +The tips anyhow would alter that." + +"Yes, but you forget the exchange." + +Anna-Rose was silent. She didn't want to go into that before +Anna-Felicitas. Of the two, she was supposed to be the least bad at +sums. Their mother had put it that way, refusing to say, as Anna-Rose +industriously tried to trap her into saying, that she was the better of +the two. But even so, the difference entitled her to authority on the +subject with Anna-Felicitas, and by dint of doing all her calculations +roughly, as she was careful to describe her method, she allowed room for +withdrawal and escape where otherwise the inflexibility of figures might +have caught her tight and held her down while Anna-Felicitas looked on +and was unable to respect her. + +Evidently the exchange was something beneficent. She decided to rejoice +in it in silence, accept whatever it did, and refrain from asking +questions. + +"So I did. Of course. The exchange," she said, after a little. + +She gathered up the dollar bills and began packing them into her bag. +They wouldn't all go in, and she had to put the rest into her pocket, +for which also there were too many; but she refused Anna-Felicitas's +offer to put some of them in hers on the ground that sooner or later she +would be sure to forget they weren't her handkerchief and would blow her +nose with them. + +"Thank you very much for being so kind," she said to Mr. Twist, as she +stuffed her pocket full and tried by vigorous patting to get it to look +inconspicuous. "We're never going to forget you, Anna-F. and me. We'll +write to you often, and we'll come and see you as often as you like." + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas dreamily, as she watched the shore of Long +Island sliding past. "Of course you've got your relations, but relations +soon pall, and you may be quite glad after a while of a little fresh +blood." + +Mr. Twist thought this very likely, and agreed with several other things +Anna-Felicitas, generalizing from Uncle Arthur, said about relations, +again with that air of addressing nobody specially and meaning nothing +in particular, while Anna-Rose wrestled with the obesity of her pocket. + +"Whether you come to see me or not," said Mr. Twist, whose misgivings as +to the effect of the Twinklers on his mother grew rather than subsided, +"I shall certainly come to see you." + +"Perhaps Mr. Sack won't allow followers," said Anna-Felicitas, her eyes +far away. "Uncle Arthur didn't. He wouldn't let the maids have any, so +they had to go out and do the following themselves. We had a follower +once, didn't we, Anna-R.?" she continued her voice pensive and +reminiscent. "He was a friend of Uncle Arthur's. Quite old. At least +thirty or forty. I shouldn't have thought he _could_ follow. But he did. +And he used to come home to tea with Uncle Arthur and produce boxes of +chocolate for us out of his pockets when Uncle Arthur wasn't looking. We +ate them and felt perfectly well disposed toward him till one day he +tried to kiss one of us--I forget which. And that, combined with the +chocolates, revealed him in his true colours as a follower, and we told +him they weren't allowed in that house and urged him to go to some place +where they were, or he would certainly be overtaken by Uncle Arthur's +vengeance, and we said how surprised we were, because he was so old and +we didn't know followers were as old as that ever." + +"It seemed a very shady thing," said Anna-Rose, having subdued the +swollenness of her pocket, "to eat his chocolates and then not want to +kiss him, but we don't hold with kissing, Anna-F. and me. Still, we were +full of his chocolates; there was no getting away from that. So we +talked it over after he had gone, and decided that next day when he came +we'd tell him he might kiss one of us if he still wanted to, and we drew +lots which it was to be, and it was me, and I filled myself to the brim +with chocolates so as to feel grateful enough to bear it, but he didn't +come." + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas. "He didn't come again for a long while, and +when he did there was no follow left in him. Quite the contrary." + +Mr. Twist listened with the more interest to this story because it was +the first time Anna-Felicitas had talked since he knew her. He was used +to the inspiriting and voluble conversation of Anna-Rose who had looked +upon him as her best friend since the day he had wiped up her tears; but +Anna-Felicitas had been too unwell to talk. She had uttered languid and +brief observations from time to time with her eyes shut and her head +lolling loosely on her neck, but this was the first time she had been, +as it were, an ordinary human being, standing upright on her feet, +walking about, looking intelligently if pensively at the scenery, and in +a condition of affable readiness, it appeared, to converse. + +Mr. Twist was a born mother. The more trouble he was given the more +attached he became. He had rolled Anna-Felicitas up in rugs so often +that to be not going to roll her up any more was depressing to him. He +was beginning to perceive this motherliness in him himself, and he gazed +through his spectacles at Anna-Felicitas while she sketched the rise and +fall of the follower, and wondered with an almost painful solicitude +what her fate would be in the hands of the Clouston Sacks. + +Equally he wondered as to the other one's fate; for he could not think +of one Twinkler without thinking of the other. They were inextricably +mixed together in the impression they had produced on him, and they +dwelt together in his thoughts as one person called, generally, +Twinklers. He stood gazing at them, his motherly instincts uppermost, +his hearty yearning over them now that the hour of parting was so near +and his carefully tended chickens were going to be torn from beneath his +wing. Mr. Twist was domestic. He was affectionate. He would have loved, +though he had never known it, the sensation of pattering feet about his +house, and small hands clinging to the apron he would never wear. And it +was entirely characteristic of him that his invention, the invention +that brought him his fortune, should have had to do with a teapot. + +But if his heart was uneasy within him at the prospect of parting from +his charges their hearts were equally uneasy, though not in the same +way. The very name of Clouston K. Sack was repugnant to Anna-Rose; and +Anna-Felicitas, less quick at disliking, turned it over cautiously in +her mind as one who turns over an unknown and distasteful object with +the nose of his umbrella. Even she couldn't quite believe that any good +thing could come out of a name like that, especially when it had got +into their lives through Uncle Arthur. Mr. Twist had never heard of the +Clouston Sacks, which made Anna-Rose still more distrustful. She wasn't +in the least encouraged when he explained the bigness of America and +that nobody in it ever knew everybody--she just said that everybody had +heard of Mr. Roosevelt, and her heart was too doubtful within her even +to mind being told, as he did immediately tell her within ear-shot of +Anna-Felicitas, that her reply was unreasonable. + +Just at the end, as they were all three straining their eyes, no one +with more anxiety than Mr. Twist, to try and guess which of the crowd on +the landing-stage were the Clouston Sacks, they passed on their other +side the _Vaterland_, the great interned German liner at its moorings, +and the young man who had previously been so very familiar, as Anna-Rose +said, but who was only, Mr. Twist explained, being American, came +hurrying boldly up. + +"You mustn't miss this," he said to Anna-Felicitas, actually seizing her +by the arm. "Here's something that'll make you feel home-like right +away." + +And he led her off, and would have dragged her off but for +Anna-Felicitas's perfect non-resistance. + +"He _is_ being familiar," said Anna-Rose to Mr. Twist, turning very red +and following quickly after him. "That's not just being American. +Everybody decent knows that if there's any laying hold of people's arms +to be done one begins with the eldest sister." + +"Perhaps he doesn't realize that you _are_ the elder," said Mr. Twist. +"Strangers judge, roughly, by size." + +"I'm afraid I'm going to have trouble with her," said Anna-Rose, not +heeding his consolations. "It isn't a sinecure, I assure you, being left +sole guardian and protector of somebody as pretty as all that. And the +worst of it is she's going on getting prettier. She hasn't nearly come +to the end of what she can do in that direction. I see it growing on +her. Every Sunday she's inches prettier than she was the Sunday before. +And wherever I take her to live, and however out of the way it is, I'm +sure the path to our front door is going to be black with suitors." + +This dreadful picture so much perturbed her, and she looked up at Mr. +Twist with such worried eyes, that he couldn't refrain from patting her +on her shoulder. + +"There, there," said Mr. Twist, and he begged her to be sure to +let him know directly she was in the least difficulty, or even +perplexity,--"about the suitors, for instance, or anything else. +You must let me be of some use in the world, you know," he said. + +"But we shouldn't like it at all if we thought you were practising being +useful on us," said Anna-Rose "It's wholly foreign to our natures to +enjoy being the objects of anybody's philanthropy." + +"Now I just wonder where you get all your long words from," said Mr. +Twist soothingly; and Anna-Rose laughed, and there was only one dimple +in the Twinkler family and Anna-Rose had got it. + +"What do you want to get looking at _that_ for?" she +asked Anna-Felicitas, when she had edged through the crowd +staring at the _Vaterland_, and got to where Anna-Felicitas +stood listening abstractedly to the fireworks of American slang +the young man was treating her to,--that terse, surprising, swift +hitting-of-the-nail-on-the-head form of speech which she was +hearing in such abundance for the first time. + +The American passengers appeared one and all to be rejoicing over the +impotence of the great ship. Every one of them seemed to be violently +pro-Ally, derisively conjecturing the feelings of the _Vaterland_ as +every day under her very nose British ships arrived and departed and +presently arrived again,--the same ships she had seen depart coming back +unharmed, unhindered by her country's submarines. Only the two German +ladies, once more ignoring their American allegiance, looked angry. It +was incredible to them, simply _unfassbar_ as they said in their +thoughts, that any nation should dare inconvenience Germans, should dare +lay a finger, even the merest friendliest detaining one, on anything +belonging to the mighty, the inviolable Empire. Well, these Americans, +these dollar-grubbing Yankees, would soon get taught a sharp, deserved +lesson--but at this point they suddenly remembered they were Americans +themselves, and pulled up their thoughts violently, as it were, on their +haunches. + +They turned, however, bitterly to the Twinkler girl as she pushed her +way through to her sister,--those renegade Junkers, those contemptible +little apostates--and asked her, after hearing her question to +Anna-Felicitas, with an extraordinary breaking out of pent-up emotion +where she, then, supposed she would have been at that moment if it +hadn't been for Germany. + +"Not here I think," said Anna-Rose, instantly and fatally ready as she +always was to answer back and attempt what she called reasoned +conversation. "There wouldn't have been a war, so of course I wouldn't +have been here." + +"Why, you wouldn't so much as have been born without Germany," said the +lady whose hair came off, with difficulty controlling a desire to shake +this insolent and perverted Junker who could repeat the infamous English +lie as to who began the war. "You owe your very existence to Germany. +You should be giving thanks to her on your knees for her gift to you of +life, instead of jeering at this representative--" she flung a finger +out toward the _Vaterland_--"this patient and dignified-in +-temporary-misfortune representative, of her power." + +"I wasn't jeering," said Anna-Rose, defending herself and clutching at +Anna-Felicitas's sleeve to pull her away. + +"You wouldn't have had a father at all but for Germany," said the other +lady, the one whose hair grew. + +"And perhaps you will tell me," said the first one, "where you would +have been _then_." + +"I don't believe," said Anna-Rose, her nose in the air, "I don't +believe I'd have ever been at a loss for a father." + +The ladies, left speechless a moment by the arrogance as well as several +other things about this answer gave Anna-Rose an opportunity for further +reasoning with them, which she was unable to resist. "There are lots of +fathers," she said, "in England, who would I'm sure have been delighted +to take me on if Germany had failed me." + +"England!" + +"Take you on!" + +"An English father for you? For a subject of the King of Prussia?" + +"I--I'm afraid I--I'm going to be sick," gasped Anna-Felicitas suddenly. + +"You're never going to be sick in this bit of bathwater, Miss Twinkler?" +exclaimed the young man, with the instant ungrudging admiration of one +who is confronted by real talent. "My, what a gift!" + +Anna-Rose darted at Anna-Felicitas's drooping head, that which she had +been going to say back to the German ladies dissolving on her tongue. +"Oh no--_no_--" she wailed. "Oh _no_--not in your best hat, Columbus +darling--you can't--it's not done--and your hat'll shake off into the +water, and then there'll only be one between us and we shall never be +able to go out paying calls and things at the same time--come away and +sit down--Mr. Twist--Mr. Twist--oh, please come--" + +Anna-Felicitas allowed herself to be led away, just in time as she +murmured, and sat down on the nearest seat and shut her eyes. She was +thankful Anna-Rose's attention had been diverted to her so instantly, +for it would have been very difficult to be sick with the ship as quiet +as one's own bedroom. Nothing short of the engine-room could have made +her sick now. She sat keeping her eyes shut and Anna-Rose's attention +riveted, wondering what she would do when there was no ship and +Anna-Rose was on the verge of hasty and unfortunate argument. Would she +have to learn to faint? But that would terrify poor Christopher so +dreadfully. + +Anna-Felicitas pondered, her eyes shut, on this situation. Up to now in +her life she had always found that situations solved themselves. Given +time. And sometimes a little assistance. So, no doubt, would this one. +Anna-Rose would ripen and mellow. The German ladies would depart hence +and be no more seen; and it was unlikely she and Anna-Rose would meet at +such close quarters as a ship's cabin any persons so peculiarly and +unusually afflicting again. All situations solved themselves; or, if +they showed signs of not going to, one adopted the gentle methods that +helped them to get solved. Early in life she had discovered that objects +which cannot be removed or climbed over can be walked round. A little +deviousness, and the thing was done. She herself had in the most +masterly manner when she was four escaped church-going for several years +by a simple method, that seemed to her looking back very like an +inspiration, of getting round it. She had never objected to going, had +never put into words the powerful if vague dislike with which it filled +her when Sunday after Sunday she had to go and dangle her legs +helplessly for two hours from the chair she was put on in the enclosed +pew reserved for the _hohe gräfliche Herrschaften_ from the Slosh. + +Her father, a strict observer of the correct and a pious believer in +God for other people, attended Divine Service as regularly as he wound +the clocks and paid the accounts. He _repräsentierte_, as the German +phrase went; and his wife and children were expected to _repräsentieren_ +too. Which they did uncomplainingly; for when one has to do with +determined husbands and fathers it is quickest not to complain. But the +pins and needles that patient child endured, Anna-Felicitas remembered, +looking back through the years at the bunched-up figure on the chair as +at a stranger, were something awful. The edge of the chair just caught +her legs in the pins and needles place. If she had been a little bigger +or a little smaller it wouldn't have happened; as it was, St. Paul +wrestling with beasts at Ephesus wasn't more heroic than Anna-Felicitas +perceived that distant child to have been, silently Sunday after Sunday +bearing her legs. Then one Sunday something snapped inside her, and she +heard her own voice floating out into the void above the heads of the +mumbling worshippers, and it said with a terrible distinctness in a sort +of monotonous wail: "I only had a cold potato for breakfast,"--and a +second time, in the breathless suspension of mumbling that followed upon +this: "I only had a cold potato for breakfast,"--and a third time she +opened her mouth to repeat the outrageous statement, regardless of her +mother's startled hand laid on her arm, and of Anna-Rose's petrified +stare, and of the lifted faces of the congregation, and of the bent, +scandalized brows of the pastor,--impelled by something that possessed +her, unable to do anything but obey it; but her father, a man of deeds, +rose up in his place, took her in his arms, and carried her down the +stairs and out of the church. And the minute she found herself really +rescued, and out where the sun and wind, her well-known friends, were +larking about among the tombstones, she laid her cheek as affectionately +against her father's head as if she were a daughter to be proud of, and +would have purred if she had had had a purr as loudly as the most +satisfied and virtuous of cats. + +"_Mein Kind_," said her father, standing her up on a convenient tomb so +that her eyes were level with his, "is it then true about the cold +potato?" + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas patting his face, pleased at what her legs +were feeling like again. + +"_Mein Kind_," said her father, "do you not know it is wrong to lie?" + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas placidly, the heavenly blue of her eyes, +gazing straight into his, exactly like the mild sky above the trees. + +"No?" echoed her father, staring at her. "But, _Kind_, you know what a +lie is?" + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas, gazing at him tenderly in her satisfaction at +being restored to a decent pair of legs; and as he still stood staring +at her she put her hands one on each of his cheeks and squeezed his face +together and murmured, "Oh, I do _love_ you." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Lost in the contemplation of a distant past Anna-Felicitas sat with her +eyes shut long after she needn't have. + +She had forgotten about the German ladies, and America, and the future +so instantly pressing on her, and was away on the shores of the Baltic +again, where bits of amber where washed up after a storm, and the pale +rushes grew in shallow sunny water that was hardly salt, and the air +seemed for ever sweet with lilac. All the cottage gardens in the little +village that clustered round a clearing in the trees had lilac bushes in +them, for there was something in the soil that made lilacs be more +wonderful there than anywhere else in the world, and in May the whole +forest as far as one could walk was soaked with the smell of it. After +rain on a May evening, what a wonder it was; what a wonder, that running +down the black, oozing forest paths between wet pine stems, out on to +the shore to look at the sun setting below the great sullen clouds of +the afternoon over on one's left where Denmark was, and that lifting of +one's face to the exquisite mingling of the delicate sea smell and the +lilac. And then there was home to come back to when the forest began to +look too dark and its deep silence made one's flesh creep--home, and a +light in the window where ones mother was. Incredible the security of +those days, the safe warmth of them, the careless roominess.... + +"You know if you _could_ manage to feel a little better, Anna-F.," said +Anna-Rose's voice entreatingly in her ear, "it's time we began to get +off this ship." + +Anna-Felicitas opened her eyes, and got up all confused and +self-reproachful. Everybody had melted away from that part of the deck +except herself and Anna-Rose. The ship was lying quiet at last alongside +the wharf. She had over-done being ill this time. She was ashamed of +herself for having wandered off so easily and comfortably into the past, +and left poor Christopher alone in the difficult present. + +"I'm so sorry," she said smiling apologetically, and giving her hat a +tug of determination symbolic of her being ready for anything, +especially America. "I think I must have gone to sleep. Have you--" she +hesitated and dropped her voice. "Are they--are the Clouston Sacks +visible yet?" + +"I thought I saw them," said Anna-Rose, dropping her voice too, and +looking round uneasily over her shoulder. "I'd have come here sooner to +see how you were getting on, but I thought I saw them, and they looked +so like what I think they will look like that I went into our cabin +again for a few minutes. But it wasn't them. They've found the people +they were after, and have gone." + +"There's a great crowd waiting," said Mr. Twist, coming up, "and I think +we ought to go and look for your friends. As you don't know what they're +like and they don't know what you're like it may be difficult. Heaven +forbid," he continued, "that I should hurry you, but I have to catch a +train if I'm to get home to-night, and I don't intend to catch it until +I've handed you over safely to the Sacks." + +"Those Sacks--" began Anna-Rose; and then she finished irrelevantly by +remarking that it was the details of life that were discouraging,--from +which Anna Felicitas knew that Christopher's heart was once more in her +boots. + +"Come along," said Mr. Twist, urging them to wards the gangway. +"Anything you've got to say about life I shall be glad to hear, but at +some time when we're more at leisure." + +It had never occurred to either of the twins that the Clouston Sacks +would not meet them. They had taken it for granted from the beginning +that some form of Sack, either male or female, or at least their +plenipotentiary, would be on the wharf to take them away to the Sack +lair, as Anna-Felicitas alluded to the family mansion. It was, they +knew, in Boston, but Boston conveyed nothing to them. Only Mr. Twist +knew how far away it was. He had always supposed the Sacks would meet +their young charges, stay that night in New York, and continue on to +Boston next day. The twins were so certain they would be met that Mr. +Twist was certain too. He had concluded, with a growingly empty feeling +in his heart as the time of separation drew near, that all that now +remained for him to do on behalf of the Twinklers was to hand them over +to the Sacks. And then leave them. And then go home to that mother he +loved but had for some time known he didn't like,--go home a bereft and +lonely man. + +But out of the crowd on the pier, any of whom might have been Sacks for +all the Twinklers, eagerly scanning faces, knew, nobody in fact seemed +to be Sacks. At least, nobody came forward and said, "Are you the +Twinklers?" Other people fell into each other's arms; the air was full +of the noise of kissing, the loud legitimate kissing of relations; but +nobody took any notice of the twins. For a long while they stood +waiting. Their luggage was examined, and Mr. Twist's luggage--only his +was baggage--was examined, and the kissing and exclaiming crowd swayed +hither and thither, and broke up into groups, and was shot through by +interviewers, and got packed off into taxis, and grew thinner and +thinner, and at last was so thin that the concealment of the Sacks in it +was no longer possible. + +There were no Sacks. + +To the last few groups of people left in the great glass-roofed hall +piled with bags of wool and sulphur, Mr. Twist went up boldly and asked +if they were intending to meet some young ladies called Twinkler. His +tone, owing to perturbation, was rather more than one of inquiry, it +almost sounded menacing; and the answers he got were cold. He wandered +about uncertainly from group to group, his soft felt hat on the back of +his head and his brow getting more and more puckered; and Anna-Rose, +anxiously looking on from afar, became impatient at last of these +refusals of everybody to be Sacks, and thought that perhaps Mr. Twist +wasn't making himself clear. + +Impetuous by nature and little given to calm waiting, she approached a +group on her own account and asked them, enunciating her words very +clearly, whether they were by any chance Mr. and Mrs. Clouston Sack. + +The group, which was entirely female, stared round and down at her in +astonished silence, and shook its heads; and as she saw Mr. Twist being +turned away for the fifth time in the distance a wave of red despair +came over her, and she said, reproach in her voice and tears in her +eyes, "But _somebody's_ got to be the Sacks." + +Upon which the group she was addressing stared at her in a more +astonished silence than ever. + +Mr. Twist came up mopping his brow and took he arm and led her back to +Anna-Felicitas, who was taking care of the luggage and had sat down +philosophically to await developments on a bag of sulphur. She didn't +yet know what sulphur looked like on one's clothes after one has sat on +it, and smiled cheerfully and encouragingly at Anna-Rose as she came +towards her. + +"There _are_ no Sacks," said Anna-Rose, facing the truth. + +"It's exactly like that Uncle Arthur of yours," said Mr. Twist, mopping +his forehead and speaking almost vindictively. "Exactly like him. A man +like that _would_ have the sort of friends that don't meet one." + +"Well, we must do without the Sacks," said Anna-Felicitas, rising from +the sulphur bag with the look of serene courage that can only dwell on +the face of one who is free from care as to what has happened to him +behind. "And it isn't," she added sweetly to Mr. Twist, "as if we hadn't +got _you_." + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose, suddenly seeing daylight. "Of course. What do +Sacks really matter? I mean, for a day or two? You'll take us somewhere +where we can wait till we've found them." + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Some nice quiet old-fashioned coffee-house +sort of place, like the one the Brontes went to in St. Paul's Churchyard +the first time they were launched into the world." + +"Yes. Some inexpensive place." + +"Suited to the frugal." + +"Because although we've got £200, even that will need watching or it +will go." + +During this conversation Mr. Twist stood mopping his forehead. As often +as he mopped it it broke out afresh and had to be mopped again. They +were the only passengers left now, and had become very conspicuous. He +couldn't but perceive that a group of officials with grim, +locked-up-looking mouths were eyeing him and the Twinklers attentively. + +Always zealous in the cause of virtue, America provided her wharves and +landing-places with officials specially appointed to guard the purity of +family life. Family life obviously cannot be pure without a marriage +being either in it or having at some time or other passed through it. +The officials engaged in eyeing Mr. Twist and the twins were all married +themselves, and were well acquainted with that awful purity. But eye the +Twist and Twinkler party as they might, they could see no trace of +marriage anywhere about it. + +On the contrary, the man of the party looked so uneasy that it amounted +to conscious illegality. + +"Sisters?" said the chief official, stepping forward abruptly. + +"Eh?" said Mr. Twist, pausing in the wiping of his forehead. + +"These here--" said the official, jerking his thumb at the twins. "They +your sisters?" + +"No," said Mr. Twist stiffly. + +"No," said the twins, with one voice. "Do you think we look like him?" + +"Daughters?" + +"No," said Mr. Twist stiffly. + +"No," said the twins, with an ever greater vigour of repudiation. "You +_can't_ really think we look as much like him as all that?" + +"Wife and sister-in-law?" + +Then the Twinklers laughed. They laughed aloud, even Anna-Rose +forgetting her cares for a moment. But they were flattered, because it +was at least a proof that they looked thoroughly grown-up. + +"Then if they ain't your sisters, and they ain't your daughters, and +they ain't your wife and sister-in-law, p'raps you'll tell me--" + +"These young ladies are not anything at all of mine, sir," said Mr. +Twist vehemently. + +"Don't you get sir-ing me, now," said the official sticking out his jaw. +"This is a free country, and I'll have no darned cheek." + +"These young ladies in no way belong to me," said Mr. Twist more +patiently. "They're my friends." + +"Oh. Friends, are they? Then p'raps you'll tell me what you're going to +do with them next." + +"Do with them?" repeated Mr. Twist, as he stared with puckered brow at +the twins. "That's exactly what I wish I knew." + +The official scanned him from head to foot with triumphant contempt. He +had got one of them, anyhow. He felt quite refreshed already. There had +been a slump in sinners the past week, and he was as full of suppressed +energy and as much tormented by it as an unexercised and overfed horse. +"Step this way," he ordered curtly, waving Mr. Twist towards a wooden +erection that was apparently an office. "Oh, don't you worry about the +girls," he added, as his prey seemed disinclined to leave them. + +But Mr. Twist did worry. He saw Ellis Island looming up behind the two +figures that were looking on in an astonishment that had not yet had +time to turn into dismay as he was marched off out of sight. "I'll be +back in a minute," he called over his shoulder. + +"That's as may be," remarked the official grimly. + +But he was back; if not in a minute in a little more than five minutes, +still accompanied by the official, but an official magically changed +into tameness and amiability, desirous to help, instructing his +inferiors to carry Mr. Twist's and the young ladies' baggage to a taxi. + +It was the teapot that had saved him,--that blessed teapot that was +always protruding itself benevolently into his life. Mr. Twist had +identified himself with it, and it had instantly saved him. In the +shelter of his teapot Mr. Twist could go anywhere and do anything in +America. Everybody had it. Everybody knew it. It was as pervasive of +America as Ford's cars, but cosily, quietly pervasive. It was only less +visible because it stayed at home. It was more like a wife than Ford's +cars were. From a sinner caught red-handed, Mr. Twist, its amiable +creator, leapt to the position of one who can do no wrong, for he had +not only placed his teapot between himself and judgment but had +accompanied his proofs of identity by a suitable number of dollar bills, +pressed inconspicuously into the official's conveniently placed hand. + +The twins found themselves being treated with distinction. They were +helped into the taxi by the official himself, and what was to happen to +them next was left entirely to the decision and discretion of Mr. +Twist--a man so much worried that at that moment he hadn't any of +either. He couldn't even answer when asked where the taxi was to go to. +He had missed his train, and he tried not to think of his mother's +disappointment, the thought was so upsetting. But he wouldn't have +caught it if he could, for how could he leave these two poor children? + +"I'm more than ever convinced," he said, pushing his hat still further +off his forehead, and staring at the back of the Twinkler trunks piled +up in front of him next to the driver, while the disregarded official at +the door still went on asking him where he wished the cab to go to, +"that children should all have parents." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The hotel they were finally sent to by the official, goaded at +last by Mr. Twist's want of a made-up mind into independent +instructions to the cabman, was the Ritz. He thought this very +suitable for the evolver of Twist's Non-Trickler, and it was only +when they were being rushed along at what the twins, used to the +behaviour of London taxis and not altogether unacquainted with +the prudent and police-supervised deliberation of the taxis of +Berlin, regarded as a skid-collision-and-mutilation-provoking +speed, that a protest from Anna-Rose conveyed to Mr. Twist where +they were heading for. + +"An hotel called Ritz sounds very expensive," she said. "I've heard +Uncle Arthur talk of one there is in London and one there is in Paris, +and he said that only damned American millionaires could afford to stay +in them. Anna-Felicitas and me aren't American millionaires--" + +"Or damned," put in Anna-Felicitas. + +"--but quite the contrary," said Anna-Rose, "hadn't you better take us +somewhere else?" + +"Somewhere like where the Brontes stayed in London," said Anna-Felicitas +harping on this idea. "Where cheapness is combined with historical +associations." + +"Oh Lord, it don't matter," said Mr. Twist, who for the first time in +their friendship seemed ruffled. + +"Indeed it does," said Anna-Rose anxiously. + +"You forget we've got to husband our resources," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"You mustn't run away with the idea that because we've got £200 we're +the same as millionaires," said Anna-Rose. + +"Uncle Arthur," said Anna-Felicitas, "frequently told us that £200 is a +very vast sum; but he equally frequently told us that it isn't." + +"It was when he was talking about having given to us that he said it was +such a lot," said Anna-Rose. + +"He said that as long as we had it we would be rich," said +Anna-Felicitas, "but directly we hadn't it we would be poor." + +"So we'd rather not go to the Ritz, please," said Anna-Rose, "if you +don't mind." + +The taxi was stopped, and Mr. Twist got out and consulted the driver. +The thought of his Uncle Charles as a temporary refuge for the twins +floated across his brain, but was rejected because Uncle Charles would +speak to no woman under fifty except from his pulpit, and approached +those he did speak to with caution till they were sixty. He regarded +them as one of the chief causes of modern unrest. He liked them so much +that he hated them. He could practise abstinence, but not temperance. +Uncle Charles was no good as a refuge. + +"Well now, see here," said the driver at last, after Mr. Twist had +rejected such varied suggestions of something small and quiet as the +Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza and the Biltmore, "you tell me where you want +to go to and I'll take you there." + +"I want to go to the place your mother would stay in if she came up for +a day or two from the country," said Mr. Twist helplessly. + +"Get right in then, and I'll take you back to the Ritz," said the +driver. + +But finally, when his contempt for Mr. Twist, of whose identity he was +unaware, had grown too great even for him to bandy pleasantries with +him, he did land his party at an obscure hotel in a street off the less +desirable end of Fifth Avenue, and got rid of him. + +It was one of those quiet and cheap New York hotels that yet are both +noisy and expensive. It was full of foreigners,--real foreigners, the +twins perceived, not the merely technical sort like themselves, but +people with yellow faces and black eyes. They looked very seedy and +shabby, and smoked very much, and talked volubly in unknown tongues. The +entrance hall, a place of mottled marble, with clerks behind a counter +all of whose faces looked as if they were masks, was thick with them; +and it was when they turned to stare and whisper as Anna-Felicitas +passed and Anna-Rose was thinking proudly, "Yes, you don't see anything +like that every day, do you," and herself looked fondly at her Columbus, +that she saw that it wasn't Columbus's beauty at all but the sulphur on +the back of her skirt. + +This spoilt Anna-Rose's arrival in New York. All the way up in the lift +to the remote floor on which their bedroom was she was trying to brush +it off, for the dress was Anna-F.'s very best one. + +"That's all your grips, ain't it?" said the youth in buttons who had +come up with them, dumping their bags down on the bedroom floor. + +"Our what?" said Anna-Rose, to whom the expression was new. "Do you mean +our bags?" + +"No. Grips. These here," said the youth. + +"Is that what they're called in America?" asked Anna-Felicitas, with the +intelligent interest of a traveller determined to understand and +appreciate everything, while Anna-Rose, still greatly upset by the +condition of the best skirt but unwilling to expatiate upon it before +the youth, continued to brush her down as best she could with her +handkerchief. + +"I don't call them. It's what they are," said the youth. "What I want to +know is, are they all here?" + +"How interesting that you don't drop your h's," said Anna-Felicitas, +gazing at him. "The rest of you is so _like_ no h's." + +The youth said nothing to that, the line of thought being one he didn't +follow. + +"Those _are_ all our--grips, I think," said Anna-Rose counting them +round the corner of Anna-Felicitas's skirt. "Thank you very much," she +added after a pause, as he still lingered. + +But this didn't cause him to disappear as it would have in England. +Instead, he picked up a metal bottle with a stopper off the table, and +shook it and announced that their ice-water bottle was empty. "Want some +ice water?" he inquired. + +"What for?" asked Anna-Felicitas. + +"What for?" echoed the youth. + +"Thank you," said Anna-Rose, who didn't care about the youth's manner +which seemed to her familiar, "we don't want ice water, but we should be +glad of a little hot water." + +"You'll get all you want of that in there," said the youth, jerking his +head towards a door that led into a bathroom. "It's ice water and ink +that you get out of me." + +"Really?" said Anna-Felicitas, gazing at him with even more intelligent +interest, almost as if she were prepared, it being America, a country, +she had heard, of considerable mechanical ingenuity, to find his person +bristling with taps which only needed turning. + +"We don't want either, thank you," said Anna-Rose. + +The youth lingered. Anna-Rose's brushing began to grow vehement. Why +didn't he go? She didn't want to have to be rude to him and hurt his +feelings by asking him to go, but why didn't he? Anna-Felicitas, who was +much too pleasantly detached, thought Anna-Rose, for such a situation, +the door being wide open to the passage and the ungetridable youth +standing there staring, was leisurely taking off her hat and smoothing +her hair. + +"Suppose you're new to this country," said the youth after a pause. + +"Brand," said Anna-Felicitas pleasantly. + +"Then p'raps," said the youth, "you don't know that the feller who +brings up your grips gets a tip." + +"Of course we know that," said Anna-Rose, standing up straight and +trying to look stately. + +"Then if you know why don't you do it?" + +"Do it?" she repeated, endeavouring to chill him into respectfulness by +haughtily throwing back her head. "Of course we shall do it. At the +proper time and place." + +"Which is, as you must have noticed," added Anna-Felicitas gently, +"departure and the front door." + +"That's all right," said the youth, "but that's only one of the times +and places. That's the last one. Where we've got to now is the first +one." + +"Do I understand," said Anna-Rose, trying to be very dignified, while +her heart shrank within her, for what sort of sum did one offer people +like this?--"that to America one tips at the beginning as well?" + +"Yep," said the youth. "And in the middle too. Right along through. +Never miss an opportunity, is as good a slogan as you'll get when it +comes to tipping." + +"I believe you'd have liked Kipps," said Anna-Felicitas meditatively, +shaking some dust off her hat and remembering the orgy of tipping that +immortal young man went in for at the seaside hotel. + +"What I like now," said the youth, growing more easy before their +manifest youth and ignorance, "is tips. Guess you can call it Kipps if +it pleases you." + +Anna-Rose began to fumble nervously in her purse "It's horrid, I think, +to ask for presents," she said to the youth in deep humiliation, more on +his account than hers. + +"Presents? I'm not asking for presents. I'm telling you what's done," +said the youth. And he had spots on his face. And he was repugnant to +her. + +Anna-Rose gave him what looked like a shilling. He took it, and +remarking that he had had a lot of trouble over it, went away; and +Anna-Rose was still flushed by this encounter when Mr. Twist knocked and +asked if they were ready to be taken down to tea. + +"He might have said thank you," she said indignantly to Anna-Felicitas, +giving a final desperate brushing to the sulphur. + +"I expect he'll come to a bad end," said Anna-Felicitas soothingly. + +They had tea in the restaurant and were the only people doing such a +thing, a solitary cluster in a wilderness of empty tables laid for +dinner. It wasn't the custom much in America, explained Mr. Twist, to +have tea, and no preparations were made for it in hotels of that sort. +The very waiters, feeling it was a meal to be discouraged, were showing +their detachment from it by sitting in a corner of the room playing +dominoes. It was a big room, all looking-glasses and windows, and the +street outside was badly paved and a great noise of passing motor-vans +came in and drowned most of what Mr. Twist was saying. It was an +unlovely place, a place in which one might easily feel homesick and that +the world was empty of affection, if one let oneself go that way. The +twins wouldn't. They stoutly refused, in their inward recesses, to be +daunted by these externals. For there was Mr. Twist, their friend and +stand-by, still with them, and hadn't they got each other? But they felt +uneasy all the same; for Mr. Twist, though he plied them with buttered +toast and macaroons and was as attentive as usual, had a somnambulatory +quality in his attention. He looked like a man who is doing things in a +dream. He looked like one who is absorbed in something else. His +forehead still was puckered, and what could it be puckered about, seeing +that he had got home, and was going back to his mother, and had a clear +and uncomplicated future ahead of him, and anyhow was a man? + +"Have you got something on your mind?" asked Anna-Rose at last, when he +hadn't even heard a question she asked,--he, the polite, the interested, +the sympathetic friend of the journey across. + +Mr. Twist, sitting tilted back in his chair, his hands deep in his +pockets, looked up from the macaroons he had been staring at and said, +"Yes." + +"Tell us what it is," suggested Anna-Felicitas. + +"You," said Mr. Twist. + +"Me?" + +"Both of you. You both of you go together. You're in one lump in my +mind. And on it too," finished Mr. Twist ruefully. + +"That's only because," explained Anna-Felicitas, "you've got the idea +we want such a lot of taking care of. Get rid of that, and you'll feel +quite comfortable again. Why not regard us merely as pleasant friends?" + +Mr. Twist looked at her in silence. + +"Not as objects to be protected," continued Anna Felicitas, "but as +co-equals. Of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting." + +Mr. Twist continued to look at her in silence. + +"We didn't come to America to be on anybody's mind," said Anna-Rose, +supporting Anna-Felicitas. + +"We had a good deal of that in England," said Anna-Felicitas. "For +instance, we're quite familiar with Uncle Arthur's mind, we were on it +so heavily and so long." + +"It's our fixed determination," said Anna-Rose, "now that we're starting +a new life, to get off any mind we find ourselves on _instantly_." + +"We wish to carve out our own destinies," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"We more than wish to," corrected Anna-Rose, "we intend to. What were we +made in God's image for if it wasn't to stand upright on our own feet?" + +"Anna-Rose and I had given this a good deal of thought," said +Anna-Felicitas, "first and last, and we're prepared to be friends with +everybody, but only as co-equals and of a reasonable soul and human +flesh subsisting." + +"I don't know exactly," said Mr. Twist, "what that means, but it seems +to give you a lot of satisfaction." + +"It does. It's out of the Athanasian Creed, and suggests such perfect +equality. If you'll regard us as co-equals instead of as objects to be +looked after, you'll see how happy we shall all be." + +"Not," said Anna-Rose, growing tender, for indeed in her heart she +loved and clung to Mr. Twist, "that we haven't very much liked all +you've done for us and the way you were so kind to us on the +boat,--we've been _most_ obliged to you, and we shall miss you very much +indeed, I know." + +"But we'll get over that of course in time," put in Anna-Felicitas, "and +we've got to start life now in earnest." + +"Well then," said Mr. Twist, "will you two Annas kindly tell me what it +is you propose to do next?" + +"Next? After tea? Go and look at the sights." + +"I mean to-morrow," said Mr. Twist. + +"To-morrow," said Anna-Rose, "we proceed to Boston." + +"To track the Clouston Sacks to their lair," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Ah. You've made up your minds to do that. They've behaved abominably," +said Mr. Twist. + +"Perhaps they missed the train," said Anna-Felicitas mildly. + +"It's the proper course to pursue," said Anna-Rose. "To proceed to +Boston." + +"I suppose it is," said Mr. Twist, again thinking that the really proper +and natural course was for him to have been able to take them to his +mother. Pity one's mother wasn't-- + +He pulled himself up on the brink of an unfiliality. He was on the verge +of thinking it a pity one's mother wasn't a different one. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"Then," said Mr. Twist, "if this is all you're going to see of New York, +this one evening, let us go and look at it." + +He beckoned to the waiter who came up with the bill. Anna-Rose pulled +out her purse. Mr. Twist put up his hand with severe determination. + +"You're my guest," he said, "as long as I am with you. Useless to +protest, young lady. You'll not get me to belie my American manhood. I +only listened with half an ear to all the things you both said in the +taxi, because I hadn't recovered from the surprise of finding myself +still with you instead of on the train for Clark, and because you both +of you do say so very many things. But understand once and for all that +in this country everything female has to be paid for by some man. I'm +that man till I've left you on the Sack doorstep, and then it'll be +Sack--confound him," finished Mr. Twist suddenly. + +And he silenced Anna-Rose's protests, which persisted and were +indignant, by turning on her with, an irascibility she hadn't yet seen +in him, and inquiring of her whether then she really wished to put him +to public shame? "You wouldn't wish to go against an established custom, +surely," he said more gently. + +So the twins gave themselves up for that one evening to what +Anna-Felicitas called government by wealth, otherwise plutocracy, while +reserving complete freedom of action in regard to Mr. Sack, who was, in +their ignorance of his circumstances, an unknown quantity. They might +be going to be mothers' helps in the Sack _ménage_ for all they +knew,--they might, they said, be going to be anything, from honoured +guests to typists. + +"Can you type?" asked Mr. Twist. + +"No," said the twins. + +He took them in a taxi to Riverside Drive, and then they walked down to +the charming footpath that runs along by the Hudson for three enchanting +miles. The sun had set some time before they got there, and had left a +clear pale yellow sky, and a wonderful light on the river. Lamps were +being lit, and hung like silver globes in the thin air. Steep grass +slopes, and groups of big trees a little deeper yellow than the sky, hid +that there were houses and a street above them on their right. Up and +down the river steamers passed, pierced with light, their delicate smoke +hanging in the air long after they had gone their way. It was so great a +joy to walk in all this after ten days shut up on the _St. Luke_ and to +see such blessed things as grass and leaves again, that the twins felt +suddenly extraordinarily brisked up and cheerful. It was impossible not +to be cheerful, translated from the _St. Luke_ into such a place, +trotting along in the peculiar dry air that made one all tingly. + +The world seemed suddenly quite good,--the simplest, easiest of objects +to tackle. All one had to do was not to let it weigh on one, to laugh +rather than cry. They trotted along humming bits of their infancy's +songs, feeling very warm and happy inside, felicitously full of tea and +macaroons and with their feet comfortably on something that kept still +and didn't heave or lurch beneath them. Mr. Twist, too, was gayer than +he had been for some hours. He seemed relieved; and he was. He had sent +a telegram to his mother, expressing proper sorrow at being detained in +New York, but giving no reason for it, and promising he would be with +her rather late the next evening; and he had sent a telegram to the +Clouston Sacks saying the Twinklers, who had so unfortunately missed +them in New York, would arrive in Boston early next afternoon. His mind +was clear again owing to the determination of the twins to go to the +Sacks. He was going to take them there, hand them over, and then go back +to Clark, which fortunately was only three hours' journey from Boston. + +If the twins had shown a disinclination to go after the Sacks who, in +Mr. Twist's opinion, had behaved shamefully already, he wouldn't have +had the heart to press them to go; and then what would he have done with +them? Their second and last line of defence, supposing they had +considered the Sacks had failed and were to be ruled out, was in +California, a place they spoke of as if it were next door to Boston and +New York. How could he have let them set out alone on that four days' +journey, with the possibility of once more at its end not being met? No +wonder he had been abstracted at tea. He was relieved to the extent of +his forehead going quite smooth again at their decision to proceed to +the Sacks. For he couldn't have taken them to his mother without +preparation and explanation, and he couldn't have left them in New York +while he went and prepared and explained. Great, reflected Mr. Twist, +the verb dropping into his mind with the _aplomb_ of an inspiration, are +the difficulties that beset a man directly he begins to twinkle. Already +he had earnestly wished to knock the reception clerk in the hotel office +down because of, first, his obvious suspicion of the party before he had +heard Mr. Twist's name, and because of, second, his politeness, his +confidential manner as of an understanding sympathizer with a rich man's +recreations, when he had. The tea, which he, had poured out of one of +his own teapots, had been completely spoilt by the knowledge that it was +only this teapot that had saved him from being treated as a White Slave +Trafficker. He wouldn't have got into that hotel at all with the +Twinklers, or into any other decent one, except for his teapot. What a +country, Mr. Twist had thought, fresh from his work in France, fresh +from where people were profoundly occupied with the great business of +surviving at all. Here he came back from a place where civilization +toppled, where deadly misery, deadly bravery, heroism that couldn't be +uttered, staggered month after month among ruins, and found America +untouched, comfortable, fat, still with time to worry over the suspected +amorousness of the rich, still putting people into uniforms in order to +buttonhole a man on landing and cross-question him as to his private +purities. + +He had been much annoyed, but he too couldn't resist the extreme +pleasure of real exercise on such a lovely evening, nor could he resist +the infection of the cheerfulness of the Twinklers. They walked along, +talking and laughing, and seeming to walk much faster than he did, +especially Anna-Rose who had to break into a run every few steps because +of his so much longer legs, his face restored to all its usual +kindliness as he listened benevolently to their remarks, and just when +they were beginning to feel as if they soon might be tired and hungry a +restaurant with lamp-hung gardens appeared as punctually as if they had +been in Germany, that land of nicely arranged distances between meals. +They had an extremely cheerful little supper out of doors, with things +to eat that thrilled the Twinklers in their delicious strangeness; +heavenly food, they thought it after the rigours of the second-class +cooking on the _St. Luke_, and the biggest ices they had seen in their +lives,--great dollops of pink and yellow divineness. + +Then Mr. Twist took them in a taxi to look at the illuminated +advertisements in Broadway, and they forgot everything but the joy of +the moment. Whatever the next day held, this evening was sheer +happiness. Their eyes shone and their cheeks flushed, and Mr. Twist was +quite worried that they were so pretty. People at the other tables at +the restaurant had stared at them with frank admiration, and so did the +people in the streets whenever the taxi was blocked. On the ship he had +only sometimes been aware of it,--there would come a glint of sunshine +and settle on Anna-Rose's little cheek where the dimple was, or he would +lift his eyes from the Culture book and suddenly see the dark softness +of Anna-Felicitas's eyelashes as she slept in her chair. But now, +dressed properly, and in their dryland condition of cheerful animation, +he perceived that they were very pretty indeed, and that Anna-Felicitas +was more than very pretty. He couldn't help thinking they were a most +unsuitable couple to be let loose in America with only two hundred +pounds to support them. Two hundred pounds was just enough to let them +slip about if it should enter their heads to slip about,--go off without +explanation, for instance, if they wanted to leave the Clouston +Sacks,--but of course ridiculous as a serious background to life. A girl +should either have enough money or be completely dependent on her male +relations. As a girl was usually young reflected Mr. Twist, his +spectacles with the Broadway lights in them blazing on the two +specimens opposite him, it was safest for her to be dependent. So were +her actions controlled, and kept within the bounds of wisdom. + +And next morning, as he sat waiting for the twins for breakfast at ten +o'clock according to arrangement the night before, their grape-fruit in +little beds of ice on their plates and every sort of American dish +ordered, from griddle cakes and molasses to chicken pie, a page came in +with loud cries for Mr. Twist, which made him instantly conspicuous--a +thing he particularly disliked--and handed him a letter. + +The twins had gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +They had left early that morning for Boston, determined, as they wrote, +no longer to trespass on his kindness. There had been a discussion in +their bedroom the night before when they got back in which Anna-Rose +supplied the heat and Anna-Felicitas the arguments, and it ended in +Anna-Felicitas succeeding in restoring Anna-Rose to her original +standpoint of proud independence, from which, lured by the comfort and +security of Mr. Twist's companionship, she had been inclined to slip. + +It took some time, because of Anna-Rose being the eldest. Anna-Felicitas +had had to be as wary, and gentle, and persistently affectionate as a +wife whom necessity compels to try and get reason into her husband. +Anna-Rose's feathers, even as the feathers of a husband, bristled at the +mere breath of criticism of her superior intelligence and wisdom. She +was the leader of the party, the head and guide, the one who had the +dollars in her pocket, and being the eldest naturally must know best. +Besides, she was secretly nervous about taking Anna-Felicitas about +alone. She too had observed the stares of the public, and had never +supposed that any of them might be for her. How was she to get to Boston +successfully with so enchanting a creature, through all the +complications of travel in an unknown country, without the support and +counsel of Mr. Twist? Just the dollars and quarters and dimes and cents +cowed her. The strangeness of everything, while it delighted her so +long as she could peep at it from behind Mr. Twist, appalled her the +minute she was left alone with it. America seemed altogether a foreign +country, a strange place whose inhabitants by accident didn't talk in a +strange language. They talked English; or rather what sounded like +English till you found that it wasn't really. + +But Anna-Felicitas prevailed. She had all Anna-Rose's inborn horror of +accepting money or other benefits from people who had no natural right +to exercise their benevolences upon her, to appeal to. Christopher, +after long wrestling restored at last to pride, did sit down and write +the letter that so much spoilt Mr. Twist's breakfast next morning, while +Columbus slouched about the room suggesting sentences. + +It was a letter profuse in thanks for all Mr. Twist had done for them, +and couched in language that betrayed the particular share +Anna-Felicitas had taken in the plan; for though they both loved long +words Anna-Felicitas's were always a little the longer. In rolling +sentences that made Mr. Twist laugh in spite of his concern, they +pointed out that his first duty was to his mother, and his second was +not to squander his possessions in paying the hotel and railway bills of +persons who had no sort of claim on him, except those general claims of +humanity which he had already on the _St. Luke_ so amply discharged. +They would refrain from paying their hotel bill, remembering his words +as to the custom of the country, though their instincts were altogether +against this course, but they could and would avoid causing him the +further expense and trouble and waste of his no doubt valuable time of +taking them to Boston, by the simple process of going there without him. +They promised to write from the Sacks and let him know of their arrival +to the address at Clark he had given them, and they would never forget +him as long as they lived and remained his very sincerely, A.-R., and +A.-F. Twinkler. + +Mr. Twist hurried out to the office. + +The clerk who had been so confidential in his manner the evening before +looked at him curiously. Yes, the young ladies had left on the 8.15 for +Boston. They had come downstairs, baggage and all, at seven o'clock, had +asked for a taxi, had said they wished to go to Boston, inquired about +the station, etc., and had specially requested that Mr. Twist should not +be disturbed. + +"They seemed in a slight hurry to be off," said the clerk, "and didn't +like there being no train before the 8.15. I thought you knew all about +it, Mr. Twist," he added inquisitively. + +"So I did--so I did," said Mr. Twist, turning away to go back to his +breakfast for three. + +"So he did--so he did," muttered the clerk with a wink to the other +clerk; and for a few minutes they whispered, judging from the +expressions on their faces, what appeared to be very exciting things to +each other. + +Meanwhile the twins, after a brief struggle of extraordinary intensity +at the station in getting their tickets, trying to understand the black +man who seized and dealt with their luggage, and closely following him +wherever he went in case he should disappear, were sitting in a state of +relaxation and relief in the Boston express, their troubles over for at +least several hours. + +The black porter, whose heart happened not to be black and who had +children of his own, perceived the helpless ignorance that lay behind +the twins' assumption a of severe dignity, and took them in hand and +got seats for them in the parlour car. As they knew nothing about cars, +parlour or otherwise, but had merely and quite uselessly reiterated to +the booking-clerk, till their porter intervened, that they wanted +third-class tickets, they accepted these seats, thankful in the press +and noise round them to get anything so roomy and calm as these +dignified arm-chairs; and it wasn't till they had been in them some +time, their feet on green footstools, with attendants offering them +fruit and chocolates and magazines at intervals just as if they had been +in heaven, as Anna-Felicitas remarked admiringly, that counting their +money they discovered what a hole the journey had made in it. But they +were too much relieved at having accomplished so much on their own, +quite uphelped for the first time since leaving Aunt Alice, to take it +particularly to heart; and, as Anna-Felicitas said, there was still the +£200, and, as Anna-Rose said, it wasn't likely they'd go in a train +again for ages; and anyhow, as Anna-Felicitas said, whatever it had cost +they were bound to get away from being constant drains on Mr. Twist's +purse. + +The train journey delighted them. To sit so comfortably and privately in +chairs that twisted round, so that if a passenger should start staring +at Anna-Felicitas one could make her turn her back altogether on him; to +have one's feet on footstools when they were the sort of feet that don't +reach the ground; to see the lovely autumn country flying past, hills +and woods and fields and gardens golden in the October sun, while the +horrible Atlantic was nowhere in sight; to pass through towns so queerly +reminiscent of English and German towns shaken up together and yet not a +bit like either; to be able to have the window wide open without +getting soot in one's eyes because one of the ministering angels--clad, +this one, appropriately to heaven, in white, though otherwise +black--pulled up the same sort of wire screen they used to have in the +windows at home to keep out the mosquitoes; to imitate about twelve, +when they grew bold because they were so hungry, the other passengers +and cause the black angel to spread a little table between them and +bring clam broth, which they ordered in a spirit of adventure and +curiosity and concealed from each other that they didn't like; to have +the young man who passed up and down with the candy, and whose mouth was +full of it, grow so friendly that he offered them toffee from his own +private supply at last when they had refused regretfully a dozen +suggestions to buy--"Have a bit," he said, thrusting it under their +noses. "As a gentleman to ladies--no pecuniary obligations--come on, +now;" all this was to the twins too interesting and delightful for +words. + +They accepted the toffee in the spirit in which it was offered, and +since nobody can eat somebody's toffee without being pleasant in return, +intermittent amenities passed between them and the young man as he +journeyed up and down through the cars. + +"First visit to the States?" he inquired, when with some reluctance, for +presently it appeared to the twins that the clam broth and the toffee +didn't seem to be liking each other now they had got together inside +them, and also for fear of hurting his feelings if they refused, they +took some more. + +They nodded and smiled stickily. + +"English, I guess." + +They hesitated, covering their hesitation with the earnest working of +their toffee-filled jaws. + +Then Anna-Felicitas, her cheek distorted, gave him the answer she had +given the captain of the _St. Luke,_ and said, "Practically." + +"Ah," said the young man, turning this over in his mind, the r in +"practically" having rolled as no English or American r ever did; but +the conductor appearing in the doorway he continued on his way. + +"It's evident," said Anna-Rose, speaking with difficulty, for her jaws +clave together because of the toffee, "that we're going to be asked that +the first thing every time a fresh person speaks to us. We'd better +decide what we're going to say, and practise saying it without +hesitation." + +Anna-Felicitas made a sound of assent. + +"That answer of yours about practically," continued Anna-Rose, +swallowing her bit of toffee by accident and for one moment afraid it +would stick somewhere and make her die, "causes first surprise, then +reflection, and then suspicion." + +"But," said Anna-Felicitas after a pause during which she had +disentangled her jaws, "it's going to be difficult to say one is German +when America seems to be so very neutral and doesn't like Germans. +Besides, it's only in the eye of the law that we are. In God's eye we're +not, and that's the principal eye after all." + +Her own eyes grew thoughtful. "I don't believe," she said, "that parents +when they marry have any idea of all the difficulties they're going to +place their children in." + +"I don't believe they think about it at all," said Anna-Rose. "I mean," +she added quickly, lest she should be supposed to be questioning the +perfect love and forethought of their mother, "fathers don't." + +They were silent a little after this, each thinking things tinged to +sobriety by the effect of the inner conflict going on between the clam +broth and the toffee. Also Boston was rushing towards them, and the +Clouston Sacks. Quite soon they would have to leave the peaceful +security of the train and begin to be active again, and quick and +clever. Anna-Felicitas, who was slow, found it difficult ever to be +clever till about the week after, and Anna-Rose, who was impetuous, was +so impetuous that she entirely outstripped her scanty store of +cleverness and landed panting and surprised in situations she hadn't an +idea what to do with. The Clouston Sacks, now--Aunt Alice had said, "You +must take care to be very tactful with Mr. and Mrs. Clouston Sack;" and +when Anna-Rose, her forehead as much puckered as Mr. Twist's in her +desire to get exactly at what tactful was in order to be able diligently +to be it, asked for definitions, Aunt Alice only said it was what +gentlewomen were instinctively. + +"Then," observed Anna-Felicitas, when on nearing Boston Anna-Rose +repeated Aunt Alice's admonishment and at the same time provided +Anna-Felicitas for her guidance with the definition, "seeing that we're +supposed to be gentlewomen, all we've got to do is to behave according +to our instincts." + +But Anna-Rose wasn't sure. She doubted their instincts, especially +Anna-Felicitas's. She thought her own were better, being older, but even +hers were extraordinarily apt to develop in unexpected directions +according to the other person's behaviour. Her instinct, for instance, +when engaged by Uncle Arthur in conversation had usually been to hit +him. Was that tact? Yet she knew she was a gentlewoman. She had heard +that, since first she had heard words at all, from every servant, +teacher, visitor and relation--except her mother--in her Prussian home. +Indeed, over there she had been told she was more than a gentlewoman, +for she was a noblewoman and therefore her instincts ought positively to +drip tact. + +"Mr. Dodson," Aunt Alice had said one afternoon towards the end, when +the twins came in from a walk and found the rector having tea, "says +that you can't be too tactful in America. He's been there." + +"Sensitive--sensitive," said Mr. Dodson, shaking his head at his cup. +"Splendidly sensitive, just as they are splendidly whatever else they +are. A great country. Everything on a vast scale, including +sensitiveness. It has to be met vastly. But quite easy really---" He +raised a pedagogic finger at the twins. "You merely add half as much +again to the quantity of your tact as the quantity you encounter of +their sensitiveness, and it's all right." + +"Be sure you remember that now," said Aunt Alice, pleased. + +As Boston got nearer, Anna-Rose, trying to learn Mr. Dodson's recipe for +social success by heart, became more silent. On the ship, when the +meeting with the Sacks was imminent, she had fled in sudden panic to her +cabin to hide from them. That couldn't have been tact. But it was +instinct. And she was a gentlewoman. Now once again dread took +possession of her and she wanted to hide, not to get there, to stay in +the train and go on and on. She said nothing, of course, of her dread to +Anna-Felicitas in order not to undermine that young person's _morale_, +but she did very much wish that principles weren't such important things +and one needn't have cut oneself off from the protecting figure of Mr. +Twist. + +"Now remember what Aunt Alice said," she whispered severely to +Anna-Felicitas, gripping her arm as they stood jammed in the narrow +passage to the door waiting to be let out at Boston. + +On the platform, they both thought, would be the Sacks,--certainly one +Sack, and they had feverishly made themselves tidy and composed their +faces into pleasant smiles preparatory to the meeting. But once again no +Sacks were there. The platform emptied itself just as the great hall of +the landing-stage had emptied itself, and nobody came to claim the +Twinklers. + +"These Sacks," remarked Anna-Felicitas patiently at last, when it was +finally plain that there weren't any, "don't seem to have acquired the +meeting habit." + +"No," said Anna-Rose, vexed but relieved. "They're like what Aunt Alice +used to complain about the housemaids,--neither punctual nor +methodical." + +"But it doesn't matter," said Anna-Felicitas. "They shall not escape us. +I'm getting quite hungry for the Sacks as a result of not having them. +We will now proceed to track them to their lair." + +For one instant Anna-Rose looked longingly at the train. It was still +there. It was going on further and further away from the Sacks. Happy +train. One little jump, and they'd be in it again. But she resisted, and +engaged a porter. + +Even as soon as this the twins were far less helpless than they had been +the day before. The Sack address was in Anna-Rose's hand, and they knew +what an American porter looked like. The porter and a taxi were engaged +with comparative ease and assurance, and on giving the porter, who had +staggered beneath the number of their grips, a dime, and seeing a cloud +on his face, they doubled it instantly sooner than have trouble, and +trebled it equally quickly on his displaying yet further +dissatisfaction, and they departed for the Sacks, their grips piled up +round them in the taxi as far as their chins, congratulating themselves +on how much easier it was to get away from a train than to get into one. + +But the minute their activities were over and they had time to think, +silence fell upon them again. They were both nervous. They both composed +their faces to indifference to hide that they were nervous, examining +the streets they passed through with a calm and _blasé_ stare worthy of +a lorgnette. It was the tact part of the coming encounter that was +chiefly unnerving Anna-Rose, and Anna-Felicitas was dejected by her +conviction that nobody who was a friend of Uncle Arthur's could possibly +be agreeable. "By their friends ye shall know them," thought +Anna-Felicitas, staring out of the window at the Boston buildings. Also +the persistence of the Sacks in not being on piers and railway stations +was discouraging. There was no eagerness about this persistence; there +wasn't even friendliness. Perhaps they didn't like her and Anna-Rose +being German. + +This was always the twins' first thought when anybody wasn't +particularly cordial. Their experiences in England had made them a +little jumpy. They were conscious of this weak spot, and like a hurt +finger it seemed always to be getting in the way and being knocked. +Anna-Felicitas once more pondered on the inscrutable behaviour of +Providence which had led their mother, so safely and admirably English, +to leave that blessed shelter and go and marry somebody who wasn't. Of +course there was this to be said for it, that she wasn't their mother +then. If she had been, Anna-Felicitas felt sure she wouldn't have. Then, +perceiving that her thoughts were getting difficult to follow she gave +them up, and slid her hand through Anna-Rose's arm and gave it a +squeeze. + +"Now for the New World, Christopher," she said, pretending to be very +eager and brave and like the real Columbus, as the taxi stopped. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The taxi had stopped in front of a handsome apartment house, and almost +before it was quiet a boy in buttons darted out across the intervening +wide pavement and thrust his face through the window. + +"Who do you want?" he said, or rather jerked out. + +He then saw the contents of the taxi, and his mouth fell open; for it +seemed to him that grips and passengers were piled up inside it in a +seething mass. + +"We want Mr. and Mrs. Clouston Sack," said Anna-Rose in her most +grown-up voice. "They're expecting us." + +"They ain't," said the boy promptly. + +"They ain't?" repeated Anna-Rose, echoing his language in her surprise. + +"How do you know?" asked Anna-Felicitas. + +"That they ain't? Because they ain't," said the boy. "I bet you my +Sunday shirt they ain't." + +The twins stared at him. They were not accustomed in their conversations +with the lower classes to be talked to about shirts. + +The boy seemed extraordinarily vital. His speech was so quick that it +flew out with the urgency and haste of squibs going off. + +"Please open the door," said Anna-Rose recovering herself. "We'll go up +and see for ourselves." + +"You won't see," said the boy. + +"Kindly open the door," repeated Anna-Rose. + +"You won't see," he said, pulling it open, "but you can look. If you do +see Sacks up there I'm a Hun." + +The minute the door opened, grips fell out. There were two umbrellas, +two coats, a knapsack of a disreputable bulged appearance repugnant to +American ideas of baggage which run on big simple lines of huge trunks, +an _attaché_ case, a suit case, a hold-all, a basket and a hat-box. +Outside beside the driver were two such small and modest trunks that +they might almost as well have been grips themselves. + +"Do you mind taking those in?" asked Anna-Rose, getting out with +difficulty over the umbrella that had fallen across the doorway, and +pointing to the gutter in which the other umbrella and the knapsack lay +and into which the basket, now that her body no longer kept it in, was +rolling. + +"In where?" crackled the boy. + +"In," said Anna-Rose severely. "In to wherever Mr. and Mrs. Clouston +Sack are." + +"It's no good your saying they are when they ain't," said the boy, +increasing the loudness of his crackling. + +"Do you mean they don't live here?" asked Anna-Felicitas, in her turn +disentangling herself from that which was still inside the taxi, and +immediately followed on to the pavement by the hold-all and the +_attaché_ case. + +"They did live here till yesterday," said the boy, "but now they don't. +One does. But that's not the same as two. Which is what I meant when you +said they're expecting you and I said they ain't." + +"Do you mean to say--" Anna-Rose stopped with a catch of her breath. "Do +you mean," she went on in an awe-struck voice, "that one of them--one of +them is dead?" + +"Dead? Bless you, no. Anything but dead. The exact opposite. Gone. +Left. Got," said the boy. + +"Oh," said Anna-Rose greatly relieved, passing over his last word, whose +meaning escaped her, "oh--you mean just gone to meet us. And missed us. +You see," she said, turning to Anna-Felicitas, "they did try to after +all." + +Anna-Felicitas said nothing, but reflected that whichever Sack had tried +to must have a quite unusual gift for missing people. + +"Gone to meet you?" repeated the boy, as one surprised by a new point of +view. "Well, I don't know about that--" + +"We'll go up and explain," said Anna-Rose. "Is it Mr. or Mrs. Clouston +Sack who is here?" + +"Mr.," said the boy. + +"Very well then. Please bring in our things." And Anna-Rose proceeded, +followed by Anna-Felicitas, to walk into the house. + +The boy, instead of bringing them in, picked up the articles lying on +the pavement and put them back again into the taxi. "No hurry about +them, I guess," he said to the driver. "Time enough to take them up when +the gurls ask again--" and he darted after the gurls to hand them over +to his colleague who worked what he called the elevator. + +"Why do you call it the elevator," inquired Anna-Felicitas, mildly +inquisitive, of this boy, who on hearing that they wished to see Mr. +Sack stared at them with profound and unblinking interest all the way +up, "when it is really a lift?" + +"Because it is an elevator," said the boy briefly. + +"But we, you see," said Anna-Felicitas, "are equally convinced that it's +a lift." + +The boy didn't answer this. He was as silent as the other one wasn't; +but there was a thrill about him too, something electric and tense. He +stared at Anna-Felicitas, then turned quickly and stared at Anna-Rose, +then quickly back to Anna-Felicitas, and so on all the way up. He was +obviously extraordinarily interested. He seemed to have got hold of an +idea that had not struck the squib-like boy downstairs, who was +entertaining the taxi-driver with descriptions of the domestic life of +the Sacks. + +The lift stopped at what the twins supposed was going to be the door of +a landing or public corridor, but it was, they discovered, the actual +door of the Sack flat. At any moment the Sacks, if they wished to commit +suicide, could do so simply by stepping out of their own front door. +They would then fall, infinitely far, on to the roof of the lift lurking +at the bottom. + +The lift-boy pressed a bell, the door opened, and there, at once exposed +to the twins, was the square hall of the Sack flat with a manservant +standing in it staring at them. + +Obsessed by his idea, the lift-boy immediately stepped out of his lift, +approached the servant, introduced his passengers to him by saying, +"Young ladies to see Mr. Sack," took a step closer, and whispered in his +ear, but perfectly audibly to the twins who, however, regarded it as +some expression peculiarly American and were left unmoved by it, "The +co-respondents." + +The servant stared uncertainly at them. His mistress had only been gone +a few hours, and the flat was still warm with her presence and +authority. She wouldn't, he well knew, have permitted co-respondents to +be about the place if she had been there, but on the other hand she +wasn't there. Mr. Sack was in sole possession now. Nobody knew where +Mrs. Sack was. Letters and telegrams lay on the table for her unopened, +among them Mr. Twist's announcing the arrival of the Twinklers. In his +heart the servant sided with Mr. Sack, but only in his heart, for the +servant's wife was the cook, and she, as she frequently explained, was +all for strict monogamy. He stared therefore uncertainly at the twins, +his brain revolving round their colossal impudence in coming there +before Mrs. Sack's rooms had so much as had time to get, as it were, +cold. + +"We want to see Mr. Clouston Sack," began Anna-Rose in her clear little +voice; and no sooner did she begin to speak than a door was pulled open +and the gentleman himself appeared. + +"I heard a noise of arrival--" he said, stopping suddenly when he saw +them. "I heard a noise of arrival, and a woman's voice--" + +"It's us," said Anna-Rose, her face covering itself with the bright +conciliatory smiles of the arriving guest. "Are you Mr. Clouston Sack?" + +She went up to him and held out her hand. They both went up to him and +held out their hands. + +"We're the Twinklers," said Anna-Rose. + +"We've come," said Anna-Felicitas, in case he shouldn't have noticed it. + +Mr. Sack let his hand be shaken, and it was a moist hand. He looked like +a Gibson young man who has grown elderly. He had the manly profile and +shoulders, but they sagged and stooped. There was a dilapidation about +him, a look of blurred edges. His hair lay on his forehead in disorder, +and his tie had been put on carelessly and had wriggled up to the rim of +his collar. + +"The Twinklers," he repeated. "The Twinklers. Do I remember, I wonder?" + +"There hasn't been much time to forget," said Anna-Felicitas. "It's +less than two months since there were all those letters." + +"Letters?" echoed Mr. Sack. "Letters?" + +"So now we've got here," said Anna-Rose, the more brightly that she was +unnerved. + +"Yes. We've come," said Anna-Felicitas, also with feverish brightness. + +Bewildered, Mr. Sack, who felt that he had had enough to bear the last +few hours, stood staring at them. Then he caught sight of the lift-boy, +lingering and he further saw the expression on his servant's face Even +to his bewilderment it was clear what he was thinking. + +Mr. Sack turned round quickly and led the way into the dining-room. +"Come in, come in," he said distractedly. + +They went in. He shut the door. The lift-boy and the servant lingered a +moment making faces at each other; then the lift-boy dropped away in his +lift, and the servant retired to the kitchen. "I'm darned," was all he +could articulate. "I'm darned." + +"There's our luggage," said Anna-Rose, turning to Mr. Sack on getting +inside the room, her voice gone a little shrill in her determined +cheerfulness. "Can it be brought up?" + +"Luggage?" repeated Mr. Sack, putting his hand to his forehead. "Excuse +me, but I've got such a racking headache to-day--it makes me stupid--" + +"Oh, I'm _very_ sorry," said Anna-Rose solicitously. + +"And so am I--_very_," said Anna-Felicitas, equally solicitous. "Have +you tried aspirin? Sometimes some simple remedy like that--" + +"Oh thank you--it's good of you, it's good of you. The effect, you see, +is that I can't think very clearly. But do tell me--why luggage? +Luggage--luggage. You mean, I suppose, baggage." + +"Why luggage?" asked Anna-Rose nervously. "Isn't there--isn't there +always luggage in America too when people come to stay with one?" + +"You've come to stay with me," said Mr. Sack, putting his hand to his +forehead again. + +"You see," said Anna-Felicitas, "we're the Twinklers." + +"Yes, yes--I know. You've told me that." + +"So naturally we've come." + +"But _is_ it natural?" asked Mr. Sack, looking at them distractedly. + +"We sent you a telegram," said Anna-Rose, "or rather one to Mrs. Sack, +which is the same thing--" + +"It isn't, it isn't," said the distressed Mr. Sack. "I wish it were. It +ought to be. Mrs. Sack isn't here--" + +"Yes--we're very sorry to have missed her. Did she go to meet us in New +York, or where?" + +"Mrs. Sack didn't go to meet you. She's--gone." + +"Gone where?" + +"Oh," cried Mr. Sack, "somewhere else, but not to meet you. Oh," he went +on after a moment in which, while the twins gazed at him, he fought with +and overcame emotion, "when I heard you speaking in the hall I +thought--I had a moment's hope--for a minute I believed--she had come +back. So I went out. Else I couldn't have seen you. I'm not fit to see +strangers--" + +The things Mr. Sack said, and his fluttering, unhappy voice, were so +much at variance with the stern lines of his Gibson profile that the +twins viewed him with the utmost surprise. They came to no conclusion +and passed no judgment because they didn't know but what if one was an +American one naturally behaved like that. + +"I don't think," said Anna-Felicitas gently, "that you can call us +strangers. We're the Twinklers." + +"Yes, yes--I know--you keep on telling me that," said Mr. Sack. "But I +can't call to mind--" + +"Don't you remember all Uncle Arthur's letters about us? We're the +nieces he asked you to be kind to for a bit--as I'm sure," +Anna-Felicitas added politely, "you're admirably adapted for being." + +Mr. Sack turned his bewildered eyes on to her. "Oh, aren't you a pretty +girl," he said, in the same distressed voice. + +"You mustn't make her vain," said Anna-Rose, trying not to smile all +over her face, while Anna-Felicitas remained as manifestly unvain as a +person intent on something else would be. + +"We know you got Uncle Arthur's letters about us," she continued, +"because he showed us your answers back. You invited us to come and stay +with you. And, as you perceive, we've done it." + +"Then it must have been months ago--months ago," said Mr. Sack, "before +all this--do I remember something about it? I've had such trouble +since--I've been so distracted one way and another--it may have slipped +away out of my memory under the stress--Mrs. Sack--" He paused and +looked round the room helplessly. "Mrs. Sack--well, Mrs. Sack isn't here +now." + +"We're _very_ sorry you've had trouble," said Anna-Felicitas +sympathetically. "It's what everybody has, though. Man that is born of +woman is full of misery. That's what the Burial Service says, and it +ought to know." + +Mr. Sack again turned bewildered eyes on to her. "Oh, aren't you a +pretty--" he again began. + +"When do you think Mrs. Sack will be back?" interrupted Anna-Rose. + +"I wish I knew--I wish I could hope--but she's gone for a long while, +I'm afraid--" + +"Gone not to come back at all, do you mean?" asked Anna-Felicitas. + +Mr. Sack gulped. "I'm afraid that is her intention," he said miserably. + +There was a silence, in which they all stood looking at each other. + +"Didn't she like you?" then inquired Anna-Felicitas. + +Anna-Rose, sure that this wasn't tactful, gave her sleeve a little pull. + +"Were you unkind to her?" asked Anna-Felicitas, disregarding the +warning. + +Mr. Sack, his fingers clasping and unclasping themselves behind his +back, started walking up and down the room. Anna-Felicitas, forgetful of +what Aunt Alice would have said, sat down on the edge of the table and +began to be interested in Mrs. Sack. + +"The wives I've seen," she remarked, watching Mr. Sack with friendly and +interested eyes, "who were chiefly Aunt Alice--that's Uncle Arthur's +wife, the one we're the nieces of--seemed to put up with the utmost +contumely from their husbands and yet didn't budge. You must have been +something awful to yours." + +"I worshipped Mrs. Sack," burst out Mr. Sack. "I worshipped her. I do +worship her. She was the handsomest, brightest woman in Boston. I was as +proud of her as any man has ever been of his wife." + +"Then why did she go?" asked Anna-Felicitas. + +"I don't think that's the sort of thing you should ask," rebuked +Anna-Rose. + +"But if I don't ask I won't be told," said Ann Felicitas, "and I'm +interested." + +"Mrs. Sack went because I was able--I was so constructed--that I could +be fond of other people as well as of her," said Mr. Sack. + +"Well, _that's_ nothing unusual," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"No," said Anna-Rose, "I don't see anything in that." + +"I think it shows a humane and friendly spirit," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Besides, it's enjoined in the Bible," said Anna-Rose. + +"I'm sure when we meet Mrs. Sack," said Anna-Felicitas very politely +indeed, "much as we expect to like her we shall nevertheless continue to +like other people as well. You, for instance. Will she mind that?" + +"It wasn't so much that I liked other people," said Mr. Sack, walking +about and thinking tumultuously aloud rather than addressing anybody, +"but that I liked other people so _much_." + +"I see," said Anna-Felicitas, nodding. "You overdid it. Like over-eating +whipped cream. Only it wasn't you but Mrs. Sack who got the resulting +ache." + +"And aren't I aching? Aren't I suffering?" + +"Yes, but you did the over-eating," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"The world," said the unhappy Mr. Sack, quickening his pace, "is so full +of charming and delightful people. Is one to shut one's eyes to them?" + +"Of course not," said Anna-Felicitas. "One must love them." + +"Yes, yes," said Mr. Sack. "Exactly. That's what I did." + +"And though I wouldn't wish," said Anna-Felicitas, "to say anything +against somebody who so very nearly was my hostess, yet really, you +know, wasn't Mrs. Sack's attitude rather churlish?" + +Mr. Sack gazed at her. "Oh, aren't you a pretty--" he began again, +with a kind of agonized enthusiasm; but he was again cut short by +Anna-Rose, on whom facts of a disturbing nature were beginning to press. + +"Aunt Alice," she said, looking and feeling extremely perturbed as the +situation slowly grew clear to her, "told us we were never to stay with +people whose wives are somewhere else. Unless they have a mother or +other female relative living with them. She was most particular about +it, and said whatever else we did we weren't ever to do this. So I'm +afraid," she continued in her politest voice, determined to behave +beautifully under circumstances that were trying, "much as we should +have enjoyed staying with you and Mrs. Sack if she had been here to stay +with, seeing that she isn't we manifestly can't." + +"You can't stay with me," murmured Mr. Sack, turning his bewildered eyes +to her. "Were you going to?" + +"Of course we were going to. It's what we've come for," said +Anna-Felicitas. + +"And I'm afraid," said-Anna-Rose, "disappointed as we are, unless you +can produce a mother--" + +"But where on earth are we to go to, Anna-R.?" inquired Anna-Felicitas, +who, being lazy, having got to a place preferred if possible to stay in +it, and who besides was sure that in their forlorn situation a Sack in +the hand was worth two Sacks not in it, any day. Also she liked the look +of Mr. Sack, in spite of his being so obviously out of repair. He badly +wanted doing up she said to herself, but on the other hand he seemed to +her lovable in his distress, with much of the pathetic helplessness her +own dear Irish terrier, left behind in Germany, had had the day he +caught his foot in a rabbit trap. He had looked at Anna-Felicitas, while +she was trying to get him out of it, with just the same expression on +his face that Mr. Sack had on his as he walked about the room twisting +and untwisting his fingers behind his back. Only, her Irish terrier +hadn't had a Gibson profile. Also, he had looked much more efficient. + +"Can't you by any chance produce a mother?" she asked. + +Mr. Sack stared at her. + +"Of course we're very sorry," said Anna-Rose. + +Mr. Sack stared at her. + +"But you understand, I'm sure, that under the circumstances--" + +"Do you say," said Mr. Sack, stopping still after a few more turns in +front of Anna-Rose, and making a great effort to collect his thoughts, +"that I--that we--had arranged to look after you?" + +"Arranged with Uncle Arthur," said Anna-Rose. "Uncle Arthur Abinger. Of +course you had. That's why we're here. Why, you wrote bidding us +welcome. He showed us the letter." + +"Abinger. Abinger. Oh--_that_ man," said Mr. Sack, his mind clearing. + +"We thought you'd probably feel like that about him," said +Anna-Felicitas sympathetically. + +"Why, then," said Mr. Sack, his mind getting suddenly quite clear, "you +must be--why, you _are_ the Twinklers." + +"We've been drawing your attention to that at frequent intervals since +we got here," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"But whether you now remember or still don't realize," said Anna-Rose +with great firmness, "I'm afraid we've got to say good-bye." + +"That's all very well, Anna-R.," again protested Anna-Felicitas, "but +where are we to go to?" + +"Go?" said Anna-Rose with a dignity very creditable in one of her size, +"Ultimately to California, of course, to Uncle Arthur's other friends. +But now, this afternoon, we get back into a train and go to Clark, to +Mr. Twist. He at least has a mother." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +And so it came about that just as the reunited Twists, mother, son and +daughter, were sitting in the drawing-room, a little tired after a long +afternoon of affection, waiting for seven o'clock to strike and, with +the striking, Amanda the head maid to appear and announce supper, but +waiting with lassitude, for they had not yet recovered from an elaborate +welcoming dinner, the Twinklers, in the lovely twilight of a golden day, +were hastening up the winding road from the station towards them. +Silent, and a little exhausted, the unconscious Twists sat in their +drawing-room, a place of marble and antimacassars, while these light +figures, their shoes white with the dust of a country-side that had had +no rain for weeks, sped every moment nearer. + +The road wound gently upwards through fields and woods, through quiet, +delicious evening country, and there was one little star twinkling +encouragingly at the twins from over where they supposed Clark would be. +At the station there had been neither porter nor conveyance, nor indeed +anybody or anything at all except themselves, their luggage, and a thin, +kind man who represented authority. Clark is two miles away from its +station, and all the way to it is uninhabited. Just at the station are a +cluster of those hasty buildings America flings down in out-of-the-way +places till she shall have leisure to make a splendid city; but the road +immediately curved away from these up into solitude and the evening sky. + +"You can't miss it," encouraged the station-master. "Keep right along +after your noses till they knock up against Mrs. Twist's front gate. +I'll look after the menagerie--" thus did he describe the Twinkler +luggage. "Guess Mrs. Twist'll be sending for it as soon as you get +there. Guess she forgot you. Guess she's shaken up by young Mr. Twist's +arriving this very day. _I_ wouldn't have forgotten you. No, not for a +dozen young Mr. Twists," he added gallantly. + +"Why do you call him young Mr. Twist," inquired Anna-Felicitas, "when he +isn't? He must be at least thirty or forty or fifty." + +"You see, we know him quite well," said Anna-Rose proudly, as they +walked off. "He's a _great_ friend of ours." + +"You don't say," said the station-master, who was chewing gum; and as +the twins had not yet seen this being done they concluded he had been +interrupted in the middle of a meal by the arrival of the train. + +"Now mind," he called after them, "you do whatever the road does. Give +yourselves up to it, and however much it winds about stick to it. You'll +meet other roads, but don't you take any notice of them." + +Freed from their luggage, and for a moment from all care, the twins went +up the hill. It was the nicest thing in the world to be going to see +their friend again in quite a few minutes. They had, ever since the +collapse of the Sack arrangements, been missing him very much. As they +hurried on through the scented woods, past quiet fields, between +yellow-leaved hedges, the evening sky growing duskier and the beckoning +star lighter, they remembered Mr. Twist's extraordinary kindness, his +devoted and unfailing care, with the warmest feelings of gratitude and +affection. Even Anna-Felicitas felt warm. How often had he rearranged +her head when it was hopelessly rolling about; how often had he fed her +when she felt better enough to be hungry. Anna-Felicitas was very +hungry. She still thought highly of pride and independence, but now +considered their proper place was after a good meal. And Anna-Rose, with +all the shameless cheerfulness of one who for a little has got rid of +her pride and is feeling very much more comfortable in consequence +remarked that one mustn't overdo independence. + +"Let's hurry," said Anna-Felicitas. "I'm so dreadfully hungry. I do so +terribly want supper. And I'm sure it's supper-time, and the Twists will +have finished and we mightn't get any." + +"As though Mr. Twist wouldn't see to that!" exclaimed Anna-Rose, proud +and confident. + +But she did begin to run, for she too was very hungry, and they raced +the rest of the way; which is why they arrived on the Twist doorstep +panting, and couldn't at first answer Amanda the head maid's surprised +and ungarnished inquiry as to what they wanted, when she opened the door +and found them there. + +"We want Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose, as soon as she could speak. + +Amanda eyed them. "You from the village?" she asked, thinking perhaps +they might be a deputation of elder school children sent to recite +welcoming poems to Mr. Twist on his safe return from the seat of war. +Yet she knew all the school children and everybody else in Clark, and +none of them were these. + +"No--from the station," panted Anna-Rose. + +"We didn't see any village," panted Anna-Felicitas. + +"We want Mr. Twist please," said Anna-Rose struggling with her breath. + +Amanda eyed them. "Having supper," she said curtly. + +"Fortunate creature," gasped Anna-Felicitas, "I hope he isn't eating it +all." + +"Will you announce us please?" said Anna-Rose putting on her dignity. +"The Miss Twinklers." + +"The who?" said Amanda. + +"The Miss Twinklers," said Anna-Rose, putting on still more dignity, for +there was that in Amanda's manner which roused the Junker in her. + +"Can't disturb him at supper," said Amanda briefly. + +"I assure you," said Anna-Felicitas, with the earnestness of conviction, +"that he'll like it. I think I can undertake to promise he'll show no +resentment whatever." + +Amanda half shut the door. + +"We'll come in please," said Anna-Rose, inserting herself into what was +left of the opening. "Will you kindly bear in mind that we're totally +unaccustomed to the doorstep?" + +Amanda, doubtful, but unpractised in such a situation, permitted +herself, in spite of having as she well knew the whole of free and equal +America behind her, to be cowed. Well, perhaps not cowed, but taken +aback. It was the long words and the awful politeness that did it. She +wasn't used to beautiful long words like that, except on Sundays when +the clergyman read the prayers in church, and she wasn't used to +politeness. That so much of it should come out of objects so young +rendered Amanda temporarily dumb. + +She wavered with the door. Instantly Anna-Rose slipped through it; +instantly Anna-Felicitas followed her. + +"Kindly tell your master the Miss Twinklers have arrived," said +Anna-Rose, looking every inch a Junker. There weren't many inches of +Anna-Rose, but every one of them at that moment, faced by Amanda's want +of discipline, was sheer Junker. + +Amanda, who had never met a Junker in her happy democratic life, was +stirred into bristling emotion by the word master. She was about to +fling the insult of it from her by an impetuous and ill-considered +assertion that if he was her master she was his mistress and so there +now, when the bell which had rung once already since they had been +standing parleying rang again and more impatiently, and the dining-room +door opened and a head appeared. The twins didn't know that it was +Edith's head, but it was. + +"Amanda--" began Edith, in the appealing voice that was the nearest +she ever dared get to rebuke without Amanda giving notice; but she +stopped on seeing what, in the dusk of the hall, looked like a crowd. +"Oh--" said Edith, taken aback. "Oh--" And was for withdrawing her head +and shutting the door. + +But the twins advanced towards her and the stream of light shining +behind her and the agreeable smell streaming past her, with outstretched +hands. + +"How do you do," they both said cordially. "_Don't_ go away again." + +Edith, feeling that here was something to protect her quietly feeding +mother from, came rather hastily through the door and held it to behind +her, while her unresponsive and surprised hand was taken and shaken even +as Mr. Sack's had been. + +"We've come to see Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose. + +"He's our friend," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"He's our best friend," said Anna-Rose. + +"Is he in there?" asked Anna-Felicitas, appreciatively moving her nose, +a particularly delicate instrument, round among the various really +heavenly smells that were issuing from the dining-room and sorting them +out and guessing what they probably represented, the while water rushed +into her mouth. + +The sound of a chair being hastily pushed back was heard and Mr. Twist +suddenly appeared in the doorway. + +"What is it, Edward?" a voice inside said. + +Mr. Twist was a pale man, whose skin under no circumstances changed +colour except in his ears. These turned red when he was stirred, and +they were red now, and seemed translucent with the bright light behind +him shining through them. + +The twins flew to him. It was wonderful how much pleased they were to +see him again. It was as if for years they had been separated from their +dearest friend. The few hours since the night before had been enough to +turn their friendship and esteem for him into a warm proprietary +affection. They felt that Mr. Twist belonged to them. Even +Anna-Felicitas felt it, and her eyes as she beheld him were bright with +pleasure. + +"Oh there you are," cried Anna-Rose darting forward, gladness in her +voice, and catching hold of his arm. + +"We've come," said Anna-Felicitas, beaming and catching hold of his +other arm. + +"We got into difficulties," said Anna-Rose. + +"We got into them at once," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"They weren't our difficulties--" + +"They were the Sacks'--" + +"But they reacted on us--" + +"And so here we are." + +"Who is it, Edward?" asked the voice inside. + +"Mrs. Sack ran away yesterday from Mr. Sack," went on Anna-Rose eagerly. + +"Mr. Sack was still quite warm and moist from it when we got there," +said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Aunt Alice said we weren't ever to stay in a house where they did +that," said Anna-Rose. + +"Where there wasn't a lady," said Anna-Felicitas + +"So when we saw that she wasn't there because she'd gone, we turned +straight round to you," said Anna. Rose. + +"Like flowers turning to the sun," said Anna-Felicitas, even in that +moment of excitement not without complacency at her own aptness. + +"And left our things at the station," Anna-Rose rushed on. + +"And ran practically the whole way," said Anna-Felicitas, "because of +perhaps being late for supper and you're having eaten it all, and we so +dreadfully hungry--" + +"Who is it, Edward?" again called the voice inside, louder and more +insistently. + +Mr. Twist didn't answer. He was quickly turning over the situation in +his mind. + +He had not mentioned the twins to his mother, which would have been +natural, seeing how very few hours he had of reunion with her, if she +hadn't happened to have questioned him particularly as to his +fellow-passengers on the boat. Her questions had been confined to the +first-class passengers, and he had said, truthfully, that he had hardly +spoken to one of them, and not at all to any of the women. + +Mrs. Twist had been relieved, for she lived in dread of Edward's +becoming, as she put it to herself, entangled with ladies. Sin would be +bad enough--for Mrs. Twist was obliged reluctantly to know that even +with ladies it is possible to sin--but marriage for Edward would be even +worse, because it lasted longer. Sin, terrible though it was, had at +least this to be said for it, that it could be repented of and done +with, and repentance after all was a creditable activity; but there was +no repenting of marriage with any credit. It was a holy thing, and you +don't repent of holy things,--at least, you oughtn't to. If, as +ill-advised young men so often would, Edward wanted as years went on to +marry in spite of his already having an affectionate and sympathetic +home with feminine society in it, then it seemed to Mrs. Twist most +important, most vital to the future comfort of the family, that it +should be someone she had chosen herself. She had observed him from +infancy, and knew much better than he what was needed for his happiness; +and she also knew, if there must be a wife, what was needed for the +happiness of his mother and sister. She had not thought to inquire about +the second-class passengers, for it never occurred to her that a son of +hers could drift out of his natural first-class sphere into the slums of +a ship, and Mr. Twist had seen no reason for hurrying the Twinklers into +her mental range. Not during those first hours, anyhow. There would be +plenty of hours, and he felt that sufficient unto the day would be the +Twinklers thereof. + +But the part that was really making his ears red was that he had said +nothing about the evening with the twins in New York. When his mother +asked with the fondness of the occasion what had detained him, he said +as many another honest man, pressed by the searching affection of +relations, has said before him, that it was business. Now it appeared +that he would have to go into the dining-room and say, "No. It wasn't +business. It was these." + +His ears glowed just to think of it. He hated to lie. Specially he hated +to have lied,--at the moment, one plunged in spurred by sudden +necessity, and then was left sorrowfully contemplating one's +degradation. His own desire was always to be candid; but his mother, he +well knew, could not bear the pains candour gave her. She had been so +terribly hurt, so grievously wounded when, fresh from praying,--for +before he went to Harvard he used to pray--he had on one or two +occasions for a few minutes endeavoured not to lie to her that sheer +fright at the effect of his unfiliality made him apologize and beg her +to forget it and forgive him. Now she was going to be still more wounded +by his having lied. + +The meticulous tortuousness of family life struck Mr. Twist with a +sudden great impatience. After that large life over there in France, to +come back to this dreary petticoat lying, this feeling one's way about +among tender places ... + +"Who is it, Edward?" called the voice inside for the third time. + +"There's someone in there seems quite particularly to want to know who +we are," said Anna-Felicitas. "Why not tell her?" + +"I expect it's your mother," said Anna-Rose, feeling the full +satisfaction of having got to a house from which the lady hadn't run +anywhere. + +"It is," said Mr. Twist briefly. + +"Edith!" called the voice, much more peremptorily. + +Edith started and half went in, but hesitated and quite stayed out. She +was gazing at the Twinklers with the same kind eyes her brother had, +but without the disfiguring spectacles. Astonishment and perplexity and +anxiety were mixed with the kindness. Amanda also gazed; and if the +twins hadn't been so sure of their welcome, even they might gradually +have begun to perceive that it wasn't exactly open-armed. + +"Edith--Edward--Amanda," called the voice, this time with unmistakable +anger. + +For one more moment Mr. Twist stood uncertain, looking down at the happy +confident faces turned up to him exactly, as Anna-Felicitas had just +said, like flowers turning to the sun. Visions of France flashed before +him, visions of what he had known, what he had just come back from. His +friends over there, the gay courage, the helpfulness, the ready, +uninquiring affection, the breadth of outlook, the quick friendliness, +the careless assumption that one was decent, that one's intentions were +good,--why shouldn't he pull some of the splendid stuff into his poor, +lame little home? Why should he let himself drop back from heights like +those to the old ridiculous timidities, the miserable habit of avoiding +the truth? Rebellion, hope, determination, seized Mr. Twist. His eyes +shone behind his spectacles. His ears were two red flags of revolution. +He gripped hold of the twins, one under each arm. + +"You come right in," he said, louder than he had ever spoken in his +life. "Edith, see these girls? They're the two Annas. Their other name +is Twinkler, but Anna'll see you through. They want supper, and they +want beds, and they want affection, and they're going to get it all. So +hustle with the food, and send the Cadillac for their baggage, and fix +up things for them as comfortably as you know how. And as for Mrs. +Sack," he said, looking first at one twin and then at the other, "if it +hadn't been for her running away from her worthless husband--I'm +convinced that fellow Sack is worthless--you might never have come here +at all. So you see," he finished, laughing at Anna-Rose, "how good comes +out of evil." + +And with the sound of these words preceding him he pushed open the +dining-room door and marched them in. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +At the head of the table sat his mother; long, straight, and grave. She +was in the seat of authority, the one with its back to the windows and +its face to the door, from whence she could see what everybody did, +especially Amanda. Having seen what Amanda did, she then complained to +Edith. She didn't complain direct to Amanda, because Amanda could and +did give notice. + +Her eyes were fixed on the door. Between it and her was the table, +covered with admirable things to eat, it being supper and therefore, +according to a Twist tradition surviving from penurious days, all the +food, hot and cold, sweet and salt, being brought in together, and +Amanda only attending when rung for. Half-eaten oyster patties lay on +Mrs. Twist's plate. In her glass neglected champagne had bubbled itself +flat. Her hand still held her fork, but loosely, as an object that had +lost its interest, and her eyes and ears for the last five minutes had +not departed from the door. + +At first she had felt mere resigned annoyance that Amanda shouldn't have +answered the bell, but she didn't wish to cast a shadow over Edward's +homecoming by drawing poor Edith's attention before him to how very +badly she trained the helps, and therefore she said nothing at the +moment; then, when Edith, going in search of Amanda, had opened the door +and let in sounds of argument, she was surprised, for she knew no one so +intimately that they would be likely to call at such an hour; but when +Edward too leapt up, and went out and stayed out and failed to answer +her repeated calls, she was first astonished, then indignant, and then +suddenly was overcome by a cold foreboding. + +Mrs. Twist often had forebodings, and they were always cold. They seized +her with bleak fingers; and one of Edith's chief functions was to +comfort and reassure her for as long a while each time as was required +to reach the stage of being able to shake them off. Here was one, +however, too icily convincing to be shaken off. It fell upon her with +the swiftness of a revelation. Something unpleasant was going to happen +to her; something perhaps worse than unpleasant,--disastrous. And +something immediate. + +Those excited voices out in the hall,--they were young, surely, and they +were feminine. Also they sounded most intimate with Edward. What had he +been concealing from her? What disgracefulness had penetrated through +him, through the son the neighbourhood thought so much of, into her very +home? She was a widow. He was her only son. Impossible to believe he +would betray so sacred a position, that he whom she had so lovingly and +proudly welcomed a few hours before would allow his--well, she really +didn't know what to call them, but anyhow female friends of whom she had +been told nothing, to enter that place which to every decent human being +is inviolable, his mother's home. Yet Mrs. Twist did instantly believe +it. + +Then Edward's voice, raised and defiant--surely defiant?--came through +the crack in the door, and every word he said was quite distinct. Anna; +supper; affection ... Mrs. Twist sat frozen. And then the door was +flung open and Edward tumultuously entered, his ears crimson, his face +as she had never seen it and in each hand, held tightly by the arm, a +girl. + +Edward had been deceiving her. + +"Mother--" he began. + +"How do you do," said the girls together, and actually with smiles. + +Edward had been deceiving her. That whole afternoon how quiet he had +been, how listless. Quite gentle, quite affectionate, but listless and +untalkative. She had thought he must be tired; worn out with his long +journey across from Europe. She had made allowances for him; been +sympathetic, been considerate. And look at him now. Never had she seen +him with a face like that. He was--Mrs. Twist groped for the word and +reluctantly found it--rollicking. Yes; that was the word that exactly +described him--rollicking. If she hadn't observed his languor up to a +few minutes ago at supper, and seen him with her own eyes refuse +champagne and turn his back on cocktails, she would have been forced to +the conclusion, dreadful though it was to a mother, that he had been +drinking. And the girls! Two of them. And so young. + +Mrs. Twist had known Edward, as she sometimes informed Edith, all his +life, and had not yet found anything in his morals which was not +blameless. Watch him with what loving care she might she had found +nothing; and she was sure her mother's instinct would not have failed +her. Nevertheless, even with that white past before her--he hadn't told +her about "Madame Bovary"--she now instantly believed the worst. + +It was the habit of Clark to believe the worst. Clark was very small, +and therefore also very virtuous. Each inhabitant was the careful +guardian of his neighhour's conduct. Nobody there ever did anything +that was wrong; there wasn't a chance. But as Nature insists on a +balance, the minds of Clark dwelt curiously on evil. They were minds +active in suspicion. They leapt with an instantaneous agility at the +worst conclusions. Nothing was ever said in Clark, but everything was +thought. The older inhabitants, made fast prisoners in their mould of +virtue by age, watched with jealous care the behaviour of those still +young enough to attract temptation. The younger ones, brought up in +inhibitions, settled down to wakefulness in regard to each other. +Everything was provided and encouraged in Clark, a place of pleasant +orchards and gentle fields, except the things that had to do with love. +Husbands were there; and there was a public library, and social +afternoons, and an Emerson society. The husbands died before the wives, +being less able to cope with virtue; and a street in Clark of smaller +houses into which their widows gravitated had been christened by the +stationmaster--a more worldly man because of his three miles off and all +the trains--Lamentation Lane. + +In this village Mrs. Twist had lived since her marriage, full of dignity +and honour. As a wife she had been full of it, for the elder Mr. Twist +had been good even when alive, and as a widow she had been still fuller, +for the elder Mr. Twist positively improved by being dead. Not a breath +had ever touched her and her children. Not the most daring and +distrustful Clark mind had ever thought of her except respectfully. And +now here was this happening to her; at her age; when she was least able +to bear it. + +She sat in silence, staring with sombre eyes at the three figures. + +"Mother--" began Edward again; but was again interrupted by the +twins, who said together, as they had now got into the habit of saying +when confronted by silent and surprised Americans, "We've come." + +It wasn't that they thought it a particularly good conversational +opening, it was because silence and surprise on the part of the other +person seemed to call for explanation on theirs, and they were +constitutionally desirous of giving all the information in their power. + +"How do you do," they then repeated, loosening themselves from Mr. Twist +and advancing down the room with outstretched hands. + +Mr. Twist came with them. "Mother," he said, "these are the Twinkler +girls. Their name's Twinkler. They---" + +Freed as he felt he was from his old bonds, determined as he felt he was +on emulating the perfect candour and simplicity of the twins and the +perfect candour and simplicity of his comrades in France, his mother's +dead want of the smallest reaction to this announcement tripped him up +for a moment and prevented his going on. + +But nothing ever prevented the twins going on. If they were pleased and +excited they went on with cheerful gusto, and if they were unnerved and +frightened they still went on,--perhaps even more volubly, anxiously +seeking cover behind a multitude of words. + +Mrs. Twist had not yet unnerved and frightened them, because they were +too much delighted that they had got to her at all. The relief Anna-Rose +experienced at having safely piloted that difficult craft, the clumsy if +adorable Columbus, into a respectable Port was so immense that it +immediately vented itself in words of warmest welcome to the lady in the +chair to her own home. + +"We're _so_ glad to see you here," she said, smiling till her dimple +seemed to be everywhere at once hardly able to refrain from giving the +lady a welcome hug instead of just inhospitably shaking her hand. She +couldn't even shake her hand, however, because it still held, immovably, +the fork. "It would have been too awful," Anna-Rose therefore finished, +putting the heartiness of the handshake she wanted to give into her +voice instead, "if _you_ had happened to have run away too." + +"As Mrs. Sack has done from her husband," Anna-Felicitas explained, +smiling too, benevolently, at the black lady who actually having got +oyster patties on her plate hadn't bothered to eat them. "But of course +you couldn't," she went on, remembering in time to be tactful and make a +Sympathetic reference to the lady's weeds; which, indeed, considering +Mr. Twist had told her and Anna-Rose that his father had died when he +was ten, nearly a quarter of a century ago, seemed to have kept their +heads up astonishingly and stayed very fresh. And true to her German +training, and undaunted by the fork, she did that which Anna-Rose in her +contentment had forgotten, and catching up Mrs. Twist's right hand, fork +and all, to her lips gave it the brief ceremonious kiss of a well +brought up Junker. + +Like Amanda's, Mrs. Twist's life had been up to this empty of Junkers. +She had never even heard of them till the war, and pronounced their +name, and so did the rest of Clark following her lead, as if it had been +junket, only with an r instead of a t at the end. She didn't therefore +recognize the action; but even she, outraged as she was, could not but +see its grace. And looking up in sombre hostility at the little head +bent over her hand and at the dark line of eyelashes on the the flushed +face, she thought swiftly, "_She's_ the one." + +"You see, mother," said Mr. Twist, pulling a chair vigorously and +sitting on it with determination, "it's like this. (Sit down, you two, +and get eating. Start on anything you see in this show that hits your +fancy. Edith'll be fetching you something hot, I expect--soup, or +something--but meanwhile here's enough stuff to go on with.) You see, +mother--" he resumed, turning squarely to her, while the twins obeyed +him with immense alacrity and sat down and began to eat whatever +happened to be nearest them, "these two girls--well, to start with +they're twins--" + +Mr. Twist was stopped again by his mother's face. She couldn't conceive +why he should lie. Twins the world over matched in size and features; it +was notorious that they did. Also, it was the custom for them to match +in age, and the tall one of these was at least a year older than the +other one. But still, thought Mrs. Twist, let that pass. She would +suffer whatever it was she had to suffer in silence. + +The twins too were silent, because they were so busy eating. Perfectly +at home under the wing they knew so well, they behaved with an easy +naturalness that appeared to Mrs. Twist outrageous. But still--let that +too pass. These strangers helped themselves and helped each other, as if +everything belonged to them; and the tall one actually asked her--her, +the mistress of the house--if she could get _her_ anything. Well, let +that pass too. + +"You see, mother--" began Mr. Twist again. + +He was finding it extraordinarily difficult. What a tremendous hold +one's early training had on one, he reflected, casting about for words; +what a deeply rooted fear there was in one, subconscious, lurking in +one's foundations, of one's mother, of her authority, of her quickly +wounded affection. Those Jesuits, with their conviction that they could +do what they liked with a man if they had had the bringing up of him +till he was seven, were pretty near the truth. It took a lot of shaking +off, the unquestioning awe, the habit of obedience of one's childhood. + +Mr. Twist sat endeavouring to shake it off. He also tried to bolster +himself up by thinking he might perhaps be able to assist his mother to +come out from her narrowness, and discover too how warm and glorious the +sun shone outside, where people loved and helped each other. Then he +rejected that as priggish. + +"You see, mother," he started again, "I came across them--across these +two girls--they're both called Anna, by the way, which seems confusing +but isn't really--I came across them on the boat----" + +He again stopped dead. + +Mrs. Twist had turned her dark eyes to him. They had been fixed on +Anna-Felicitas, and on what she was doing with the dish of oyster +patties in front of her. What she was doing was not what Mrs. Twist was +accustomed to see done at her table. Anna-Felicitas was behaving badly +with the patties, and not even attempting to conceal, as the decent do, +how terribly they interested her. + +"You came across them on the boat," repeated Mrs. Twist, her eyes on her +son, moved in spite of her resolution to speech. And he had told her +that very afternoon that he had spoken to nobody except men. Another +lie. Well, let that pass too ... + +Mr. Twist sat staring back at her through his big gleaming spectacles. +He well knew the weakness of his position from his mother's point of +view; but why should she have such a point of view, such a niggling, +narrow one, determined to stay angry and offended because he had been +stupid enough to continue, under the influence of her presence, the old +system of not being candid with her, of being slavishly anxious to avoid +offending? Let her try for once to understand and forgive. Let her for +once take the chance offered her of doing a big, kind thing. But as he +stared at her it entered his mind that he couldn't very well start +moving her heart on behalf of the twins in their presence. He couldn't +tell her they were orphans, alone in the world, helpless, poor, and so +unfortunately German, with them sitting there. If he did, there would be +trouble. The twins seemed absorbed for the moment in getting fed, but he +had no doubt their ears were attentive, and at the first suggestion of +sympathy being invoked for them they would begin to say a few of those +things he was so much afraid his mother mightn't be able to understand. +Or, if she understood, appreciate. + +He decided that he would be quiet until Edith came back, and then ask +his mother to go to the drawing-room with him, and while Edith was +looking after the Annas he would, well out of earshot, explain them to +his mother, describe their situation, commend them to her patience and +her love. He sat silent therefore, wishing extraordinarily hard that +Edith would be quick. + +But Anna-Felicitas's eyes were upon him now, as well as his mother's. +"Is it possible," she asked with her own peculiar gentleness, balancing +a piece of patty on her fork, "that you haven't yet mentioned us to your +mother?" + +And Anna-Rose, struck in her turn at such an omission, paused too with +food on the way to her mouth, and said, "And we such friends?" + +"Almost, as it were, still red-not from being with you?" said +Anna-Felicitas. + +Both the twins looked at Mrs. Twist in their surprise. + +"I thought the first thing everybody did when they got back to their +mother," said Anna-Rose, addressing her, "was to tell her everything +from the beginning." + +Mrs. Twist, after an instant's astonishment at this unexpected support, +bowed her head--it could hardly be called a nod--in her son's direction. +"You see--" the movement seemed to say, "even these ..." + +"And ever since the first day at sea," said Anna-Felicitas, also +addressing Mrs. Twist, "up to as recently as eleven o'clock last night, +he has been what I think can be quite accurately described as our +faithful two-footed companion." + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "As much as that we've been friends. Practically +inseparable." + +"So that it really is _very_ surprising," said Anna-Felicitas to Mr. +Twist, "that you didn't tell your mother about us." + +Mr. Twist got up. He wouldn't wait for Edith. It was unhealthy in that +room. + +He took his mother's arm and helped her to get up. "You're very wise, +you two," he flung at the twins in the voice of the goaded, "but you may +take it from me you don't know everything yet. Mother, come into the +drawing-room, and we'll talk. Edith'll see to these girls. I expect I +ought to have talked sooner," he went on, as he led her to the door, +"but confound it all, I've only been home about a couple of hours." + +"Five," said Mrs. Twist. + +"Five then. What's five? No time at all." + +"Ample," said Mrs Twist; adding icily, "and did I you say confound, +Edward?" + +"Well, damn then," said Edward very loud, in a rush of rank rebellion. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +This night was the turning-point in Mr. Twist's life. In it he broke +loose from his mother. He spent a terrible three hours with her in the +drawing-room, and the rest of the night he strode up and down his +bedroom. The autumn morning, creeping round the house in long white +wisps, found him staring out of his window very pale, his mouth pulled +together as tight as it would go. + +His mother had failed him. She had not understood. And not only simply +not understood, but she had said things when at last she did speak, +after he had explained and pleaded for at least an hour, of an +incredible bitterness and injustice. She had seemed to hate him. If she +hadn't been his mother Mr. Twist would have been certain she hated him, +but he still believed that mothers couldn't hate their children. It was +stark against nature; and Mr. Twist still believed in the fundamental +rightness of that which is called nature. She had accused him of gross +things--she, his mother, who from her conversation since he could +remember was unaware, he had judged, of the very existence of such +things. Those helpless children ... Mr. Twist stamped as he strode. +Well, he had made her take that back; and indeed she had afterwards +admitted that she said it in her passion of grief and disappointment, +and that it was evident these girls were not like that. + +But before they reached that stage, for the first time in his life he +had been saying straight out what he wanted to say to his mother just as +if she had been an ordinary human being. He told her all he knew of the +twins, asked her to take them in for the present and be good to them, +and explained the awkwardness of their position, apart from its tragedy, +as Germans by birth stranded in New England, where opinion at that +moment was so hostile to Germans. Then, continuing in candour, he had +told his mother that here was her chance of doing a fine and beautiful +thing, and it was at this point that Mrs. Twist suddenly began, on her +side, to talk. + +She had listened practically in silence to the rest; had only started +when he explained the girls' nationality; but when he came to offering +her these girls as the great opportunity of her life to do something +really good at last, she, who felt she had been doing nothing else but +noble and beautiful things, and doing them with the most single-minded +devotion to duty and the most consistent disregard of inclination, could +keep silence no longer. Had she not borne her great loss without a +murmur? Had she not devoted all her years to bringing up her son to be a +good man? Had she ever considered herself? Had she ever flagged in her +efforts to set an example of patience in grief, of dignity in +misfortune? She began to speak. And just as amazed as she had been at +the things this strange, unknown son had been saying to her and at the +manner of their delivery, so was he amazed at the things this strange, +unknown mother was saying to him, and at the manner of their delivery. + +Yet his amazement was not so great after all as hers. Because for years, +away down hidden somewhere inside him, he had doubted his mother; for +years he had, shocked at himself, covered up and trampled on these +unworthy doubts indignantly. He had doubted her unselfishness; he had +doubted her sympathy and kindliness; he had even doubted her honesty, +her ordinary honesty with money and accounts; and lately, before he went +to Europe, he had caught himself thinking she was cruel. Nevertheless +this unexpected naked justification of his doubts was shattering to him. + +But Mrs. Twist had never doubted Edward. She thought she knew him inside +out. She had watched him develop. Watched him during the long years of +his unconsciousness. She had been quite secure; and rather disposed, +also somewhere down inside her, to a contempt for him, so easy had he +been to manage, so ready to do everything she wished. Now it appeared +that she no more knew Edward than if he had been a stranger in the +street. + +The bursting of the dykes of convention between them was a horrible +thing to them both. Mr. Twist had none of the cruelty of the younger +generation to support him: he couldn't shrug his shoulder and take +comfort in the thought that this break between them was entirely his +mother's fault, for however much he believed it to be her fault the +belief merely made him wretched; he had none of the pitiless black +pleasure to be got from telling himself it served her right. So +naturally kind was he--weak, soft, stupid, his mother shook out at +him--that through all his own shame at this naked vision of what had +been carefully dressed up for years in dignified clothes of wisdom and +affection, he was actually glad, when he had time in his room to think +it over, glad she should be so passionately positive that he, and only +he, was in the wrong. It would save her from humiliation; and of the +painful things of late Mr. Twist could least bear to see a human being +humiliated. + +That was, however, towards morning. For hours raged, striding about his +room, sorting out the fragments into which his life as a son had fallen, +trying to fit them into some sort of a pattern, to see clear about the +future. Clearer. Not clear. He couldn't hope for that yet. The future +seemed one confused lump. All he could see really clear of it was that +he was going, next day, and taking the twins. He would take them to the +other people they had a letter to, the people in California, and then +turn his face back to Europe, to the real thing, to the greatness of +life where death is. Not an hour longer than he could help would he or +they stay in that house. He had told his mother he would go away, and +she had said, "I hope never to see you again." Who would have thought +she had so much of passion in her? Who would have thought he had so much +of it in him? + +Fury against her injustice shook and shattered Mr. Twist. Not so could +fair and affectionate living together be conducted, on that basis of +suspicion, distrust, jealousy. Through his instinct, though not through +his brain, shot the conviction that his mother was jealous of the +twins,--jealous of the youth of the twins, and of their prettiness, and +goodness, and of the power, unknown to them, that these things gave +them. His brain was impervious to such a conviction, because it was an +innocent brain, and the idea would never have entered it that a woman of +his mother's age, well over sixty, could be jealous in that way; but his +instinct knew it. + +The last thing his mother said as he left the drawing-room was, "You +have killed me. You have killed your own mother. And just because of +those girls." + +And Mr. Twist, shocked at this parting shot of unfairness, could find, +search as he might, nothing to be said for his mother's point of view. +It simply wasn't true. It simply was delusion. + +Nor could she find anything to be said for his, but then she didn't try +to, it was so manifestly unforgivable. All she could do, faced by this +bitter sorrow, was to leave Edward to God. Sternly, as he flung out of +the room at last, unsoftened, untouchable, deaf to her even when she +used the tone he had always obeyed the tone of authority, she said to +herself she must leave her son to God. God knew. God would judge. And +Clark too would know; and Clark too would judge. + +Left alone in the drawing-room on this terrible night of her second +great bereavement, Mrs. Twist was yet able, she was thankful to feel, to +resolve she would try to protect her son as long as she could from +Clark. From God she could not, if she would, protect him; but she would +try to protect him even now, as she had always protected him, from +earthly harm and hurt. Clark would, however, surely know in time, +protect as she might, and judge between her and Edward. God knew +already, and was already judging. God and Clark.... Poor Edward. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The twins, who had gone to bed at half-past nine, shepherded by Edith, +in the happy conviction that they had settled down comfortably for some +time, were surprised to find at breakfast that they hadn't. + +They had taken a great fancy to Edith, in spite of a want of restfulness +on her part that struck them while they were finishing their supper, and +to which at last they drew her attention. She was so kind, and so like +Mr. Twist; but though she looked at them with hospitable eyes and wore +an expression of real benevolence, it didn't escape their notice that +she seemed to be listening to something that wasn't, anyhow, them, and +to be expecting something that didn't, anyhow, happen. She went several +times to the door through which her brother and mother had disappeared, +and out into whatever part of the house lay beyond it, and when she came +back after a minute or two was as wanting in composure as ever. + +At last, finding these abrupt and repeated interruptions hindered any +real talk, they pointed out to her that reasoned conversation was +impossible if one of the parties persisted in not being in the room, and +inquired of her whether it were peculiar to her, or typical of the +inhabitants of America, to keep on being somewhere else. Edith smiled +abstractedly at them, said nothing, and went out again. + +She was longer away this time, and the twins having eaten, among other +things, a great many meringues, grew weary of sitting with those they +hadn't eaten lying on the dish in front of them reminding them of those +they had. They wanted, having done with meringues, to get away from them +and forget them. They wanted to go into another room now, where there +weren't any. Anna-Felicitas felt, and told Anna-Rose who was staring +listlessly at the left-over meringues, that it was like having committed +murder, and being obliged to go on looking at the body long after you +were thoroughly tired of it. Anna-Rose agreed, and said that she wished +now she hadn't committed meringues,--anyhow so many of them. + +Then at last Edith came back, and told them she was sure they were very +tired after their long day, and suggested their going upstairs to their +rooms. The rooms were ready, said Edith, the baggage had come, and she +was sure they would like to have nice hot baths and go to bed. + +The twins obeyed her readily, and she checked a desire on their part to +seek out her mother and brother first and bid them good-night, on the +ground that her mother and brother were busy; and while the twins were +expressing polite regret, and requesting her to convey their regret for +them to the proper quarter in a flow of well-chosen words that +astonished Edith, who didn't know how naturally Junkers make speeches, +she hurried them by the drawing-room door through which, shut though it +was, came sounds of people being, as Anna-Felicitas remarked, very busy +indeed; and Anna-Rose, impressed by the quality and volume of Mr. +Twist's voice as it reached her passing ears, told Edith that intimately +as she knew her brother she had never known him as busy as that before. + +Edith said nothing, but continued quickly up the stairs. + +They found they each had a bedroom, with a door between, and that each +bedroom had a bathroom of its own, which filled them with admiration and +pleasure. There had only been one bathroom at Uncle Arthur's, and at +home in Pomerania there hadn't been any at all. The baths there had been +vessels brought into one's bedroom every night, into which servants next +morning poured water out of buckets, having previously pumped the water +into the bucket from the pump in the backyard. They put Edith in +possession of these facts while she helped them unpack and brushed and +plaited their hair for them, and she was much astonished,--both at the +conditions of discomfort and slavery they revealed as prevalent in other +countries, and at the fact that they, the Twinklers, should hail from +Pomerania. + +Pomerania, reflected Edith as she tied up their pigtails with the +ribbons handed to her for that purpose, used to be in Germany when she +went to school, and no doubt still was. She became more thoughtful than +ever, though she still smiled at them, for how could she help it? +Everyone, Edith was certain, must needs smile at the Twinklers even if +they didn't happen to be one's own dear brother's _protegees_. And when +they came out, very clean and with scrubbed pink ears, from their bath, +she not only smiled at them as she tucked them up in bed, but she kissed +them good-night. + +Edith, like her brother, was born to be a mother,--one of the +satisfactory sort that keeps you warm and doesn't argue with you. +Germans or no Germans the Twinklers were the cutest little things, +thought Edith; and she kissed them, with the same hunger with which, +being now thirty-eight, she was beginning to kiss puppies. + +"You remind me so of Mr. Twist," murmured Anna-Felicitas sleepily, as +Edith tucked her up and kissed her. + +"You do all the sorts of things he does," murmured Anna-Rose, also +sleepily, when it was her turn to be tucked up and kissed; and in spite +of a habit now fixed in her of unquestioning acceptance and uncritical +faith. Edith went downstairs to her restless vigil outside the +drawing-room door a little surprised. + +At breakfast the twins learnt to their astonishment that, though +appearances all pointed the other way what they were really doing was +not being stationary at all, but merely having a night's lodging and +breakfast between, as it were, two trains. + +Mr. Twist, who looked pale and said shortly when the twins remarked +solicitously on it that he felt pale, briefly announced the fact. + +"What?" exclaimed Anna-Rose, staring at Mr. Twist and then at +Edith--Mrs. Twist, they were told, was breakfasting in bed--"Why, we've +unpacked." + +"You will re-pack," said Mr. Twist. + +They found difficulty in believing their ears. + +"But we've settled in," remonstrated Anna-Felicitas, after an astonished +pause. + +"You will settle out," said Mr. Twist. + +He frowned. He didn't look at them, he frowned at his own teapot. He had +made up his mind to be very short with the Annas until they were safely +out of the house, and not permit himself to be entangled by them in +controversy. Also, he didn't want to look at them if he could help it. +He was afraid that if he did he might be unable not to take them both in +his arms and beg their pardon for the whole horridness of the world. + +But if he didn't look at them, they looked at him. Four round, blankly +surprised eyes were fixed, he knew, unblinkingly on him. + +"We're seeing you in quite a new light," said Anna-Rose at last, +troubled and upset. + +"Maybe," said Mr. Twist, frowning at his teapot. + +"Perhaps you will be so good," said Anna-Felicitas stiffly, for at all +times she hated being stirred up and uprooted, "as to tell us where you +think we're going to." + +"Because," said Anna-Rose, her voice trembling a little, not only at the +thought of fresh responsibilities, but also with a sense of outraged +faith, "our choice of residence, as you may have observed, is strictly +limited." + +Mr. Twist, who had spent an hour before breakfast with Edith, whose eyes +were red, informed them that they were _en route_ for California. + +"To those other people," said Anna-Rose. "I see." + +She held her head up straight. + +"Well, I expect they'll be very glad to see us," she said after a +silence; and proceeded, her chin in the air, to look down her nose, +because she didn't want Mr. Twist, or Edith or Anna-Felicitas, to notice +that her eyes had gone and got tears in them. She angrily wished she +hadn't got such damp eyes. They were no better than swamps, she +thought--undrained swamps; and directly fate's foot came down a little +harder than usual, up oozed the lamentable liquid. Not thus should the +leader of an expedition behave. Not thus, she was sure, did the original +Christopher. She pulled herself together; and after a minute's struggle +was able to leave off looking down her nose. + +But meanwhile Anna-Felicitas had informed Mr. Twist with gentle dignity +that he was obviously tired of them. + +"Not at all," said Mr. Twist. + +Anna-Felicitas persisted. "In view of the facts," she said gently, "I'm +afraid your denial carries no weight." + +"The facts," said Mr. Twist, taking up his teapot and examining it with +care, "are that I'm coming with you." + +"Oh are you," said Anna-Felicitas much more briskly; and it was here +that Anna-Rose's eyes dried up. + +"That rather dishes your theory," said Mr. Twist, still turning his +teapot about in his hands. "Or would if it didn't happen that I--well, I +happen to have some business to do in California, and I may as well do +it now as later. Still, I could have gone by a different route or train, +so you see your theory _is_ rather dished, isn't it?" + +"A little," admitted Anna-Felicitas. "Not altogether. Because if you +really like our being here, here we are. So why hurry us off somewhere +else so soon?" + +Mr. Twist perceived that he was being led into controversy in spite of +his determination not to be. "You're very wise," he said shortly, "but +you don't know everything. Let us avoid conjecture and stick to facts. +I'm going to take you to California, and hand you over to your friends. +That's all you know, and all you need to know." + +"As Keats very nearly said," said Anna-Rose + +"And if our friends have run away?" suggested Anna-Felicitas. + +"Oh Lord," exclaimed Mr. Twist impatiently, putting the teapot down with +a bang, "do you think we're running away all the time in America?" + +"Well, I think you seem a little restless," said Anna-Felicitas. + +Thus it was that two hours later the twins found themselves at the +Clark station once more, once more starting into the unknown, just as if +they had never done it before, and gradually, as they adapted themselves +to the sudden change, such is the india-rubber-like quality of youth, +almost with the same hopefulness. Yet they couldn't but meditate, left +alone on the platform while Mr. Twist checked the baggage, on the +mutability of life. They seemed to live in a kaleidoscope since the war +began what a series of upheavals and readjustments had been theirs! +Silent, and a little apart on the Clark platform, they reflected +retrospectively; and as they counted up their various starts since the +days, only fourteen months ago, when they were still in their home in +Germany, apparently as safely rooted, as unshakably settled as the pine +trees in their own forests, they couldn't but wonder at the elusiveness +of the unknown, how it wouldn't let itself be caught up with and at the +trouble it was giving them. + +They had had so many changes in the last year that they did want now to +have time to become familiar with some one place and people. Already +however, being seventeen, they were telling themselves, and each other +that after all, since the Sacks had failed them, California was their +real objective. Not Clark at all. Clark had never been part of their +plans. Uncle Arthur and Aunt Alice didn't even know it existed. It was a +side-show; just a little thing of their own, an extra excursion slipped +in between the Sacks and the Delloggs. True they had hoped to stay there +some time, perhaps even for months,--anyhow, time to mend their +stockings in, which were giving way at the toes unexpectedly, seeing how +new they were; but ultimately California was the place they had to go +to. It was only that it was a little upsetting to be whisked out of +Clark at a moment's notice. + +"I expect you'll explain everything to us when we're in the train and +have lots of time," Anna-Rose had said to Mr. Twist as the car moved +away from the house and Edith, red-eyed, waved her handkerchief from the +doorstep. + +Mrs. Twist had not come down to say good-bye, and they had sent her many +messages. + +"I expect I will," Mr. Twist had answered. + +But it was not till they were the other side of Chicago that he really +began to be himself again. Up to then--all that first day, and the next +morning in New York where he took them to the bank their £200 was in and +saw that they got a cheque-book, and all the day after that waiting in +the Chicago hotel for the train they were to go on in to California--Mr. +Twist was taciturn. + +They left Chicago in the evening; a raw, wintery October evening with +cold rain in the air, and the twins, going early to bed in their +compartment, a place that seemed to them so enchanting that their +spirits couldn't fail to rise, saw no more of him till breakfast next +morning. They then noticed that the cloud had lifted a little; and as +the day went on it lifted still more. They were going to be three days +together in that train, and it would be impossible for Mr. Twist, they +were sure, to go on being taciturn as long as that. It wasn't his +nature. His nature was conversational. And besides, shut up like that in +a train, the sheer getting tired of reading all day would make him want +to talk. + +So after lunch, when they were all three on the platform of the +observation car, though there was nothing to observe except limitless +flat stretches of bleak and empty country, the twins suggested that he +should now begin to talk again. They pointed out that his body was +bound to get stiff on that long journey from want of exercise, but that +his mind needn't, and he had better stretch it by conversing agreeably +with them as he used to before the day, which seemed so curiously long +ago, when they landed in America. + +"It does indeed seem long ago," agreed Mr. Twist, lighting another +cigarette. "I have difficulty in realizing it isn't a week yet." + +And he reflected that the Annas had managed to produce pretty serious +havoc in America considering they had only been in it five days. He and +his mother permanently estranged; Edith left alone at Clark sitting +there in the ruins of her loving preparations for his return, with +nothing at all that he could see to look forward to and live for except +the hourly fulfilment of what she regarded as duty; every plan upset; +the lives, indeed, of his mother and of his sister and of himself +completely altered,--it was a pretty big bag in the time, he thought, +flinging the match back towards Chicago. + +Mr. Twist felt sore. He felt like somebody who had had a bad tumble, and +is sore and a little dizzy; but he recognized that these great ruptures +cannot take place without aches and doubts. He ached, and he doubted and +he also knew through his aches and doubts that he was free at last from +what of late years he had so grievously writhed under--the shame of +pretence. And the immediate cause of his being set free was, precisely, +the Annas. + +It had been a violent, a painful setting free, but it had happened; and +who knew if, without their sudden appearance at Clark and the immediate +effect they produced on his mother, he wouldn't have lapsed after all, +in spite of the feelings and determinations he had brought back with +him from Europe, into the old ways again under the old influence, and +gone on ignobly pretending to agree, to approve, to enjoy, to love, when +he was never for an instant doing anything of the sort? He might have +trailed on like that for years--Mr. Twist didn't like the picture of his +own weakness, but he was determined to look at himself as he +was--trailed along languidly when he was at home, living another life +when he was away, getting what he absolutely must have, the irreducible +minimum of personal freedom necessary to sanity, by means of small and +shabby deceits. My goodness, how he hated deceits, how tired he was of +the littleness of them! + +He turned his head and looked at the profiles of the Annas sitting +alongside him. His heart suddenly grew warm within him. They had on the +blue caps again which made them look so bald and cherubic, and their +eyes were fixed on the straight narrowing lines of rails that went back +and back to a point in the distance. The dear little things; the dear, +dear little things,--so straightforward, so blessedly straight and +simple, thought Mr. Twist. Fancy his mother losing a chance like this. +Fancy _anybody_, thought the affectionate and kind man, missing an +opportunity of helping such unfortunately placed children. + +The twins felt he was looking at them, and together they turned and +looked at him. When they saw his expression they knew the cloud had +lifted still more, and their faces broke into broad smiles of welcome. + +"It's pleasant to see you back again," said Anna-Felicitas heartily, who +was next to him. + +"We've missed you very much," said Anna-Rose. + +"It hasn't been like the same place, the world hasn't," said +Anna-Felicitas, "since you've been away." + +"Since you walked out of the dining-room that night at Clark," said +Anna-Rose. + +"Of course we know you can't always be with us," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Which we deeply regret," interjected Anna-Rose. + +"But while you are with us," said Anna-Felicitas, "for these last few +days, I would suggest that we should be happy. As happy as we used to be +on the _St. Luke_ when we weren't being sea-sick." And she thought she +might even go so far as to enjoy hearing the "Ode to Dooty," now. + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose, leaning forward. "In three days we shall have +disappeared into the maw of the Delloggs. Do let us be happy while we +can. Who knows what their maw will be like? But whatever it's like," she +added firmly, "we're going to stick in it." + +"And perhaps," said Anna-Felicitas, "now that you're a little restored +to your normal condition, you'll tell us what has been the matter." + +"For it's quite clear," said Anna-Rose, "that something _has_ been the +matter." + +"We've been talking it over," said Anna-Felicitas, "and putting two and +two together, and perhaps you'll tell us what it was, and then we shall +know if we're right." + +"Perhaps I will," said Mr. Twist, cogitating, as he continued +benevolently to gaze at them. "Let's see--" He hesitated, and pushed +his hat off his forehead. "I wonder if you'd understand--" + +"We'll give our minds to it," Anna-Felicitas assured him. + +"These caps make us look more stupid than we are," Anna-Rose assured +him, deducing her own appearance from that of Anna-Felicitas. + +Encouraged, but doubtful of their capabilities of comprehension on +this particular point, Mr. Twist embarked rather gingerly on his +explanations. He was going to be candid from now on for the rest of his +days, but the preliminary plunges were, he found, after all a little +difficult. Even with the pellucidly candid Annas, all ready with ears +pricked up attentively and benevolently and minds impartial, he found it +difficult. It was because, on the subject of mothers, he feared he was +up against their one prejudice. He felt rather than knew that their +attitude on this one point might be uncompromising,--mothers were +mothers, and there was an end of it; that sort of attitude, coupled with +extreme reprobation of himself for supposing anything else. + +He was surprised and relieved to find he was wrong. Directly they got +wind of the line his explanations were taking, which was very soon for +they were giving their minds to it as they promised and Mr. Twist's +hesitations were illuminating, they interrupted. + +"So we were right," they said to each other. + +"But you don't know yet what I'm going to say," said Mr. Twist. "I've +only started on the preliminaries." + +"Yes we do. You fell out with your mother," said Anna-Rose. + +"Quarrelled," said Anna-Felicitas, nodding + +"We didn't think so at the time," said Anna-Rose. + +"We just felt there was an atmosphere of strain about Clark," said +Anna-Felicitas. + +"But talking it over privately, we concluded that was what had +happened." + +Mr. Twist was so much surprised that for a moment he could only say +"Oh." Then he said, "And you're terribly shocked, I suppose." + +"Oh no," they said airily and together. + +"No?" + +"You see--" began Anna-Felicitas. + +"You see--" began Anna-Rose. + +"You see, as a general principle," said Anna-Felicitas, "it's +reprehensible to quarrel with one's mother." + +"But we've not been able to escape observing--" said Anna-Rose. + +"In the course of our brief and inglorious career," put in +Anna-Felicitas. + +"--that there are mothers and mothers," said Anna-Rose. + +"Yes," said Mr. Twist; and as they didn't go on he presently added, +"Yes?" + +"Oh, that's all," said the twins, once more airily and together. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +After this brief _éclaircissement_ the rest of the journey was happy. +Indeed, it is doubtful if any one can journey to California and not be +happy. + +Mr. Twist had never been further west than Chicago and break up or no +break up of his home he couldn't but have a pleasant feeling of +adventure. Every now and then the realization of this feeling gave his +conscience a twinge, and wrung out of it a rebuke. He was having the +best of it in this business; he was the party in the quarrel who went +away, who left the dreariness of the scene of battle with all its +corpses of dead illusions, and got off to fresh places and people who +had never heard of him. Just being in a train, he found, and rushing on +to somewhere else was extraordinarily nerve-soothing. At Clark there +would be gloom and stagnation, the heavy brooding of a storm that has +burst but not moved on, a continued anger on his mother's side, +naturally increasing with her inactivity, with her impotence. He was +gone, and she could say and do nothing more to him. In a quarrel, +thought Mr. Twist, the morning he pushed up his blinds and saw the +desert at sunrise, an exquisite soft thing just being touched into faint +colours,--in a quarrel the one who goes has quite unfairly the best of +it. Beautiful new places come and laugh at him, people who don't know +him and haven't yet judged and condemned him are ready to be friendly. +He must, of course, go far enough; not stay near at hand in some +familiar place and be so lonely that he ends by being remorseful. Well, +he was going far enough. Thanks to the Annas he was going about as far +as he could go. Certainly he was having the best of it in being the one +in the quarrel who went; and he was shocked to find himself cynically +thinking, on top of that, that one should always, then, take care to be +the one who did go. + +But the desert has a peculiarly exhilarating air. It came in everywhere, +and seemed to tickle him out of the uneasy mood proper to one who has +been cutting himself off for good and all from his early home. For the +life of him he couldn't help feeling extraordinarily light and free. +Edith--yes, there was Edith, but some day he would make up to Edith for +everything. There was no helping her now: she was fast bound in misery +and iron, and didn't even seem to know it. So would he have been, he +supposed, if he had never left home at all. As it was, it was bound to +come, this upheaval. Just the mere fact of inevitable growth would have +burst the bands sooner or later. There oughtn't, of course, to have been +any bands; or, there being bands, he ought long ago to have burst them. + +He pulled his kind slack mouth firmly together and looked determined. +Long ago, repeated Mr. Twist, shaking his head at his own weak past. +Well, it was done at last, and never again--never, never again, he said +to himself, sniffing in through his open window the cold air of the +desert at sunrise. + +By that route, the Santa Fé, it is not till two or three hours before +you get to the end of the journey that summer meets you. It is waiting +for you at a place called San Bernardino. There is no trace of it +before. Up to then you are still in October; and then you get to the +top of the pass, and with a burst it is June,--brilliant, windless, +orange-scented. + +The twins and Mr. Twist were in the restaurant-car lunching when the +miracle happened. Suddenly the door opened and in came summer, with a +great warm breath of roses. In a moment the car was invaded by the scent +of flowers and fruit and of something else strange and new and very +aromatic. The electric fans were set twirling, the black waiters began +to perspire, the passengers called for cold things to eat, and the twins +pulled off their knitted caps and jerseys. + +From that point on to the end of the line in Los Angeles the twins could +only conclude they were in heaven. It was the light that did it, the +extraordinary glow of radiance. Of course there were orchards after +orchards of orange trees covered with fruit, white houses smothered in +flowers, gardens overrun with roses, tall groups of eucalyptus trees +giving an impression of elegant nakedness, long lines of pepper trees +with frail fern-like branches, and these things continued for the rest +of the way; but they would have been as nothing without that beautiful, +great bland light. The twins had had their hot summers in Pomerania, and +their July days in England, but had not yet seen anything like this. +Here was summer without sultriness, without gnats, mosquitoes, +threatening thunderstorms, or anything to spoil it; it was summer as it +might be in the Elysian fields, perfectly clear, and calm, and radiant. +When the train stopped they could see how not a breath of wind stirred +the dust on the quiet white roads, and the leaves of the magnolia trees +glistened motionless in the sun. The train went slowly and stopped +often, for there seemed to be one long succession of gardens and +villages. After the empty, wind-driven plains they had come through, +those vast cold expanses without a house or living creature in sight, +what a laughing plenty, what a gracious fruitfulness, was here. And when +they went back to their compartment it too was full of summer +smells,--the smell of fruit, and roses, and honey. + +For the first time since the war began and with it their wanderings, the +twins felt completely happy. It was as though the loveliness wrapped +them round and they stretched themselves in it and forgot. No fear of +the future, no doubt of it at all, they thought, gazing out of the +window, the soft air patting their faces, could possibly bother them +here. They never, for instance, could be cold here, or go hungry. A +great confidence in life invaded them. The Delloggs, sun-soaked and +orange-fed for years in this place, couldn't but be gentle too, and kind +and calm. Impossible not to get a sort of refulgence oneself, they +thought, living here, and absorb it and give it out again. They pictured +the Delloggs as bland pillars of light coming forward effulgently to +greet them, and bathing them in the beams of their hospitality. And the +feeling of responsibility and anxiety that had never left Anna-Rose +since she last saw Aunt Alice dropped off her in this place, and she +felt that sun and oranges, backed by £200 in the bank, would be +difficult things for misfortune to get at. + +As for Mr. Twist, he was even more entranced than the twins as he gazed +out of the window, for being older he had had time to see more ugly +things, had got more used to them and to taking them as principally +making up life. He stared at what he saw, and thought with wonder of his +mother's drawing-room at Clark, of its gloomy, velvet-upholstered +discomforts, of the cold mist creeping round the house, and of that +last scene in it, with her black figure in the middle of it, tall and +thin and shaking with bitterness. He had certainly been in that +drawing-room and heard her so terribly denouncing him, but it was very +difficult to believe; it seemed so exactly like a nightmare, and this +the happy normal waking up in the morning. + +They all three were in the highest spirits when they got out at Los +Angeles and drove across to the Southern Pacific station--the name alone +made their hearts leap--to catch the afternoon train on to where the +Delloggs lived, and their spirits were the kind one can imagine in +released souls on their first arriving in paradise,--high, yet subdued; +happy, but reverential; a sort of rollicking awe. They were subdued, in +fact, by beauty. And the journey along the edge of the Pacific to +Acapulco, where the Delloggs lived, encouraged and developed this kind +of spirits, for the sun began to set, and, as the train ran for miles +close to the water with nothing but a strip of sand between it and the +surf, they saw their first Pacific sunset. It happened to be even in +that land of wonderful sunsets an unusually wonderful one, and none of +the three had ever seen anything in the least like it. They could but +sit silent and stare. The great sea, that little line of lovely islands +flung down on it like a chain of amethysts, that vast flame of sky, that +heaving water passionately reflecting it, and on the other side, through +the other windows, a sharp wall of black mountains,--it was +fantastically beautiful, like something in a poem or a dream. + +By the time they got to Acapulco it was dark. Night followed upon the +sunset with a suddenness that astonished the twins, used to the +leisurely methods of twilight on the Baltic; and the only light in the +country outside the town as they got near it was the light from myriads +of great stars. + +No Delloggs were at the station, but the twins were used now to not +being met and had not particularly expected them; besides, Mr. Twist was +with them this time, and he would see that if the Delloggs didn't come +to them they would get safely to the Delloggs. + +The usual telegram had been sent announcing their arrival, and the +taxi-driver, who seemed to know the Dellogg house well when Mr. Twist +told him where they wanted to go, apparently also thought it natural +they should want to go exactly there. In him, indeed, there did seem to +be a trace of expecting them,--almost as if he had been told to look out +for them; for hardly had Mr. Twist begun to give him the address than +glancing at the twins he said, "I guess you're wanting Mrs. Dellogg"; +and got down and actually opened the door for them, an attention so +unusual in the taxi-drivers the twins had up to then met in America that +they were more than ever convinced that nothing in the way of +unfriendliness or unkindness could stand up against sun and oranges. + +"Relations?" he asked them through the window as he shut the door gently +and carefully, while Mr. Twist went with a porter to see about the +luggage. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Anna-Rose. + +"Relations of Delloggses?" + +"No," said Anna-Rose. "Friends." + +"At least," amended Anna-Felicitas, "practically." + +"Ah," said the driver, leaning with both his arms on the window-sill in +the friendliest possible manner, and chewing gum and eyeing them with +thoughtful interest. + +Then he said, after a pause during which his jaw rolled regularly from +side to side and the twins watched the rolling with an interest equal to +his interest in them, "From Los Angeles?" + +"No," said Anna-Rose. "From New York." + +"At least," amended Anna-Felicitas, "practically." + +"Well I call that a real compliment," said the driver slowly and +deliberately because of his jaw going on rolling. "To come all that way, +and without being relations--I call that a real compliment, and a +friendship that's worth something. Anybody can come along from Los +Angeles, but it takes a real friend to come from New York," and he eyed +them now with admiration. + +The twins for their part eyed him. Not only did his rolling jaws +fascinate them, but the things he was saying seemed to them quaint. + +"But we wanted to come," said Anna-Rose, after a pause. + +"Of course. Does you credit," said the driver. + +The twins thought this over. + +The bright station lights shone on their faces, which stood out very +white in the black setting of their best mourning. Before getting to Los +Angeles they had dressed themselves carefully in what Anna-Felicitas +called their favourable-impression-on-arrival garments,--those garments +Aunt Alice had bought for them on their mother's death, expressing the +wave of sympathy in which she found herself momentarily engulfed by +going to a very good and expensive dressmaker; and in the black +perfection of these clothes the twins looked like two well-got-up and +very attractive young crows. These were the clothes they had put on on +leaving the ship, and had been so obviously admired in, to the +uneasiness of Mr. Twist, by the public; it was in these clothes that +they had arrived within range of Mr. Sack's distracted but still +appreciative vision, and in them that they later roused the suspicions +and dislike of Mrs. Twist. It was in these clothes that they were now +about to start what they hoped would be a lasting friendship with the +Delloggs, and remembering they had them on they decided that perhaps it +wasn't only sun and oranges making the taxi-driver so attentive, but +also the effect on him of their grown-up and awe-inspiring hats. + +This was confirmed by what he said next. "I guess you're old friends, +then," he remarked, after a period of reflective jaw-rolling. "Must be, +to come all that way." + +"Well--not exactly," said Anna-Rose, divided between her respect for +truth and her gratification at being thought old enough to be somebody's +old friend. + +"You see," explained Anna-Felicitas, who was never divided in her +respect for truth, "we're not particularly old anything." + +The driver in his turn thought this over, and finding he had no +observations he wished to make on it he let it pass, and said, "You'll +miss Mr. Dellogg." + +"Oh?" said Anna-Rose, pricking up her ears, "Shall we?" + +"We don't mind missing Mr. Dellogg," said Anna-Felicitas. "It's Mrs. +Dellogg we wouldn't like to miss." + +The driver looked puzzled. + +"Yes--that would be too awful," said Anna-Rose, who didn't want a +repetition of the Sack dilemma. "You did say," she asked anxiously, +"didn't you, that we were going to miss Mr. Dellogg?" + +The driver, looking first at one of them and then at the other, said, +"Well, and who wouldn't?" + +And this answer seemed so odd to the twins that they could only as they +stared at him suppose it was some recondite form of American slang, +provided with its own particular repartee which, being unacquainted with +the language, they were not in a position to supply. Perhaps, they +thought, it was of the same order of mysterious idioms as in England +such sentences as I don't think, and Not half,--forms of speech whose +exact meaning and proper use had never been mastered by them. + +"There won't be another like Mr. Dellogg in these parts for many a +year," said the driver, shaking his head. "Ah no. And that's so." + +"Isn't he coming back?" asked Anna-Rose. + +The driver's jaws ceased for a moment to roll. He stared at Anna-Rose +with unblinking eyes. Then he turned his head away and spat along the +station, and then, again fixing his eyes on Anna-Rose, he said, "Young +gurl, you may be a spiritualist, and a table-turner, and a +psychic-rummager, and a ghost-fancier, and anything else you please, and +get what comfort you can out of your coming backs and the rest of the +blessed truck, but I know better. And what I know, being a Christian, is +that once a man's dead he's either in heaven or he's in hell, and +whichever it is he's in, in it he stops." + +Anna-Felicitas was the first to speak. "Are we to understand," she +inquired, "that Mr. Dellogg--" She broke off. + +"That Mr. Dellogg is--" Anna-Rose continued for her, but broke off +too. + +"That Mr. Dellogg isn't--" resumed Anna-Felicitas with determination, +"well, that he isn't alive?" + +"Alive?" repeated the driver. He let his hand drop heavily on the +window-sill. "If that don't beat all," he said, staring at her. "What do +you come his funeral for, then?" + +"His funeral?" + +"Yes, if you don't know that he ain't?" + +"Ain't--isn't what?" + +"Alive, of course. No, I mean dead. You're getting me all tangled up." + +"But we haven't." + +"But we didn't." + +"We had a letter from him only last month." + +"At least, an uncle we've got had." + +"And he didn't say a word in it about being dead--I mean, there was no +sign of his being going to be--I mean, he wasn't a bit ill or anything +in his letter--" + +"Now see here," interrupted the driver, sarcasm in his voice, "it ain't +exactly usual is it--I put it to you squarely, and say it ain't +_exactly_ usual (there may be exceptions, but it ain't exactly _usual_) +to come to a gentleman's funeral, and especially not all the way from +New York, without some sort of an idea that he's dead. Some sort of a +_general_ idea, anyhow," he added still more sarcastically; for his +admiration for the twins had given way to doubt and discomfort, and a +suspicion was growing on him that with incredible and horrible levity, +seeing what the moment was and what the occasion, they were filling up +the time waiting for their baggage, among which were no doubt funeral +wreaths, by making game of him. + +"Gurls like you shouldn't behave that way," he went on, his voice +aggrieved as he remembered how sympathetically he had got down from his +seat when he saw their mourning clothes and tired white faces and helped +them into his taxi,--only for genuine mourners, real sorry ones, going +to pay their last respects to a gentleman like Mr. Dellogg, would he, a +free American have done that. "Nicely dressed gurls, well-cared for +gurls. Daughters of decent people. Here you come all this way, I guess +sent by your parents to represent them properly, and properly fitted out +in nice black clothes and all, and you start making fun. Pretending. +Playing kind of hide-and-seek with me about the funeral. Messing me up +in a lot of words. I don't like it. I'm a father myself, and I don't +like it. I don't like to see daughters going on like this when their +father ain't looking. It don't seem decent to me. But I suppose you +Easterners--" + +The twins, however, were not listening. They were looking at each other +in dismay. How extraordinary, how terrible, the way Uncle Arthur's +friends gave out. They seemed to melt away at one's mere approach. +People who had been living with their husbands all their lives ran away +just as the twins came on the scene; people who had been alive all their +lives went and died, also at that very moment. It almost seemed as if +directly anybody knew that they, the Twinklers, were coming to stay with +them they became bent on escape. They could only look at each other in +stricken astonishment at this latest blow of Fate. They heard no more of +what the driver said. They could only sit and look at each other. + +And then Mr. Twist came hurrying across from the baggage office, wiping +his forehead, for the night was hot. Behind him came the porter, +ruefully balancing the piled-up grips on his truck. + +"I'm sorry to have been so--" began Mr. Twist, smiling cheerfully: but +he stopped short in his sentence and left off smiling when he saw the +expression in the four eyes fixed on him. "What has happened?" he asked +quickly. + +"Only what we might have expected," said Anna-Rose. + +"Mr. Dellogg's dead," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"You don't say," said Mr. Twist; and after a pause he said again, "You +don't say." + +Then he recovered himself. "I'm very sorry to hear it, of course," he +said briskly, picking himself up, as it were, from this sudden and +unexpected tumble, "but I don't see that it matters to you so long as +Mrs. Dellogg isn't dead too." + +"Yes, but--" began Anna-Rose. + +"Mr. Dellogg isn't _very_ dead, you see," said Anna-Felicitas. + +Mr. Twist looked from them to the driver, but finding no elucidation +there and only disapproval, looked back again. + +"He isn't dead and settled _down_," said Anna-Rose. + +"Not _that_ sort of being dead," said Anna-Felicitas. "He's _just_ +dead." + +"Just got to the stage when he has a funeral," said Anna-Rose. + +"His funeral, it seems, is imminent," said Anna-Felicitas. "Did you not +give us to understand," she asked, turning to the driver, "that it was +imminent?" + +"I don't know about imminent," said the driver, who wasn't going to +waste valuable time with words like that, "but it's to-morrow." + +"And you see what that means for us," said Anna-Felicitas, turning to +Mr. Twist. + +Mr. Twist did. + +He again wiped his forehead, but not this time because the night was +hot. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Manifestly it is impossible to thrust oneself into a house where there +is going to be a funeral next day, even if one has come all the way from +New York and has nowhere else to go. Equally manifestly it is impossible +to thrust oneself into it after the funeral till a decent interval has +elapsed. But what the devil, Mr. Twist asked himself in language become +regrettably natural to him since his sojourn at the front, is a decent +interval? + +This Mr. Twist asked himself late that night, pacing up and down the +sea-shore in the warm and tranquil darkness in front of the Cosmopolitan +Hotel, while the twins, utterly tired out by their journey and the +emotions at the end of it, crept silently into bed. + +How long does it take a widow to recover her composure? Recover, that +is, the first beginnings of it? At what stage in her mourning is it +legitimate to intrude on her with reminders of obligations incurred +before she was a widow,--with, in fact, the Twinklers? Delicacy itself +would shrink from doing it under a week thought Mr. Twist, or even under +a fortnight, or even if you came to that, under a month; and meanwhile +what was he to do with the Twinklers? + +Mr. Twist, being of the artistic temperament for otherwise he wouldn't +have been so sympathetic nor would he have minded, as he so passionately +did mind, his Uncle Charles's teapot dribbling on to the tablecloth--was +sometimes swept by brief but tempestuous revulsions of feeling, and +though he loved the Twinklers he did at this moment describe them +mentally and without knowing it in the very words of Uncle Arthur, as +those accursed twins. It was quite unjust, he knew. They couldn't help +the death of the man Dellogg. They were the victims, from first to last, +of a cruel and pursuing fate; but it is natural to turn on victims, and +Mr. Twist was for an instant, out of the very depth of his helpless +sympathy, impatient with the Twinklers. + +He walked up and down the sands frowning and pulling his mouth together, +while the Pacific sighed sympathetically at his feet. Across the road +the huge hotel standing in its gardens was pierced by a thousand lights. +Very few people were about and no one at all was on the sands. There was +an immense noise of what sounded like grasshoppers or crickets, and also +at intervals distant choruses of frogs, but these sounds seemed +altogether beneficent,--so warm, and southern, and far away from less +happy places where in October cold winds perpetually torment the world. +Even in the dark Mr. Twist knew he had got to somewhere that was +beautiful. He could imagine nothing more agreeable than, having handed +over the twins safely to the Delloggs, staying on a week or two in this +place and seeing them every day,--perhaps even, as he had pictured to +himself on the journey, being invited to stay with the Delloggs. Now all +that was knocked on the head. He supposed the man Dellogg couldn't help +being dead but he, Mr. Twist, equally couldn't help resenting it. It was +so awkward; so exceedingly awkward. And it was so like what one of that +creature Uncle Arthur's friends would do. + +Mr. Twist, it will be seen, was frankly unreasonable, but then he was +very much taken aback and annoyed. What was he to do with the Annas? He +was obviously not a relation of theirs--and indeed no profiles could +have been less alike--and he didn't suppose Acapulco was behind other +parts of America in curiosity and gossip. If he stayed on at the +Cosmopolitan with the twins till Mrs. Dellogg was approachable again, +whenever that might be, every sort of question would be being asked in +whispers about who they were and what was their relationship, and +presently whenever they sat down anywhere the chairs all round them +would empty. Mr. Twist had seen the kind of thing happening in hotels +before to other people,--never to himself; never had he been in any +situation till now that was not luminously regular. And quite soon after +this with the chairs had begun to happen, the people who created these +vacancies were told by the manager--firmly in America, politely in +England, and sympathetically in France--that their rooms had been +engaged a long time ago for the very next day, and no others were +available. + +The Cosmopolitan was clearly an hotel frequented by the virtuous rich. +Mr. Twist felt that he and the Annas wouldn't, in their eyes, come under +this heading, not, that is, when the other guests became aware of the +entire absence of any relationship between him and the twins. Well, for +a day or two nothing could happen; for a day or two, before his party +had had time to sink into the hotel consciousness and the manager +appeared to tell him the rooms were engaged, he could think things out +and talk them over with his companions. Perhaps he might even see Mrs. +Dellogg. The funeral, he had heard on inquiring of the hall porter was +next day. It was to be a brilliant affair, said the porter. Mr. Dellogg +had been a prominent inhabitant, free with his money, a supporter of +anything there was to support. The porter talked of him as the +taxi-driver had done, regretfully and respectfully; and Mr. Twist went +to bed angrier than ever with a man who, being so valuable and so +necessary, should have neglected at such a moment to go on living. + +Mr. Twist didn't sleep very well that night. He lay in his rosy room, +under a pink silk quilt, and most of the time stared out through the +open French windows with their pink brocade curtains at the great starry +night, thinking. + +In that soft bed, so rosy and so silken as to have been worthy of the +relaxations of, at least, a prima donna, he looked like some lean and +alien bird nesting temporarily where he had no business to. He hadn't +thought of buying silk pyjamas when the success of his teapot put him in +the right position for doing so, because his soul was too simple for him +to desire or think of anything less candid to wear in bed than flannel, +and he still wore the blue flannel pyjamas of a careful bringing up. In +that beautiful bed his pyjamas didn't seem appropriate. Also his head, +so frugal of hair, didn't do justice to the lace and linen of a pillow +prepared for the hairier head of, again at least, a prima donna. And +finding he couldn't sleep, and wishing to see the stars he put on his +spectacles, and then looked more out of place than ever. But as nobody +was there to see him,--which, Mr. Twist sometimes thought when he caught +sight of himself in his pyjamas at bed-time, is one of the comforts of +being virtuously unmarried,--nobody minded. + +His reflections were many and various, and they conflicted with and +contradicted each other as the reflections of persons in a difficult +position who have Mr. Twist's sort of temperament often do. Faced by a +dribbling teapot, an object which touched none of the softer emotions, +Mr. Twist soared undisturbed in the calm heights of a detached and +concentrated intelligence, and quickly knew what to do with it; faced by +the derelict Annas his heart and his tenderness got in the ways of any +clear vision. + +About three o'clock in the morning, when his mind was choked and strewn +with much pulled-about and finally discarded plans, he suddenly had an +idea. A real one. As far as he could see, a real good one. He would +place the Annas in a school. + +Why shouldn't they go to school? he asked himself, starting off +answering any possible objections. A year at a first-rate school would +give them and everybody else time to consider. They ought never to have +left school. It was the very place for luxuriant and overflowing natures +like theirs. No doubt Acapulco had such a thing as a finishing school +for young ladies in it, and into it the Annas should go, and once in it +there they should stay put, thought Mr. Twist in vigorous American, +gathering up his mouth defiantly. + +Down these lines of thought his relieved mind cantered easily. He would +seek out a lawyer the next morning, regularize his position to the twins +by turning himself into their guardian, and then get them at once into +the best school there was. As their guardian he could then pay all their +expenses, and faced by this legal fact they would, he hoped, be soon +persuaded of the propriety of his paying whatever there was to pay. + +Mr. Twist was so much pleased by his idea that he was able to go to +sleep after that. Even three months' school--the period he gave Mrs. +Dellogg for her acutest grief--would do. Tide them over. Give them room +to turn round in. It was a great solution. He took off his spectacles, +snuggled down into his rosy nest, and fell asleep with the +instantaneousness of one whose mind is suddenly relieved. + +But when he went down to breakfast he didn't feel quite so sure. The +twins didn't look, somehow, as though they would want to go to school. +They had been busy with their luggage, and had unpacked one of the +trunks for the first time since leaving Aunt Alice, and in honour of the +heat and sunshine and the heavenly smell of heliotrope that was in the +warm air, had put on white summer frocks. + +Impossible to imagine anything cooler, sweeter, prettier and more +angelically good than those two Annas looked as they came out on to the +great verandah of the hotel to join Mr. Twist at breakfast. They +instantly sank into the hotel consciousness. Mr. Twist had thought this +wouldn't happen for a day or two, but he now perceived his mistake. Not +a head that wasn't turned to look at them, not a newspaper that wasn't +lowered. They were immediate objects of interest and curiosity, entirely +benevolent interest and curiosity because nobody yet knew anything about +them, and the wives of the rich husbands--those halves of the +virtuous-rich unions which provided the virtuousness--smiled as they +passed, and murmured nice words to each other like cute and cunning. + +Mr. Twist, being a good American, stood up and held the twins' chairs +for them when they appeared. They loved this; it seemed so respectful, +and made them feel so old and looked-up to. He had done it that night in +New York at supper, and at all the meals in the train in spite of the +train being so wobbly and each time they had loved it. "It makes one +have such self-respect," they agreed, commenting on this agreeable +practice in private. + +They sat down in the chairs with the gracious face of the properly +treated, and inquired, with an amiability and a solicitous politeness on +a par with their treatment how Mr. Twist had slept. They themselves had +obviously slept well, for their faces were cherubic in their bland +placidity, and already after one night wore what Mr. Twist later came to +recognize as the Californian look, a look of complete unworriedness. + +Yet they ought to have been worried. Mr. Twist had been terribly worried +up to the moment in the night when he got his great idea, and he was +worried again, now that he saw the twins, by doubts. They didn't look as +though they would easily be put to school. His idea still seemed to him +magnificent, a great solution, but would the Annas be able to see it? +They might turn out impervious to it; not rejecting it, but simply +non-absorbent. As they slowly and contentedly ate their grape-fruit, +gazing out between the spoonfuls at the sea shining across the road +through palm trees, and looking unruffled itself, he felt it was going +to be rather like suggesting to two cherubs to leave their serene +occupation of adoring eternal beauty and learn lessons instead. Still, +it was the one way out, as far as Mr. Twist could see, of the situation +produced by the death of the man Dellogg. "When you've done breakfast," +he said, pulling himself together on their reaching the waffle stage, +"we must have a talk." + +"When we've done breakfast," said Anna-Rose, "we must have a walk." + +"Down there," said Anna-Felicitas, pointing with her spoon. "On the +sands. Round the curve to where the pink hills begin." + +"Mr. Dellogg's death," said Mr. Twist, deciding it was necessary at once +to wake them up out of the kind of happy somnolescence they seemed to be +falling into, "has of course completely changed--" + +"How unfortunate," interrupted Anna-Rose, her eyes on the palms and the +sea and the exquisite distant mountains along the back of the bay, "to +have to be dead on a day like this." + +"It's not only his missing the fine weather that makes it unfortunate," +said Mr. Twist. + +"You mean," said Anna-Rose, "it's our missing him." + +"Precisely," said Mr. Twist. + +"Well, we know that," said Anna-Felicitas placidly. + +"We knew it last night, and it worried us," said Anna-Rose. "Then we +went to sleep and it didn't worry us. And this morning it still +doesn't." + +"No," said Mr. Twist dryly. "You don't look particularly worried, I must +say." + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas, "we're not. People who find they've got to +heaven aren't usually worried, are they." + +"And having got to heaven," said Anna-Rose, "we've thought of a plan to +enable us to stay in it." + +"Oh have you," said Mr. Twist, pricking up his ears. + +"The plan seemed to think of us rather than we of it," explained +Anna-Felicitas. "It came and inserted itself, as it were, into our minds +while we were dressing." + +"Well, I've thought of a plan too," said Mr. Twist firmly, feeling sure +that the twins' plan would be the sort that ought to be instantly nipped +in the bud. + +He was therefore greatly astonished when Anna-Rose said, "Have you? Is +it about schools?" + +He stared at her in silence. "Yes," he then said slowly, for he was +very much surprised. "It is." + +"So is ours," said Anna-Rose. + +"Indeed," said Mr. Twist. + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "We don't think much of it, but it will tide +us over." + +"Exactly," said Mr. Twist, still more astonished at this perfect harmony +of ideas. + +"Tide us over till Mrs. Dellogg is---" began Anna-Rose in her clear +little voice that carried like a flute to all the tables round them. + +Mr. Twist got up quickly. "If you've finished let us go out of doors," +he said; for he perceived that silence had fallen on the other tables, +and attentiveness to what Anna-Rose was going to say next. + +"Yes. On the sands," said the twins, getting up too. + +On the sands, however, Mr. Twist soon discovered that the harmony of +ideas was not as complete as he had supposed; indeed, something very +like heated argument began almost as soon as they were seated on some +rocks round the corner of the shore to the west of the hotel and they +became aware, through conversation, of the vital difference in the two +plans. + +The Twinkler plan, which they expounded at much length and with a +profusion of optimistic detail, was to search for and find a school in +the neighbourhood for the daughters of gentlemen, and go to it for three +months, or six months, or whatever time Mrs. Dellogg wanted to recover +in. + +Up to this point the harmony was complete, and Mr. Twist could only nod +approval. Beyond it all was confusion, for it appeared that the twins +didn't dream of entering a school in any capacity except as teachers. +Professors, they said; professors of languages and literatures. They +could speak German, as they pointed out, very much better than most +people, and had, as Mr. Twist had sometimes himself remarked, an +extensive vocabulary in English. They would give lessons in English and +German literature. They would be able to teach quite a lot about Heine, +for instance, the whole of whose poetry they knew by heart and whose sad +life in Paris-- + +"It's no good running on like that," interrupted Mr. Twist. "You're not +old enough." + +Not old enough? The Twinklers, from their separate rocks, looked at each +other in surprised indignation. + +"Not old enough?" repeated Anna-Rose. "We're grown up. And I don't see +how one can be more than grown up. One either is or isn't grown up. And +there can be no doubt as to which we are." + +And this the very man who so respectfully had been holding their chairs +for them only a few minutes before! As if people did things like that +for children. + +"You're not old enough I say," said Mr. Twist again, bringing his hand +down with a slap on the rock to emphasize his words. "Nobody would take +you. Why, you've got perambulator faces, the pair of you--" + +"Perambulator--?" + +"And what school is going to want two teachers both teaching the same +thing, anyway?" + +And he then quickly got out his plan, and the conversation became so +heated that for a time it was molten. + +The Twinklers were shocked by his plan. More; they were outraged. Go to +school? To a place they had never been to even in their suitable years? +They, two independent grown-ups with £200 in the bank and nobody with +any right to stop their doing anything they wanted to? Go to school now, +like a couple of little suck-a-thumbs? + +It was Anna-Rose, very flushed and bright of eye, who flung this +expression at Mr. Twist from her rock. He might think they had +perambulator faces if he liked--they didn't care, but they did desire +him to bear in mind that if it hadn't been for the war they would be now +taking their proper place in society, that they had already done a +course of nursing in a hospital, an activity not open to any but adults, +and that Uncle Arthur had certainly not given them all that money to +fritter away on paying for belated schooling. + +"We would be anachronisms," said Anna-Felicitas, winding up the +discussion with a firmness so unusual in her that it showed how +completely she had been stirred. + +"Are you aware that we are marriageable?" inquired Anna-Rose icily. + +"And don't you think it's bad enough for us to be aliens and +undesirables," asked Anna-Felicitas, "without getting chronologically +confused as well?" + +Mr. Twist was quiet for a bit. He couldn't compete with the Twinklers +when it came to sheer language. He sat hunched on his rock, his face +supported by his two fists, staring out to sea while the twins watched +him indignantly. School indeed! Then presently he pushed his hat back +and began slowly to rub his ear. + +"Well, I'm blest if I know what to do with you, then," he said, +continuing to rub his ear and stare out to sea. + +The twins opened their mouths simultaneously at this to protest against +any necessity for such knowledge on his part, but he interrupted them. +"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd like to resume this discussion when +you're both a little more composed." + +"We're perfectly composed," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Less ruffled, then." + +"We're quite unruffled," said Anna-Rose. + +"Well, you don't look it, and you don't sound like it. But as this is +important I'd be glad to resume the discussion, say, to-morrow. I +suggest we spend to-day exploring the neighbourhood and steadying our +minds--" + +"Our minds are perfectly steady, thank you." + +"--and to-morrow we'll have another go at this question. I haven't told +you all my plan yet"--Mr. Twist hadn't had time to inform them of his +wish to become their guardian, owing to the swiftness with which he had +been engulfed in their indignation,--"but whether you approve of it or +not, what is quite certain is that we can't stay on at the hotel much +longer." + +"Because it's so dear?" + +"Oh, it isn't so much _that_,--the proprietor is a friend of mine, or +anyhow he very well might be--" + +"It looks very dear," said Anna-Rose, visions of their splendid bedroom +and bathroom rising before her. They too had slept in silken beds, and +the taps in their bathroom they had judged to be pure gold. + +"And it's because we can't afford to be in a dear place spending money," +said Anna-Felicitas, "that it's so important we should find a salaried +position in a school without loss of time." + +"And it's because we can't afford reckless squandering that we ought to +start looking for such a situation at once" said Anna-Rose. + +"Not to-day," said Mr. Twist firmly, for he wouldn't give up the hope +of getting them, once they were used to it, to come round to his plan. +"To-day, this one day, we'll give ourselves up to enjoyment. It'll do us +all good. Besides, we don't often get to a place like this, do we. And +it has taken some getting to, hasn't it." + +He rose from his rock and offered his hand to help them off theirs. + +"To-day enjoyment," he said, "to-morrow business. I'm crazy," he added +artfully, "to see what the country is like away up in those hills." + +And so it was that about five o'clock that afternoon, having spent the +whole day exploring the charming environs of Acapulco,--having been seen +at different periods going over the Old Mission in tow of a monk who +wouldn't look at them but kept his eyes carefully fixed on the ground, +sitting on high stools eating strange and enchanting ices at the shop in +the town that has the best ices, bathing deliciously in the warm sea at +the foot of a cliff along the top of which a great hedge of +rose-coloured geraniums flared against the sky, lunching under a grove +of ilexes on the contents of a basket produced by Mr. Twist from +somewhere in the car he had hired, wandering afterwards up through +eucalyptus woods across the fields towards the foot of the +mountains,--they came about five o'clock, thirsty and thinking of tea, +to a delightful group of flowery cottages clustering round a restaurant +and forming collectively, as Mr. Twist explained, one of the many +American forms of hotel. "To which," he said, "people not living in the +cottages can come and have meals at the restaurant, so we'll go right in +and have tea." + +And it was just because they couldn't get tea--any other meal, the +proprietress said, but no teas were served, owing to the Domestic Help +Eight Hours Bill which obliged her to do without domestics during the +afternoon hours--that Anna-Felicitas came by her great idea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +But she didn't come by it at once. + +They got into the car first, which was waiting for them in the scented +road at the bottom of the field they had walked across, and they got +into it in silence and were driven back to their hotel for tea, and her +brain was still unvisited by inspiration. + +They were all tired and thirsty, and were disappointed at being thwarted +in their desire to sit at a little green table under whispering trees +and rest, and drink tea, and had no sort of wish to have it at the +Cosmopolitan. But both Mr. Twist, who had been corrupted by Europe, and +the twins, who had the habits of their mother, couldn't imagine doing +without it in the afternoon, and they would have it in the hotel sooner +than not have it at all. It was brought to them after a long time of +waiting. Nobody else was having any at that hour, and the waiter, when +at last one was found, had difficulty apparently in believing that they +were serious. When at last he did bring it, it was toast and marmalade +and table-napkins, for all the world as though it had been breakfast. + +Then it was that, contemplating this with discomfort and distaste, as +well as the place they were sitting in and its rocking-chairs and marble +and rugs, Anna-Felicitas was suddenly smitten by her idea. + +It fell upon her like a blow. It struck her fairly, as it were, between +the eyes. She wasn't used to ideas, and she stopped dead in the middle +of a piece of toast and looked at the others. They stopped too in their +eating and looked at her. + +"What's the matter?" asked Anna-Rose. "Has another button come off?" + +At this Mr. Twist considered it wisest to turn his head away, for +experience had taught him that Anna-Felicitas easily came undone. + +"I've thought of something," said Anna-Felicitas. + +Mr. Twist turned his head back again. "You don't say," he said, mildly +sarcastic. + +"_Ich gratuliere_," said Anna-Rose, also mildly sarcastic. + +"I've got an idea," said Anna-Felicitas. "But it's so luminous," she +said, looking from one to the other in a kind of surprise. "Of course. +That's what we'll do. Ridiculous to waste time bothering about schools." + +There was a new expression on her face that silenced the comments rising +to Anna-Rose's and Mr. Twist's tongues, both of whom had tired feet and +were therefore disposed to sarcasm. + +Anna-Felicitas looked at them, and they looked at her, and her face +continued to become visibly more and more illuminated, just as if a +curtain were being pulled up. Animation and interest shone in her +usually dreamy eyes. Her drooping body sat up quite straight. She +reminded Anna-Rose, who had a biblically well-furnished mind, of Moses +when he came down from receiving the Law on the mountain. + +"Well, tell us," said Anna-Rose. "But not," she added, thinking of +Moses, "if it's only more commandments." + +Anna-Felicitas dropped the piece of toast she was still holding in her +fingers, and pushed back her cup. "Come out on to the rocks," she said +getting up--"where we sat this morning." And she marched out, followed +by the other two with the odd submissiveness people show towards any one +who is thoroughly determined. + +It was dark and dinner-time before they got back to the hotel. +Throughout the sunset Anna-Felicitas sat on her rock, the same rock she +had sat on so unsatisfactorily eight hours earlier, and expounded her +idea. She couldn't talk fast enough. She, so slow and listless, for once +was shaken into burning activity. She threw off her hat directly she got +on to the sands, climbed up the rock as if it were a pulpit, and with +her hands clasped round her knees poured out her plan, the long shafts +of the setting sun bathing her in bright flames and making her more like +Moses than ever,--if, that is, one could imagine Moses as beautiful as +Anna-F., thought Anna-Rose, and as felicitously without his nose and +beard. + +It was wonderful how complete Anna-Felicitas's inspiration was. It +reminded Mr. Twist of his own about the teapot. It was, of course, a far +more complicated matter than that little device of his, and would have +to be thought out very carefully and approached very judiciously, but +the wealth of detail she was already ready with immensely impressed him. +She even had a name for the thing; and it was when he heard this name, +when it flashed into her talk with the unpremeditatedness of an +inspiration, that Mr. Twist became definitely enthusiastic. + +He had an American eye for advertisement. Respect for it was in his +blood. He instantly saw the possibilities contained in the name. He saw +what could be done with it, properly worked. He saw it on hoarding-on +signposts, in a thousand contrivances for catching the public attention +and sticking there. + +The idea, of course, was fantastic, unconventional, definitely outside +what his mother and that man Uncle Arthur would consider proper, but it +was outside the standards of such people that life and fruitfulness and +interest and joy began. He had escaped from the death-like grip of his +mother, and Uncle Arthur had himself forcibly expulsed the Annas from +his, and now that they were all so far away, instead of still timorously +trying to go on living up to those distant sterile ideas why shouldn't +they boldly go out into the light and colour that was waiting everywhere +for the free of spirit? + +Mr. Twist had often observed how perplexingly much there is to be said +for the opposite sides of a question. He was now, but with no +perplexity, for Anna-Felicitas had roused his enthusiasm, himself taking +the very opposite view as to the proper thing for the twins to do from +the one he had taken in the night and on the rocks that morning. School? +Nonsense. Absurd to bury these bright shoots of everlastingness--this is +what they looked like to him, afire with enthusiasm and the setting +sun--in such a place of ink. If the plan, owing to the extreme youth of +the Annas, were unconventional, conventionality could be secured by +giving a big enough salary to a middle-aged lady to come and preside. He +himself would hover beneficently in the background over the undertaking. + +Anna-Felicitas's idea was to use Uncle Arthur's £200 in renting one of +the little wooden cottages that seemed to be plentiful, preferably one +about five miles out in the country, make it look inside like an English +cottage, all pewter and chintz and valances, make it look outside like +the more innocent type of German wayside inn, with green tables and +spreading trees, get a cook who would concentrate on cakes, real lovely +ones, various, poetic, wonderful cakes, and start an inn for tea alone +that should become the fashion. It ought to be so arranged that it +became the fashion. She and Anna-Rose would do the waiting. The prices +would be very high, indeed exorbitant--this Mr. Twist regarded as +another inspiration,--so that it should be a distinction, give people a +_cachet_, to have had tea at their cottage; and in a prominent position +in the road in front of it, where every motor-car would be bound to see +it, there would be a real wayside inn signboard, such as inns in England +always have, with its name on it. + +"If people here were really neutral you might have the Imperial arms of +Germany and England emblazoned on it," interrupted Mr. Twist, "just to +show your own extreme and peculiar neutrality." + +"We might call it The Christopher and Columbus," interrupted Anna-Rose, +who had been sitting open-mouthed hanging on Anna-Felicitas's words. + +"Or you might call it The Cup and Saucer," said Mr. Twist, "and have a +big cup brimming with tea and cream painted on it--" + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas. "It is The Open Arms. That is its name." + +And Mr. Twist, inclined to smile and criticise up to this, bowed his +head in instantaneous recognition and acceptance. + +He became definitely enthusiastic. Of course he would see to it that not +a shadow of ambiguousness was allowed to rest on such a name. The whole +thing as he saw it, his mind working rapidly while Anna-Felicitas still +talked, would be a happy joke, a joyous, gay little assault on the +purses of millionaires, in whom the district abounded judging from the +beautiful houses and gardens he had passed that day,--but a joke and a +gay assault that would at the same time employ and support the Annas; +solve them, in fact, saw Mr. Twist, who all day long had been regarding +them much as one does a difficult mathematical problem. + +It was Mr. Twist who added the final inspiration to Anna-Felicitas's +many, when at last she paused for want of breath. The inn, he said, +should be run as a war philanthropy. All that was over after the +expenses were paid and a proper percentage reserved by the Annas as +interest on their invested capital--they listened with eager respect to +these business-like expressions--would be handed over to the American +Red Cross. "That," explained Mr. Twist, "would seal the inn as both +respectable and fashionable, which is exactly what we would want to make +it." + +And he then announced, and they accepted without argument or questioning +in the general excitement, that he would have himself appointed their +legal guardian. + +They didn't go back to the Cosmopolitan till dinnertime, there was so +much to say, and after dinner, a meal at which Mr. Twist had to suppress +them a good deal because The Open Arms kept on bursting through into +their talk and, as at breakfast, the people at the tables round them +were obviously trying to hear, they went out once again on to the +sea-front and walked up and down till late continuing the discussion, +mostly simultaneously as regards the twins, while Mr. Twist chimed in +with practical suggestions whenever they stopped to take breath. + +He had to drive them indoors to bed at last, for the lights were going +out one by one in the Cosmopolitan bedroom windows, where the virtuous +rich, exhausted by their day of virtue, were subsiding, prostrate with +boredom and respectability, into their various legitimate lairs, and he +stayed alone out by the sea rapidly sketching out his activities for the +next day. + +There was the guardianship to be arranged, the cottage to be found, and +the middle-aged lady to be advertised for. She, indeed, must be secured +at once; got to come at once to the Cosmopolitan and preside over the +twins until they all proceeded in due season to The Open Arms. She must +be a motherly middle-aged lady, decided Mr. Twist, affectionate, skilled +in managing a cook, business-like, intellectual, and obedient. Her +feminine tact would enable her to appear to preside while she was in +reality obeying. She must understand that she was there for the Annas, +and that the Annas were not there for her. She must approach the +situation in the spirit of the enlightened king of a democratic country, +who receives its honours, accepts its respect, but does not lose sight +of the fact that he is merely the Chief Servant of the people. Mr. Twist +didn't want a female Uncle Arthur let loose upon those blessed little +girls; besides, they would have the dangerous weapon in their hands of +being able to give her notice, and it would considerably dim the +reputation of The Open Arms if there were a too frequent departure from +it of middle-aged ladies. + +Mr. Twist felt himself very responsible and full of anxieties as he +paced up and down alone, but he was really enjoying himself. That +youthful side of him, so usual in the artistic temperament, which leaped +about at the least pleasant provocation like a happy lamb when the +sunshine tickles it, was feeling that this was great fun; and the +business side of him was feeling that it was not only great fun but +probably an extraordinarily productive piece of money-making. + +The ignorant Annas--bless their little hearts, he thought, he who only +the night before on that very spot had been calling them +accursed--believed that their £200 was easily going to do everything. +This was lucky, for otherwise there would have been some thorny paths of +argument and convincing to be got through before they would have allowed +him to help finance the undertaking; probably they never would have, in +their scrupulous independence. Mr. Twist reflected with satisfaction on +the usefulness of his teapot. At last he was going to be able to do +something, thanks to it, that gave him real gladness. His ambulance to +France--that was duty. His lavishness to his mother--that again was +duty. But here was delight, here at last was what his lonely heart had +always longed for,--a chance to help and make happy, and be with and +watch being made happy, dear women-things, dear soft sweet kind +women-things, dear sister-things, dear children-things.... + +It has been said somewhere before that Mr. Twist was meant by Nature to +be a mother; but Nature, when she was half-way through him, forgot and +turned him into a man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The very next morning they set out house-hunting, and two days later +they had found what they wanted. Not exactly what they wanted of course, +for the reason, as Anna-Felicitas explained that nothing ever is +_exactly_, but full of possibilities to the eye of imagination, and +there were six of this sort of eye gazing at the little house. + +It stood at right angles to a road much used by motorists because of its +beauty, and hidden from it by trees on the top of a slope of green +fields scattered over with live oaks that gently descended down towards +the sea. Its back windows, and those parts of it that a house is ashamed +of, were close up to a thick grove of eucalyptus which continued to the +foot of the mountains. It had an overrun little garden in front, +separated from the fields by a riotous hedge of sweetbriar. It had a few +orange, and lemon, and peach trees on its west side, the survivors of +what had once been intended for an orchard, and a line of pepper trees +on the other, between it and the road. Neglected roses and a huge +wistaria clambered over its dilapidated face. Somebody had once planted +syringas, and snowballs, and lilacs along the inside of the line of +pepper trees, and they had grown extravagantly and were an impenetrable +screen, even without the sweeping pepper trees from the road. + +It hadn't been lived in for years, and it was well on in decay, being +made of wood, but the situation was perfect for The Open Arms. Every +motorist coming up that road would see the signboard outside the pepper +trees, and would certainly want to stop at the neat little gate, and +pass through the flowery tunnel that would be cut through the syringas, +and see what was inside. Other houses were offered of a far higher +class, for this one had never been lived in by gentry, said the +house-agent endeavouring to put them off a thing so broken down. A +farmer had had it years back, he told them, and instead of confining +himself to drinking the milk from his own cows, which was the only +appropriate drink for a farmer the agent maintained--he was the +president of the local Anti-Vice-In-All-Its-Forms League--he put his +money as he earned it into gin, and the gin into himself, and so after a +bit was done for. + +The other houses the agent pressed on them were superior in every way +except situation; but situation being the first consideration, Mr. Twist +agreed with the twins, who had fallen in love with the neglected little +house whose shabbiness was being so industriously hidden by roses, that +this was the place, and a week later it and its garden had been +bought--Mr. Twist didn't tell the twins he had bought it, in order to +avoid argument, but it was manifestly the simple thing to do--and over +and round and through it swarmed workmen all day long, like so many +diligent and determined ants. Also, before the week was out, the +middle-aged lady had been found and engaged, and a cook of gifts in the +matter of cakes. This is the way you do things in America. You decide +what it is that you really want, and you start right away and get it. +"And everything so cheap too!" exclaimed the twins gleefully, whose £200 +was behaving, it appeared, very like the widow's cruse. + +This belief, however, received a blow when they went without Mr. Twist, +who was too busy now for any extra expeditions, to choose and buy +chintzes, and it was finally shattered when the various middle-aged +ladies who responded to Mr. Twist's cry for help in the advertising +columns of the Acapulco and Los Angeles press one and all demanded as +salary more than the whole Twinkler capital. + +The twins had a bad moment of chill fear and misgiving, and then once +more were saved by an inspiration,--this time Anna-Rose's. + +"I know," she exclaimed, her face clearing. "We'll make it +Co-operative." + +Mr. Twist, whose brow too had been puckered in the effort to think out a +way of persuading the twins to let him help them openly with his money, +for in spite of his going to be their guardian they remained difficult +on this point, jumped at the idea. He couldn't, of course, tell what in +Anna-Rose's mind the word co-operative stood for, but felt confident +that whatever it stood for he could manipulate it into covering his +difficulties. + +"What is co-operative?" asked Anna-Felicitas, with a new respect for a +sister who could suddenly produce a business word like that and seem to +know all about it. She had heard the word herself, but it sat very +loosely in her head, at no point touching anything else. + +"Haven't you heard of Co-operative Stores?" inquired Anna-Rose. + +"Yes but--" + +"Well, then." + +"Yes, but what would a co-operative inn be?" persisted Anna-Felicitas. + +"One run on co-operative lines, of course," said Anna-Rose grandly. +"Everybody pays for everything, so that nobody particular pays for +anything." + +"Oh," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"I mean," said Anna-Rose, who felt herself that this might be clearer, +"it's when you pay the servants and the rent and the cakes and things +out of what you get." + +"Oh," said Anna-Felicitas. "And will they wait quite quietly till we've +got it?" + +"Of course, if we're all co-operative." + +"I see," said Anna-Felicitas, who saw as little as before, but knew of +old that Anna-Rose grew irascible when pressed. + +"See here now," said Mr. Twist weightily, "if that isn't an idea. Only +you've got hold of the wrong word. The word you want is profit-sharing. +And as this undertaking is going to be a big success there will be big +profits, and any amount of cakes and salaries will be paid for as glibly +and easily as you can say your ABC." + +And he explained that till they were fairly started he was going to stay +in California, and that he intended during this time to be book-keeper, +secretary, and treasurer to The Open Arms, besides Advertiser-in-Chief, +which was, he said, the most important post of all; and if they would be +so good as to leave this side of it unquestioningly to him, who had had +a business training, he would undertake that the Red Cross, American or +British, whichever they decided to support, should profit handsomely. + +Thus did Mr. Twist artfully obtain a free hand as financial backer of +The Open Arms. The profit-sharing system seemed to the twins admirable. +It cleared away every scruple and every difficulty, they now bought +chintzes and pewter pots in the faith of it without a qualm, and even +ceased to blench at the salary of the lady engaged to be their +background,--indeed her very expensiveness pleased them, for it gave +them confidence that she must at such a price be the right one, because +nobody, they agreed, who knew herself not to be the right one would have +the face to demand so much. + +This lady, the widow of Bruce D. Bilton of Chicago of whom of course, +she said, the Miss Twinklers had heard--the Miss Twinklers blushed and +felt ashamed of themselves because they hadn't, and indistinctly +murmured something about having heard of Cornelius K. Vanderbilt, +though, and wouldn't he do--had a great deal of very beautiful +snow-white hair, while at the same time she was only middle-aged. She +firmly announced, when she perceived Mr. Twist's spectacles dwelling on +her hair, that she wasn't yet forty, and her one fear was that she +mightn't be middle-aged enough. The advertisement had particularly +mentioned middle-aged; and though she was aware that her brains and +fingers and feet couldn't possibly be described as coming under that +heading, she said her hair, on the other hand, might well be regarded as +having overshot the mark. But its turning white had nothing to do with +age. It had done that when Mr. Bilton passed over. No hair could have +stood such grief as hers when Mr. Bilton took that final step. She had +been considering the question of age, she informed Mr. Twist, from every +aspect before coming to the interview, for she didn't want to make a +mistake herself nor allow the Miss Twinklers to make a mistake; and she +had arrived at the conclusion that what with her hair being too old and +the rest of her being too young, taken altogether she struck an absolute +average and perfectly fulfilled the condition required; and as she +wished to live in the country, town life disturbing her psychically too +much, she was willing to give up her home and her circle--it was a real +sacrifice--and accept the position offered by the Miss Twinklers. She +was, she said, very quiet, and yet at the same time she was very active. +She liked to fly round among duties, and she liked to retire into her +own mentality and think. She was all for equilibrium, for the right +balancing of body and mind in a proper alternation of suitable action. +Thus she attained poise,--she was one of the most poised women her +friends knew, they told her. Also she had a warm heart, and liked both +philanthropy and orphans. Especially if they were war ones. + +Mrs. Bilton talked so quickly and so profusely that it took quite a long +time to engage her. There never seemed to be a pause in which one could +do it. It was in Los Angeles, in an hotel to which Mr. Twist had motored +the twins, starting at daybreak that morning in order to see this lady, +that the personal interview took place, and by lunch-time they had been +personally interviewing her for three hours without stopping. It seemed +years. The twins longed to engage her, if only to keep her quiet; but +Mrs. Bilton's spirited description of life as she saw it and of the way +it affected something she called her psyche, was without punctuation and +without even the tiny gap of a comma in it through which one might have +dexterously slipped a definite offer. She had to be interrupted at last, +in spite of the discomfort this gave to the Twinkler and Twist +politeness, because a cook was coming to be interviewed directly after +lunch, and they were dying for some food. + +The moment Mr. Twist saw Mrs. Bilton's beautiful white hair he knew she +was the one. That hair was what The Open Arms wanted and must have; that +hair, with a well-made black dress to go with it, would be a shield +through which no breath of misunderstanding as to the singleness of +purpose with which the inn was run would ever penetrate. He would have +settled it with her in five minutes if she could have been got to +listen, but Mrs. Bilton couldn't be got to listen; and when it became +clear that no amount of patient waiting would bring him any nearer the +end of what she had to say Mr. Twist was forced to take off his coat, as +it were, and plunge abruptly into the very middle of her flow of words +and convey to her as quickly as possible, as one swimming for his life +against the stream, that she was engaged. "Engaged, Mrs. Bilton,"--he +called out, raising his voice above the sound of Mrs. Bilton's rushing +words, "engaged." She would be expected at the Cosmopolitan, swiftly +continued Mr. Twist, who was as particularly anxious to have her at the +Cosmopolitan as the twins were particularly anxious not to,--for for the +life of them they couldn't see why Mrs. Bilton should be stirred up +before they started inhabiting the cottage,--within three days-- + +"Mr. Twist, it can't be done," broke in Mrs. Bilton a fresh and +mountainous wave of speech gathering above Mr. Twist's head. "It +absolutely--" + +"Within a week, then," he called out quickly, holding up the breaking of +the wave for an instant while he hastened to and opened the door. "And +goodmorning Mrs. Bilton--my apologies, my sincere apologies, but we +have to hurry away--" + +The cook was engaged that afternoon. Mr. Twist appeared to have mixed up +the answers to his advertisement, for when, after paying the +luncheon-bill, he went to join the twins in the sitting-room, he found +them waiting for him in the passage outside the door looking excited. + +"The cook's come," whispered Anna-Rose, jerking her head towards the +shut door. "She's a man." + +"She's a Chinaman," whispered Anna-Felicitas. + +Mr. Twist was surprised. He thought he had an appointment with a +woman,--a coloured lady from South Carolina who was a specialist in +pastries and had immaculate references, but the Chinaman assured him +that he hadn't, and that his appointment was with him alone, with him, +Li Koo. In proof of it, he said, spreading out his hands, here he was. +"We make cakies--li'l cakies--many, lovely li'l cakies," said Li Koo, +observing doubt on the gentleman's face; and from somewhere on his +person he whipped out a paper bag of them as a conjurer whips a rabbit +out of a hat, and offered them to the twins. + +They ate. He was engaged. It took five minutes. + +After he had gone, and punctually to the minute of her appointment, an +over-flowing Negress appeared and announced that she was the coloured +lady from South Carolina to whom the gentleman had written. + +Mr. Twist uncomfortably felt that Li Koo had somehow been clever. +Impossible, however, to go back on him, having eaten his cakes. Besides, +they were perfect cakes, blown together apparently out of flowers and +honey and cream,--cakes which, combined with Mrs. Bilton's hair, would +make the fortune of The Open Arms. + +The coloured lady, therefore, was sent away, disappointed in spite of +the _douceur_ and fair words Mr. Twist gave her; and she was so much +disappointed that they could hear her being it out loud all the way +along the passage and down the stairs, and the nature of her expression +of her disappointment was such that Mr. Twist, as he tried by animated +conversation to prevent it reaching the twins' ears, could only be +thankful after all that Li Koo had been so clever. It did, however, +reach the twins' ears, but they didn't turn a hair because of Uncle +Arthur. They merely expressed surprise at its redness, seeing that it +came out of somebody so black. + +Directly after this trip to Los Angeles advertisements began to creep +over the countryside. They crept along the roads where motorists were +frequent and peeped at passing cars round corners and over hedges. They +were taciturn advertisements, and just said three words in big, +straight, plain white letters on a sea-blue ground: + +THE OPEN ARMS + +People passing in their cars saw them, and vaguely thought it must be +the name of a book. They had better get it. Other people would have got +it. It couldn't be a medicine nor anything to eat, and was probably a +religious novel. Novels about feet or arms were usually religious. A few +considered it sounded a little improper, and as though the book, far +from being religious, would not be altogether nice; but only very proper +people who distrusted everything, even arms took this view. + +After a week the same advertisements appeared with three lines added: + +THE OPEN ARMS + YES + BUT +WHY? WHERE? WHAT? + +and then ten days after that came fresh ones: + +THE OPEN ARMS + WILL OPEN + WIDE + +On November 20th at Four P.M. + +N.B. WATCH THE SIGNPOSTS. + +And while the countryside--an idle countryside, engaged almost wholly in +holiday-making and glad of any new distraction--began to be interested +and asked questions, Mr. Twist was working day and night at getting the +thing ready. + +All day long he was in Acapulco or out at the cottage, urging, hurrying, +criticizing, encouraging, praising and admonishing. His heart and soul +and brain was in this, his business instincts and his soft domestic +side. His brain, after working at top speed during the day with the +architect, the painter and decorator, the furnisher, the garden expert, +the plumbing expert, the electric-light expert, the lawyer, the estate +agent, and numberless other persons, during the night meditated and +evolved advertisements. There was to be a continual stream week by week +after the inn was opened of ingenious advertisements. Altogether Mr. +Twist had his hands full. + +The inn was to look artless and simple and small, while actually being +the last word in roomy and sophisticated comfort. It was to be as like +an old English inn to look at as it could possibly be got to be going on +his own and the twins' recollections and the sensationally coloured +Elizabethan pictures in the architect's portfolio. It didn't disturb Mr. +Twist's unprejudiced American mind that an English inn embowered in +heliotrope and arum lilies and eucalyptus trees would be odd and +unnatural, and it wouldn't disturb anybody else there either. Were not +Swiss mountain chalets to be found in the fertile plains along the +Pacific, complete with fir trees specially imported and uprooted in +their maturity and brought down with tons of their own earth attached to +their roots and replanted among carefully disposed, apparently Swiss +rocks, so that what one day had been a place smiling with orange-groves +was the next a bit of frowning northern landscape? And were there not +Italian villas dotted about also? But these looked happier and more at +home than the chalets. And there were buildings too, like small Gothic +cathedrals, looking as uncomfortable and depressed as a woman who has +come to a party in the wrong clothes. But no matter. Nobody minded. So +that an English inn added to this company, with a little German +beer-garden--only there wasn't to be any beer--wouldn't cause the least +surprise or discomfort to anybody. + +In the end, the sole resemblance the cottage had to an English inn was +the signboard out in the road. With the best will in the world, and the +liveliest financial encouragement from Mr. Twist, the architect couldn't +in three weeks turn a wooden Californian cottage into an ancient +red-brick Elizabethan pothouse. He got a thatched roof on to it by a +miracle of hustle, but the wooden walls remained; he also found a real +antique heavy oak front door studded with big rusty nailheads in a San +Francisco curiosity shop, that would serve, he said, as a basis for any +wished-for hark-back later on when there was more time to the old girl's +epoch--thus did he refer to Great Eliza and her spacious days--and +meanwhile it gave the building, he alleged, a considerable air; but as +this door in that fine climate was hooked open all day long it didn't +disturb the gay, the almost jocose appearance of the place when +everything was finished. + +Houses have their expressions, their distinctive faces, very much as +people have, meditated Mr. Twist the morning of the opening, as he sat +astride a green chair at the bottom of the little garden, where a hedge +of sweetbriar beautifully separated the Twinkler domain from the rolling +fields that lay between it and the Pacific, and stared at his handiwork; +and the conclusion was forced upon him--reluctantly, for it was the last +thing he had wanted The Open Arms to do--that the thing looked as if it +were winking at him. + +Positively, thought Mr. Twist, his hat on the back of his head, staring, +that was what it seemed to be doing. How was that? He studied it +profoundly, his head on one side. Was it that it was so very gay? He +hadn't meant it to be gay like that. He had intended a restrained and +disciplined simplicity, a Puritan unpretentiousness, with those sweet +maidens, the Twinkler twins, flitting like modest doves in and out among +its tea-tables; but one small thing had been added to another small +thing at their suggestion, each small thing taken separately apparently +not mattering at all and here it was almost--he hoped it was only his +imagination--winking at him. It looked a familiar little house; jocular; +very open indeed about the arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Various things had happened, however, before this morning of the great +day was reached, and Mr. Twist had had some harassing experiences. + +One of the first things he had done after the visit to Los Angeles was +to take steps in the matter of the guardianship. He had written to Mrs. +Bilton that he was the Miss Twinklers' guardian, though it was not at +that moment true. It was clear, he thought, that it should be made true +as quickly as possible, and he therefore sought out a lawyer in Acapulco +the morning after the interview. This was not the same lawyer who did +his estate business for him; Mr. Twist thought it best to have a +separate one for more personal affairs. + +On hearing Mr. Twist's name announced, the lawyer greeted him as an old +friend. He knew, of course, all about the teapot, for the Non-Trickler +was as frequent in American families as the Bible and much more +regularly used; but he also knew about the cottage at the foot of the +hills, what it had cost--which was little--and what it would cost--which +was enormous--before it was fit to live in. The only thing he didn't +know was that it was to be used for anything except an ordinary +_pied-à-terre_. He had heard, too, of the presence at the Cosmopolitan +of the twins, and on this point, like the rest of Acapulco, was a little +curious. + +The social column of the Acapulco daily paper hadn't been able to give +any accurate description of the relationship of the Twinklers to Mr. +Twist. Its paragraph announcing his arrival had been obliged merely to +say, while awaiting more detailed information, that Mr. Edward A. Twist, +the well-known Breakfast Table Benefactor and gifted inventor of the +famous Non-Trickler Teapot, had arrived from New York and was staying at +the Cosmopolitan Hotel with _entourage_; and the day after this the +lawyer, who got about a bit, as everybody else did in that encouraging +climate, happening to look in at the Cosmopolitan to have a talk with a +friend, had seen the _entourage_. + +It was in the act of passing through the hall on its way upstairs, +followed by a boy carrying a canary in a cage. Even without the boy and +the canary it was a conspicuous object. The lawyer asked his friend who +the cute little girls were, and was interested to hear he was beholding +Mr. Edward A. Twist's _entourage_. His friend told him that opinion in +the hotel was divided about the precise nature of this _entourage_ and +its relationship to Mr. Twist, but it finally came to be generally +supposed that the Miss Twinklers had been placed in his charge by +parents living far away in order that he might safely see them put to +one of the young ladies' finishing schools in that agreeable district. +The house Mr. Twist was taking was not connected in the Cosmopolitan +mind with the Twinklers. Houses were always being taken in that paradise +by wealthy persons from unkinder climates. He would live in it three +months in the year, thought the Cosmopolitan, bring his mother, and keep +in this way an occasional eye on his charges. The hotel guests regarded +the Twinklers at this stage with nothing but benevolence and goodwill, +for they had up to then only been seen and not heard; and as one of +their leading characteristics was a desire to explain, especially if +anybody looked a little surprised, which everybody usually did quite +early in conversation with them, this was at that moment, the delicate +moment before Mrs. Bilton's arrival, fortunate. + +The lawyer, then, who appreciated the young and pretty as much as other +honest men, began the interview with Mr. Twist by warmly congratulating +him, when he heard what he had come for, on his taste in wards. + +Mr. Twist received this a little coldly, and said it was not a matter of +taste but of necessity. The Miss Twinklers were orphans, and he had been +asked--he cleared his throat--asked by their relatives, by, in fact, +their uncle in England, to take over their guardianship and see that +they came to no harm. + +The lawyer nodded intelligently, and said that if a man had wards at all +they might as well be cute wards. + +Mr. Twist didn't like this either, and said briefly that he had had no +choice. + +The lawyer said, "Quite so. Quite so," and continued to look at him +intelligently. + +Mr. Twist then explained that he had come to him rather than, as might +have been more natural, to the solicitor who had arranged the purchase +of the cottage because this was a private and personal matter-- + +"Quite so. Quite so," interrupted the lawyer, with really almost too +much intelligence. + +Mr. Twist felt the excess of it, and tried to look dignified, but the +lawyer was bent on being friendly and frank. Friendliness was natural to +him when visited for the first time by a new client, and that there +should be frankness between lawyers and clients he considered essential. +If, he held, the client wouldn't be frank, then the lawyer must be; and +he must go on being so till the client came out of his reserve. + +Mr. Twist, however, was so obstinate in his reserve that the lawyer +cheerfully and unhesitatingly jumped to the conclusion that the +_entourage_ must have some very weak spots about it somewhere. + +"There's another way out of it of course, Mr. Twist," he said, when he +had done rapidly describing the different steps to be taken. There were +not many steps. The process of turning oneself into a guardian was +surprisingly simple and swift. + +"Out of it?" said Mr. Twist, his spectacles looking very big and +astonished. "Out of what?" + +"Out of your little difficulty. I wonder it hasn't occurred to you. Upon +my word now, I do wonder." + +"But I'm not in any little diff--" began Mr. Twist. + +"The elder of these two girls, now--" + +"There isn't an elder," said Mr. Twist. + +"Come, come," said the lawyer patiently, waiting for him to be sensible. + +"There isn't an elder," repeated Mr. Twist, "They're twins." + +"Twins, are they? Well I must say we manage to match up our twins better +than that over here. But come now--hasn't it occurred to you you might +marry one of them, and so become quite naturally related to them both?" + +Mr. Twist's spectacles seemed to grow gigantic. + +"Marry one of them?" he repeated, his mouth helplessly opening. + +"Yep," said the lawyer, giving him a lead in free-and-easiness. + +"Look here," said Mr. Twist suddenly gathering his mouth together, "cut +that line of joke out. I'm here on serious business. I haven't come to +be facetious. Least of all about those children--" + +"Quite so, quite so," interrupted the lawyer pleasantly. "Children, you +call them. How old are they? Seventeen? My wife was sixteen when we +married. Oh quite so, quite so. Certainly. By all means. Well then, +they're to be your wards. And you don't want it known how recently +they've become your wards--" + +"I didn't say that," said Mr. Twist. + +"Quite so, quite so. But it's your wish, isn't it. The relationship is +to look as grass-grown as possible. Well, I shall be dumb of course, but +most things get into the press here. Let me see--" He pulled a sheet +of paper towards him and took up his fountain pen. "Just oblige me with +particulars. Date of birth. Place of birth. Parentage--" + +He looked up ready to write, waiting for the answers. + +None came. + +"I can't tell you off hand," said Mr. Twist presently, his forehead +puckered. + +"Ah," said the lawyer, laying down his pen. "Quite so. Not known your +young friends long enough yet." + +"I've known them quite long enough," said Mr. Twist stiffly, "but we +happen to have found more alive topics of conversation than dates and +parents." + +"Ah. Parents not alive." + +"Unfortunately they are not. If they were, these poor children wouldn't +be knocking about in a strange country." + +"Where would they be?" asked the lawyer, balancing his pen across his +forefinger. + +Mr. Twist looked at him very straight. Vividly he remembered his +mother's peculiar horror when he told her the girls he was throwing away +his home life for and breaking her heart over were Germans. It had acted +upon her like the last straw. And since then he had felt everywhere, +with every one he talked to, in every newspaper he read, the same strong +hostility to Germans, so much stronger than when he left America the +year before. + +Mr. Twist began to perceive that he had been impetuous in this matter of +the guardianship. He hadn't considered it enough. He suddenly saw +innumerable difficulties for the twins and for The Open Arms if it was +known it was run by Germans. Better abandon the guardianship idea than +that such difficulties should arise. He hadn't thought; he hadn't had +time properly to think; he had been so hustled and busy the last few +days.... + +"They come from England," he said, looking at the lawyer very straight. + +"Ah," said the lawyer. + +Mr. Twist wasn't going to lie about the twins, but merely, by evading, +he hoped to put off the day when their nationality would be known. +Perhaps it never would be known; or if known, known later on when +everybody, as everybody must who knew them, loved them for themselves +and accordingly wouldn't care. + +"Quite so," said the lawyer again, nodding. "I asked because I overheard +them talking the other day as they passed through the hall of your +hotel. They were talking about a canary. The r in the word seemed a +little rough. Not quite English, Mr. Twist? Not quite American?" + +"Not quite," agreed Mr. Twist. "They've been a good deal abroad." + +"Quite so. At school, no doubt." + +He was silent a moment, intelligently balancing his pen on his +forefinger. + +"Then these particulars," he went on, looking up at Mr. Twist,--"could +you let me have them soon? I tell you what. You're in a hurry to fix +this. I'll call round to-night at the hotel, and get them direct from +your young friends. Save time. And make me acquainted with a pair of +charming girls." + +"No," said Mr. Twist. He got on to his feet and held out his hand. "Not +to-night. We're engaged to-night. To-morrow will be soon enough. I'll +send round. I'll let you know. I believe I'm going to think it over a +bit. There isn't any such terrible hurry, anyhow." + +"There isn't? I understood--" + +"I mean, a day or two more or less don't figure out at much in the long +run." + +"Quite so, quite so," said the lawyer, getting up too. "Well, I'm always +at your service, at any time." And he shook hands heartily with Mr. +Twist and politely opened the door for him. + +Then he went back to his writing-table more convinced than ever that +there was something very weak somewhere about the _entourage_. + +As for Mr. Twist, he perceived he had been a fool. Why had he gone to +the lawyer at all? Why not simply have announced to the world that he +was the Twinkler guardian? The twins themselves would have believed it +if he had come in one day and said it was settled, and nobody outside +would ever have dreamed of questioning it. After all, you couldn't see +if a man was a guardian or not just by looking at him. Well, he would do +no more about it, it was much too difficult. Bother it. Let Mrs. Bilton +go on supposing he was the legal guardian of her charges. Anyway he had +all the intentions of a guardian. What a fool he had been to go to the +lawyer. Curse that lawyer. Now he knew, however distinctly and +frequently he, Mr. Twist, might say he was the Twinkler guardian, that +he wasn't. + +It harassed Mr. Twist to perceive, as he did perceive with clearness, +that he had been a fool; but the twins, when he told them that evening +that owing to technical difficulties, with the details of which he +wouldn't trouble them, the guardianship was off, were pleased. + +"We want to be bound to you," said Anna-Felicitas her eyes very soft and +her voice very gentle, "only by ties of affection and gratitude." + +And Anna-Rose, turning red, opened her mouth as though she were going to +say something handsome like that too, but seemed unable after all to get +it out, and only said, rather inaudibly, "Yes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Yet another harassing experience awaited Mr. Twist before the end of +that week. + +It had been from the first his anxious concern that nothing should occur +at the Cosmopolitan to get his party under a cloud; yet it did get under +a cloud, and on the very last afternoon, too, before Mrs. Bilton's +arrival. Only twenty-four hours more and her snowy-haired respectability +would have spread over the twins like a white whig. They would have been +safe. His party would have been unassailable. But no; those Twinklers, +in spite of his exhortation whenever he had a minute left to exhort in, +couldn't, it seemed, refrain from twinkling,--the word in Mr. Twist's +mind covered the whole of their easy friendliness, their flow of +language, their affable desire to explain. + +He had kept them with him as much as he could, and luckily the excited +interest they took in the progress of the inn made them happy to hang +about it most of the time of the delicate and dangerous week before Mrs. +Bilton came; but they too had things to do,--shopping in Acapulco +choosing the sea-blue linen frocks and muslin caps and aprons in which +they were to wait at tea, and buying the cushions and flower-pots and +canary that came under the general heading, in Anna-Rose's speech, of +feminine touches. So they sometimes left him; and he never saw them go +without a qualm. + +"Mind and not say anything to anybody about this, won't you," he would +say hastily, making a comprehensive gesture towards the cottage as they +went. + +"Of course we won't." + +"I meant, nobody is to know what it's really going to be. They're to +think it's just a _pied-à-terre._ It would most ruin my advertisement +scheme if they--" + +"But of _course_ we won't. Have we ever?" the twins would answer, +looking very smug and sure of themselves. + +"No. Not yet. But--" + +And the hustled man would plunge again into technicalities with +whichever expert was at that moment with him, leaving the twins, as he +needs must, to God and their own discretion. + +Discretion, he already amply knew, was not a Twinkler characteristic. +But the week passed, Mrs. Bilton's arrival grew near, and nothing had +happened. It was plain to the watchful Mr. Twist, from the pleasant +looks of the other guests when the twins went in and out of the +restaurant to meals, that nothing had happened. His heart grew lighter. +On the last afternoon, when Mrs. Bilton was actually due next day, his +heart was quite light, and he saw them leave him to go back and rest at +the hotel, because they were tired by the accumulated standing about of +the week, altogether unconcernedly. + +The attitude of the Cosmopolitan guests towards the twins was, indeed, +one of complete benevolence. They didn't even mind the canary. Who would +not be indulgent towards two such sweet little girls and their pet bird, +even if it did sing all day and most of the night without stopping? The +Twinkler girls were like two little bits of snapped-off sunlight, or +bits of white blossom blowing in and out of the hotel in their shining +youth and it was impossible not to regard them indulgently. But if the +guests were indulgent, they were also inquisitive. Everybody knew who +Mr. Twist was; who, however, were the Twinklers? Were they relations of +his? _Protégées_? Charges? + +The social column of the Acapulco daily paper, from which information as +to new arrivals was usually got, had, as we know, in its embarrassment +at being ignorant to take refuge in French, because French may so easily +be supposed to mean something. The paper had little knowledge of, but +much confidence in, French. _Entourage_ had seemed to it as good a word +as any other, as indeed did _clientèle_. It had hesitated between the +two, but finally chose _entourage_ because there happened to be no +accent in its stock of type. The Cosmopolitan guests were amused at the +word, and though inquisitive were altogether amiable; and, until the +last afternoon, only the manager didn't like the Twinklers. He didn't +like them because of the canary. His sympathies had been alienated from +the Miss Twinklers the moment he heard through the chambermaid that they +had tied the heavy canary cage on to the hanging electric light in their +bedroom. He said nothing, of course. One doesn't say anything if one is +an hotel manager, until the unique and final moment when one says +everything. + +On the last afternoon before Mrs. Bilton's advent the twins, tired of +standing about for days at the cottage and in shops, appeared in the +hall of the hotel and sat down to rest. They didn't go to their room to +rest because they didn't feel inclined for the canary, and they sat down +very happily in the comfortable rocking-chairs with which the big hall +abounded, and, propping their dusty feet on the lower bar of a small +table, with friendly and interested eyes they observed the other guests. + +The other guests also observed them. + +It was the first time the _entourage_ had appeared without its +companion, and the other guests were dying to know details about it. It +hadn't been sitting in the hall five minutes before a genial old +gentleman caught Anna-Felicitas's friendly eye and instantly drew up his +chair. + +"Uncle gone off by himself to-day?" he asked; for he was of the party in +the hotel which inclined, in spite of the marked difference in profiles, +to the relationship theory, and he made a shot at the relationship being +that of uncle. + +"We haven't got an uncle nearer than England," said Anna-Felicitas +affably. + +"And we only got him by accident," said Anna-Rose, equally affably. + +"It was an unfortunate accident," said Anna-Felicitas, considering her +memories. + +"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed. How was that?" + +"By the usual method, if an uncle isn't a blood uncle," said Anna-Rose. +"We happened to have a marriageable aunt, and he married her. So we have +to have him." + +"It was sheer bad luck," said Anna-Felicitas, again brooding on that +distant image. + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Just bad luck. He might so easily have married +some one else's aunt. But no. His roving glance must needs go and fall +on ours." + +"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed." And he ruminated on this, +with an affectionate eye--he was affectionate--resting in turn on each +Anna. + +"Then Mr. Twist," he went on presently--"we all know him of course--a +public benefactor--" + +"Yes, _isn't_ he," said Anna-Rose radiantly. + +"A boon to the breakfast-table--" + +"Yes, _isn't_ he," said Anna-Rose again, all asparkle. "He _is_ so +pleasant at breakfast." + +"Then he--Mr. Twist--Teapot Twist we call him where I live--" + +"Teapot Twist?" said Anna-Rose. "I think that's irreverent." + +"Not at all. It's a pet name. A sign of our affection and gratitude. +Then he isn't your uncle?" + +"We haven't got a real uncle nearer than heaven," said Anna-Felicitas, +her cheek on her hand, dreamily reconstructing the image of Onkel Col. + +"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed." And he ruminated, on this +too, his thirsty heart--he had a thirsty heart, and found difficulty in +slaking it because of his wife--very indulgent toward the twins. + +Then he said: "That's a long way off." + +"What is?" asked Anna-Rose. + +"The place your uncle's in." + +"Not too far really," said Anna-Felicitas softly. "He's safe there. He +was very old, and was difficult to look after. Why, he got there at last +through his own carelessness." + +"Indeed," said the old gentleman. + +"Sheer carelessness," said Anna-Rose. + +"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "How was that?" + +"Well, you see where we lived they didn't have electric light," began +Anna-Rose, "and one night--the the night he went to heaven--he put the +petroleum lamp--" + +And she was about to relate that dreadful story of Onkle Col's end +which has already been described in these pages as unfit for anywhere +but an appendix for time had blunted her feelings, when Anna-Felicitas +put out a beseeching hand and stopped her. Even after all these years +Anna-Felicitas couldn't bear to remember Onkle Col's end. It had haunted +her childhood. It had licked about her dreams in leaping tongues of +flame. And it wasn't only tongues of flame. There were circumstances +connected with it.... Only quite recently, since the war had damped down +lesser horrors, had she got rid of it. She could at least now talk of +him calmly, and also speculate with pleasure on the probable aspect of +Onkle Col in glory, but she still couldn't bear to hear the details of +his end. + +At this point an elderly lady of the spare and active type, very upright +and much wrinkled, that America seems so freely to produce, came down +the stairs; and seeing the twins talking to the old gentleman, crossed +straight over and sat down briskly next to them smiling benevolently. + +"Well, if Mr. Ridding can talk to you I guess so can I," she said, +pulling her knitting out of a brocaded bag and nodding and smiling at +the group. + +She was knitting socks for the Allied armies in France the next winter, +but it being warm just then in California they were cotton socks because +wool made her hands too hot. + +The twins were all polite, reciprocal smiles. + +"I'm just crazy to hear about you," said the brisk lady, knitting with +incredible energy, while her smiles flicked over everybody. "You're +fresh from Europe, aren't you? What say? Quite fresh? My, aren't you +cute little things. Thinking of making a long stay in the States? What +say? For the rest of your lives? Why now, I call that just splendid. +Parents coming out West soon too? What say? Prevented? Well, I guess +they won't let themselves be prevented long. Mr. Twist looking after you +meanwhile? What say? There isn't any meanwhile? Well, I don't quite--Mr. +Twist your uncle, or cousin? What say? No relation at all? H'm, h'm. No +relation at all, is he. Well, I guess he's an old friend of your +parents, then. What say? They didn't know him? H'm, h'm. They didn't +know him, didn't they. Well, I don't quite--What say? But you know him? +Yes, yes, so I see. H'm, h'm. I don't quite--" Her needles flew in and +out, and her ball of cotton rolled on to the floor in her surprise. + +Anna-Rose got up and fetched it for her before the old gentleman, who +was gazing with thirsty appreciation at Anna-Felicitas, could struggle +out of his chair. + +"You see," explained Anna-Felicitas, taking advantage of the silence +that had fallen on the lady, "Mr. Twist, regarded as a man, is old, but +regarded as a friend he is new." + +"Brand new," said Anna-Rose. + +"H'm, h'm," said the lady, knitting faster than ever, and looking first +at one twin and then at the other. "H'm, h'm, h'm. Brand new, is he. +Well, I don't quite--" Her smiles had now to struggle with the +uncertainty and doubt, and were weakening visibly. + +"Say now, where did you meet Teapot Twist?" asked the old gentleman, who +was surprised too, but remained quite benevolent owing to his +affectionate heart and his not being a lady. + +"We met Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose, who objected to this way of alluding +to him, "on the steamer." + +"Not before? You didn't meet Mr. Twist before the steamer?" exclaimed +the lady, the last of her smiles flickering out. "Not before the +steamer, didn't you. Just a steamship acquaintance. Parents never seen +him. H'm, h'm, h'm." + +"We would have met him before if we could," said Anna-Felicitas +earnestly. + +"I should think so," said Anna-Rose. "It has been the great +retrospective loss of our lives meeting him so late in them." + +"Why now," said the old gentleman smiling, "I shouldn't call it so +particularly late in them." + +But the knitting lady didn't smile at all, and sat up very straight and +said "H'm, h'm, h'm" to her flashing needles as they flew in and out; +for not only was she in doubt now about the cute little things, but she +also regretted, on behalf of the old gentleman's wife who was a friend +of hers, the alert interest of his manner. He sat there so very much +awake. With his wife he never seemed awake at all. Up to now she had not +seen him except with his wife. + +"You mustn't run away with the idea that we're younger than we really +are," Anna-Rose said to the old gentleman. + +"Why no, I won't," he answered with a liveliness that deepened the +knitting lady's regret on behalf of his wife. "When I run away you bet +it won't be with an idea." + +And he chuckled. He was quite rosy in the face, and chuckled; he whom +she knew only as a quiet man with no chuckle in him. And wasn't what he +had just said very like what the French call a _double entendre?_ She +hadn't a husband herself, but if she had she would wish him to be at +least as quiet when away from her as when with her, and at least as free +from _double entendres_. At least. Really more. "H'm, h'm, h'm," she +said, clicking her needles and looking first at the twins and then at +the old gentleman. + +"Do you mean to say you crossed the Atlantic quite alone, you two?" she +asked, in order to prevent his continuing on these remarkable and +unusual lines of _badinage_. + +"Quite," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"That is to say, we had Mr. Twist of course," said Anna-Rose. + +"Once we had got him," amended Anna-Felicitas. + +"Yes, yes," said the knitting lady, "so you say. H'm, h'm, h'm. Once you +had got him. I don't quite--" + +"Well, I call you a pair of fine high-spirited girls," said the old +gentleman heartily, interrupting in his turn, "and all I can say is I +wish I had been on that boat." + +"Here's Mrs. Ridding," said the knitting lady quickly, relief in her +voice; whereupon he suddenly grew quiet. "My, Mrs. Ridding," she added +when the lady drew within speaking distance, "you do look as though you +needed a rest." + +Mrs. Ridding, the wife of the old gentleman, Mr. Ridding, had been +approaching slowly for some time from behind. She had been out on the +verandah since lunch, trying to recover from it. That was the one +drawback to meals, she considered, that they required so much recovering +from; and the nicer they were the longer it took. The meals at the +Cosmopolitan were particularly nice, and really all one's time was taken +up getting over them. + +She was a lady whose figure seemed to be all meals. The old gentleman +had married her in her youth, when she hadn't had time to have had so +many. He and she were then the same age, and unfortunately hadn't gone +on being the same age since. It had wrecked his life this inability of +his wife to stay as young and new as himself. He wanted a young wife, +and the older he got in years--his heart very awkwardly retained its +early freshness--the younger he wanted her; and, instead, the older he +got the older his wife got too. Also the less new. The old gentleman +felt the whole thing was a dreadful mistake. Why should he have to be +married to this old lady? Never in his life had he wanted to marry old +ladies; and he thought it very hard that at an age when he most +appreciated bright youth he should be forced to spend his precious +years, his crowning years when his mind had attained wisdom while his +heart retained freshness, stranded with an old lady of costly habits and +inordinate bulk just because years ago he had fallen in love with a +chance pretty girl. + +He struggled politely out of his chair on seeing her. The twins, +impressed by such venerable abundance, got up too. + +"Albert, if you try to move too quick you'll crick your back again," +said Mrs. Ridding in a monotonous voice, letting herself down carefully +and a little breathlessly on to the edge of a chair that didn't rock, +and fanning herself with a small fan she carried on the end of a massive +gold chain. Her fatigued eyes explored the twins while she spoke. + +"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're neither of us as young +as we were," she went on, addressing the knitting lady but with her eyes +continuing to explore the twins. + +They naturally thought she was speaking to them, and Anna-Felicitas said +politely, "Really?" and Anna-Rose, feeling she too ought to make some +comment, said, "Isn't that very unusual?" + +Aunt Alice always said, "Isn't that very unusual?" when she didn't know +what else to say, and it worked beautifully, because then the other +person launched into affirmations or denials with the reasons for them, +and was quite happy. + +But Mrs. Ridding only stared at the twins heavily and in silence. + +"Because," explained Anna-Rose, who thought the old lady didn't quite +follow, "nobody ever is. So that it must be difficult not to remember +it." + +Mr. Ridding too was silent, but that was because of his wife. It was +quite untrue to say that he forgot, seeing that she was constantly +reminding him. "Old stranger," he thought resentfully, as he carefully +arranged a cushion behind her back. He didn't like her back. Why should +he have to pay bills for putting expensive clothes on it? He didn't want +to. It was all a dreadful mistake. + +"You're the Twinkler girls," said the old lady abruptly. + +They made polite gestures of agreement. + +The knitting lady knitted vigorously, sitting up very straight and +saying nothing, with a look on her face of disclaiming every +responsibility. + +"Where does your family come from?" was the next question. + +This was unexpected. The twins had no desire to talk of Pomerania. They +hadn't wanted to talk about Pomerania once since the war began; and they +felt very distinctly in their bones that America, though she was a +neutral, didn't like Germany any more than the belligerents did. It had +been their intention to arrange together the line they would take if +asked questions of this sort, but life had been so full and so exciting +since their arrival that they had forgotten to. + +Anna-Rose found herself unable to say anything at all. Anna-Felicitas, +therefore, observing that Christopher was unnerved, plunged in. + +"Our family," she said gently, "can hardly be said to come so much as to +have been." + +The old lady thought this over, her lustreless eyes on Anna-Felicitas's +face. + +The knitting lady clicked away very fast, content to leave the +management of the Twinklers in more competent hands. + +"How's that?" asked the old lady, finally deciding that she hadn't +understood. + +"It's extinct," said Anna-Felicitas. "Except us. That is, in the direct +line." + +The old lady was a little impressed by this, direct lines not being so +numerous or so clear in America as in some other countries. + +"You mean you two are the only Twinklers left?" she asked. + +"The only ones left that matter," said Anna-Felicitas. "There are +branches of Twinklers still existing, I believe, but they're so +unimportant that we don't know them." + +"Mere twigs," said Anna-Rose, recovering her nerves on seeing +Anna-Felicitas handle the situation so skilfully; and her nose +unconsciously gave a slight Junker lift. + +"Haven't you got any parents?" asked the old lady. + +"We used to have," said Anna-Felicitas flushing, afraid that her darling +mother was going to be asked about. + +The old gentleman gave a sudden chuckle. "Why yes," he said, forgetting +his wife's presence for an instant, "I guess you had them once, or I +don't see how--" + +"Albert," said his wife. + +"We are the sole surviving examples of the direct line of Twinklers," +said Anna-Rose, now quite herself and ready to give Columbus a hand. +"There's just us. And we--" she paused a moment, and then plunged--"we +come from England." + +"Do you?" said the old lady. "Now I shouldn't have said that. I can't +say just why, but I shouldn't. Should you, Miss Heap?" + +"I shouldn't say a good many things, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap +enigmatically, her needles flying. + +"It's because we've been abroad a great deal with our parents, I +expect," said Anna-Rose rather quickly. "I daresay it has left its mark +on us." + +"Everything leaves its mark on one," observed Anna-Felicitas pleasantly. + +"Ah," said the old lady. "I know what it is now. It's the foreign r. +You've picked it up. Haven't they, Miss Heap." + +"I shouldn't like to say what they haven't picked up, Mrs. Ridding," +said Miss Heap, again enigmatically. + +"I'm afraid we have," said Anna-Rose, turning red. "We've been told that +before. It seems to stick, once one has picked it up." + +And the old gentleman muttered that everything stuck once one had picked +it up, and looked resentfully at his wife. + +She moved her slow eyes round, and let them rest on him a moment. + +"Albert, if you talk so much you won't be able to sleep to-night," she +said. "I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember we've got to be careful at +our age," she added to the knitting lady. + +"You seem to be bothered by your memory," said Anna-Rose politely, +addressing the old gentleman "Have you ever tried making notes on little +bits of paper of the things you have to remember? I think you would +probably be all right then. Uncle Arthur used to do that. Or rather he +made Aunt Alice do it for him, and put them where he would see them." + +"Uncle Arthur," explained Anna-Felicitas to the old lady, "is an uncle +of ours. The one," she said turning to the old gentleman, "we were just +telling you about, who so unfortunately insisted on marrying our aunt. +Uncle, that is, by courtesy," she added, turning to the old lady, "not +by blood." + +The old lady's eyes moved from one twin to the other as each one spoke, +but she said nothing. + +"But Aunt Alice," said Anna-Rose, "is our genuine aunt. Well, I was +going to tell you," she continued briskly, addressing the old gentleman. +"There used to be things Uncle Arthur had to do every day and every +week, but still he had to be reminded of them each time, and Aunt Alice +had a whole set of the regular ones written out on bits of cardboard, +and brought them out in turn. The Monday morning one was: Wind the +Clock, and the Sunday morning one was: Take your Hot Bath, and the +Saturday evening one was: Remember your Pill. And there was one brought +in regularly every morning with his shaving water and stuck in his +looking-glass: Put on your Abdominable Belt." + +The knitting needles paused an instant. + +"Yes," Anna-Felicitas joined in, interested by these recollections, her +long limbs sunk in her chair in a position of great ease and comfort, +"and it seemed to us so funny for him to have to be reminded to put on +what was really a part of his clothes every day, that once we wrote a +slip of our own for him and left it on his dressing-table: Don't forget +your Trousers." + +The knitting needles paused again. + +"But the results of that were dreadful," added Anna-Felicitas, her face +sobering at the thought of them. + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "You see, he supposed Aunt Alice had done it, in +a fit of high spirits, though she never had high spirits--" + +"And wouldn't have been allowed to if she had," explained +Anna-Felicitas. + +"And he thought she was laughing at him," said Anna-Rose, "though we +have never seen her laugh--" + +"And I don't believe he has either," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"So there was trouble, because he couldn't bear the idea of her laughing +at him, and we had to confess." + +"But that didn't make it any better for Aunt Alice." + +"No, because then he said it was her fault anyhow for not keeping us +stricter." + +"So," said Anna-Felicitas, "after the house had been steeped in a +sulphurous gloom for over a week, and we all felt as though we were +being slowly and steadily gassed, we tried to make it up by writing a +final one--a nice one--and leaving it on his plate at breakfast: Kiss +your Wife. But instead of kissing her he--" She broke off, and then +finished a little vaguely: "Oh well, he didn't." + +"Still," remarked Anna-Rose, "it must be pleasant not to be kissed by a +husband. Aunt Alice always wanted him to, strange to say, which is why +we reminded him of it. He used to forget that more regularly than +almost anything. And the people who lived in the house nearest us were +just the opposite--the husband was for ever trying to kiss the person +who was his wife, and she was for ever dodging him." + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Like the people on Keats's Grecian Urn." + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "And that sort of husband, must be even worse. + +"Oh, much worse," agreed Anna-Felicitas. + +She looked round amiably at the three quiet figures in the chairs. "I +shall refrain altogether from husbands," she said placidly. "I shall +take something that doesn't kiss." + +And she fell into an abstraction, wondering, with her cheek resting on +her hand, what he, or it, would look like. + +There was a pause. Anna-Rose was wondering too what sort of a creature +Columbus had in her mind, and how many, if any, legs it would have; and +the other three were, as before, silent. + +Then the old lady said, "Albert," and put out her hand to be helped on +to her feet. + +The old gentleman struggled out of his chair, and helped her up. His +face had a congested look, as if he were with difficulty keeping back +things he wanted to say. + +Miss Heap got up too, stuffing her knitting as she did so into her +brocaded bag. + +"Go on ahead and ring the elevator bell, Albert," said the old lady. +"It's time we went and had our nap." + +"I ain't going to," said the old gentleman suddenly. + +"What say? What ain't you going to, Albert?" said the old lady, turning +her slow eyes round to him. + +"Nap," said the old gentleman, his face very red. + +It was intolerable to have to go and nap. He wished to stay where he was +and talk to the twins. Why should he have to nap because somebody else +wanted to? Why should he have to nap with an old lady, anyway? Never in +his life had he wanted to nap with old ladies. It was all a dreadful +mistake. + +"Albert," said his wife looking at him. + +He went on ahead and rang the lift-bell. + +"You're quite right to see that he rests, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap, +walking away with her and slowing her steps to suit hers. "I should say +it was essential that he should be kept quiet in the afternoons. You +should see that Mr. Ridding rests more than he does. _Much_ more," she +added significantly. + +"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're neither of us--" + +This was the last the twins heard. + +They too had politely got out of their chairs when the old lady began to +heave into activity, and they stood watching the three departing +figures. They were a little surprised. Surely they had all been in the +middle of an interesting conversation? + +"Perhaps it's American to go away in the middle," remarked Anna-Rose, +following the group with her eyes as it moved toward the lift. + +"Perhaps it is," said Anna-Felicitas, also gazing after it. + +The old gentleman, in the brief moment during which the two ladies had +their backs to him while preceding him into the lift, turned quickly +round on his heels and waved his hand before he himself went in. + +The twins laughed, and waved back; and they waved with such goodwill +that the old gentleman couldn't resist giving one more wave. He was +seen doing it by the two ladies as they faced round, and his wife, as +she let herself down on to the edge of the seat, remarked that he +mustn't exert himself like that or he would have to begin taking his +drops again. + +That was all she said in the lift; but in their room, when she had got +her breath again, she said, "Albert, there's just one thing in the world +I hate worse than a fool, and that's an old fool." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +That evening, while the twins were undressing, a message came up from +the office that the manager would be obliged if the Miss Twinklers' +canary wouldn't sing. + +"But it can't help it," said Anna-Felicitas through the crack of door +she held open; she was already in her nightgown. "You wouldn't either if +you were a canary," she added, reasoning with the messenger. + +"It's just got to help it," said he. + +"But why shouldn't it sing?" + +"Complaints." + +"But it always has sung." + +"That is so. And it has sung once too often. It's unpopular in this +hotel, that canary of yours. It's just got to rest a while. Take it +easy. Sit quiet on its perch and think." + +"But it won't sit quiet and think." + +"Well, I've told you," he said, going away. + +This was the bird that had been seen arriving at the Cosmopolitan about +a week before by the lawyer, and it had piercingly sung ever since. It +sang, that is, as long as there was any light, real or artificial, to +sing by. The boy who carried it from the shop for the twins said its +cage was to be hung in a window in the sun, or it couldn't do itself +justice. But electric light also enabled it to do itself justice, the +twins discovered, and if they sat up late the canary sat up late too, +singing as loudly and as mechanically as if it hadn't been a real +canary at all, but something clever and American with a machine inside +it. + +Secretly the twins didn't like it. Shocked at its loud behaviour, they +had very soon agreed that it was no lady, but Anna-Rose was determined +to have it at The Open Arms because of her conviction that no house +showing the trail of a woman's hand was without a canary. That, and a +workbag. She bought them both the same day. The workbag didn't matter, +because it kept quiet; but the canary was a very big, very yellow bird, +much bigger and yellower than the frailer canaries of a more exhausted +civilization, and quite incapable, unless it was pitch dark, of keeping +quiet for a minute. Evidently, as Anna-Felicitas said, it had a great +many lungs. Her idea of lungs, in spite of her time among them and +similar objects at a hospital, was what it had always been: that they +were things like pink macaroni strung across a frame of bones on the +principle of a lyre or harp, and producing noises. She thought the +canary had unusual numbers of these pink strings, and all of them of the +biggest and dearest kind of macaroni. + +The other guests at the Cosmopolitan had been rather restive from the +first on account of this bird, but felt so indulgent toward its owners, +those cute little relations or charges or whatever they were of Teapot +Twist's, that they bore its singing without complaint. But on the +evening of the day the Annas had the interesting conversation with Mr. +and Mrs. Ridding and Miss Heap, two definite complaints were lodged in +the office, and one was from Mrs. Ridding and the other was from Miss +Heap. + +The manager, as has been said, was already sensitive about the canary. +Its cage was straining his electric light cord, and its food, +assiduously administered in quantities exceeding its capacity, littered +the expensive pink pile carpet. He therefore lent a ready ear and sent +up a peremptory message; and while the message was going up, Miss Heap, +who had come herself with her complaint, stayed on discussing the Twist +and Twinkler party. + +She said nothing really; she merely asked questions; and not one of the +questions, now they were put to him, did the manager find he could +answer. No doubt everything was all right. Everybody knew about Mr. +Twist, and it wasn't likely he would choose an hotel of so high a class +to stay in if his relations to the Miss Twinklers were anything but +regular. And a lady companion, he understood, was joining the party +shortly; and besides, there was the house being got ready, a permanent +place of residence he gathered, in which the party would settle down, +and experience had taught him that genuine illicitness was never +permanent. Still, the manager himself hadn't really cared about the +Twinklers since the canary came. He could fill the hotel very easily, +and there was no need to accommodate people who spoilt carpets. Also, +the moment the least doubt or question arose among his guests, all of +whom he knew and most of whom came back regularly every year, as to the +social or moral status of any new arrivals, then those arrivals must go. +Miss Heap evidently had doubts. Her standard, it is true, was the almost +impossibly high one of the unmarried lady of riper years, but Mrs. +Ridding, he understood, had doubts too; and once doubts started in an +hotel he knew from experience that they ran through it like measles. The +time had come for him to act. + +Next morning, therefore, he briskly appeared in Mr. Twist's room as he +was pulling on his boots, and cheerfully hoped he was bearing in mind +what he had been told the day he took the rooms, that they were engaged +for the date of the month now arrived at. + +Mr. Twist paused with a boot half on. "I'm not bearing it in mind," he +said, "because you didn't tell me." + +"Oh yes I did, Mr. Twist," said the manager briskly. "It isn't likely +I'd make a mistake about that. The rooms are taken every year for this +date by the same people. Mrs. Hart of Boston has this one, and Mr. and +Mrs.--" + +Mr. Twist heard no more. He finished lacing his boots in silence. What +he had been so much afraid of had happened: he and the twins had got +under a cloud. + +The twins had been saying things. Last night they told him they had made +some friends. He had been uneasy at that, and questioned them. But it +appeared they had talked chiefly of their Uncle Arthur. Well, damnable +as Uncle Arthur was as a man he was safe enough as a topic of +conversation. He was English. He was known to people in America like the +Delloggs and the Sacks. But it was now clear they must have said things +besides that. Probably they had expatiated on Uncle Arthur from some +point of view undesirable to American ears. The American ear was very +susceptible. He hadn't been born in New England without becoming aware +of that. + +Mr. Twist tied his bootlaces with such annoyance that he got them into +knots. He ought never to have come with the Annas to a big hotel. Yet +lodgings would have been worse. Why hadn't that white-haired gasbag, +Mrs. Bilton--Mr. Twist's thoughts were sometimes unjust--joined them +sooner? Why had that shirker Dellogg died? He got his bootlaces +hopelessly into knots. + +"I'd like to start right in getting the rooms fixed up, Mr. Twist," said +the manager pleasantly. "Mrs. Hart of Boston is very--" + +"See here," said Mr. Twist, straightening himself and turning the full +light of his big spectacles on to him, "I don't care a curse for Mrs. +Hart of Boston." + +The manager expressed regret that Mr. Twist should connect a curse with +a lady. It wasn't American to do that. Mrs. Hart-- + +"Damn Mrs. Hart," said Mr. Twist, who had become full-bodied of speech +while in France, and when he was goaded let it all out. + +The manager went away. And so, two hours later, did Mr. Twist and the +twins. + +"I don't know what you've been saying," he said in an extremely +exasperated voice, as he sat opposite them in the taxi with their grips, +considerably added to and crowned by the canary who was singing, piled +up round him. + +"Saying?" echoed the twins, their eyes very round. + +"But whatever it was you'd have done better to say something else. +Confound that bird. Doesn't it ever stop screeching?" + +It was the twins, however, who were confounded. So much confounded by +what they considered his unjust severity that they didn't attempt to +defend themselves, but sat looking at him with proud hurt eyes. + +By this time they both had become very fond of Mr. Twist, and +accordingly he was able to hurt them. Anna-Rose, indeed, was so fond of +him that she actually thought him handsome. She had boldly said so to +the astonished Anna-Felicitas about a week before; and when +Anna-Felicitas was silent, being unable to agree, Anna-Rose had heatedly +explained that there was handsomeness, and there was the higher +handsomeness, and that that was the one Mr. Twist had. It was infinitely +better than mere handsomeness, said Anna-Rose--curly hair and a straight +nose and the rest of the silly stuff--because it was real and lasting; +and it was real and lasting because it lay in the play of the features +and not in their exact position and shape. + +Anna-Felicitas couldn't see that Mr. Twist's features played. She looked +at him now in the taxi while he angrily stared out of the window, and +even though he was evidently greatly stirred his features weren't +playing. She didn't particularly want them to play. She was fond of and +trusted Mr. Twist, and would never even have thought whether he had +features or not ii Anna-Rose hadn't taken lately to talking so much +about them. And she couldn't help remembering how this very Christopher, +so voluble now on the higher handsomeness, had said on board the _St. +Luke_ when first commenting on Mr. Twist that God must have got tired of +making him by the time his head was reached. Well, Christopher had +always been an idealist. When she was eleven she had violently loved the +coachman. Anna-Felicitas hadn't ever violently loved anybody yet, and +seeing Anna-Rose like this now about Mr. Twist made her wonder when she +too was going to begin. Surely it was time. She hoped her inability to +begin wasn't perhaps because she had no heart. Still, she couldn't begin +if she didn't see anybody to begin on. + +She sat silent in the taxi, with Christopher equally silent beside her, +both of them observing Mr. Twist through lowered eyelashes. Anna-Rose +watched him with hurt and anxious eyes like a devoted dog who has been +kicked without cause. Anna-Felicitas watched him in a more detached +spirit. She had a real affection for him, but it was not, she was sure +and rather regretted, an affection that would ever be likely to get the +better of her reason. It wasn't because he was so old, of course, she +thought, for one could love the oldest people, beginning with that +standard example of age, the _liebe Gott_; it was because she liked him +so much. + +How could one get sentimental over and love somebody one so thoroughly +liked? The two things on reflection didn't seem to combine well. She was +sure, for instance, that Aunt Alice had loved Uncle Arthur, amazing as +it seemed, but she was equally sure she hadn't liked him. And look at +the _liebe Gott_. One loves the _liebe Gott_, but it would be going too +far, she thought, to say that one likes him. + +These were the reflections of Anna-Felicitas in the taxi, as she +observed through her eyelashes the object of Anna-Rose's idealization. +She envied Anna-Rose; for here she had been steadily expanding every day +more and more like a flower under the influence of her own power of +idealization. She used to sparkle and grow rosy like that for the +coachman. Perhaps after all it didn't much matter what you loved, so +long as you loved immensely. It was, perhaps, thought Anna-Felicitas +approaching this subject with some caution and diffidence, the quantity +of one's love that mattered rather than the quality of its object. Not +that Mr. Twist wasn't of the very first quality, except to look at; but +what after all were faces? The coachman had been, as it were, nothing +else but face, so handsome was he and so without any other +recommendation. He couldn't even drive; and her father had very soon +kicked him out with the vigour and absence of hesitation peculiar to +Junkers when it comes to kicking and Anna-Rose had wept all over her +bread and butter at tea that day, and was understood to say that she +knew at last what it must be like to be a widow. + +Mr. Twist, for all that he was looking out of the taxi window with an +angry and worried face, his attention irritably concentrated, so it +seemed, on the objects passing in the road, very well knew he was being +observed. He wouldn't, however, allow his eye to be caught. He wasn't +going to become entangled at this juncture in argument with the Annas. +He was hastily making up his mind, and there wasn't much time to do it +in. He had had no explanation with the twins since the manager's visit +to his room, and he didn't want to have any. He had issued brief orders +to them, told them to pack, declined to answer questions, and had got +them safely into the taxi with a minimum waste of time and words. They +were now on their way to the station to meet Mrs. Bilton. Her train from +Los Angeles was not due till that evening at six. Never mind. The +station was a secure place to deposit the twins and the baggage in till +she came. He wished he could deposit the twins in the parcel-room as +easily as he could their grips--neatly labelled, put away safely on a +shelf till called for. + +Rapidly, as he stared out of the window, he arrived at decisions. He +would leave the twins in the waiting room at the station till Mrs. +Bilton was due, and meanwhile go out and find lodgings for them and her. +He himself would get a room in another and less critical hotel, and stay +in it till the cottage was habitable. So would unassailable +respectability once more descend like a white garment upon the party and +cover it up. + +But he was nettled; nettled; nettled by the _contretemps_ that had +occurred on the very last day, when Mrs. Bilton was so nearly there; +nettled and exasperated. So immensely did he want the twins to be happy, +to float serenely in the unclouded sunshine and sweetness he felt was +their due, that he was furious with them for doing anything to make it +difficult. And, jerkily, his angry thoughts pounced, as they so often +did, on Uncle Arthur. Fancy kicking two little things like that out into +the world, two little breakable things like that, made to be cherished +and watched over. Mr. Twist was pure American in his instinct to regard +the female as an object to be taken care of, to be placed securely in a +charming setting and kept brightly free from dust. If Uncle Arthur had +had a shred of humanity in him, he angrily reflected, the Annas would +have stayed under his roof throughout the war, whatever the feeling was +against aliens. Never would a decent man have chucked them out. + +He turned involuntarily from the window and looked at the twins. Their +eyes were fixed, affectionate and anxious, on his face. With the quick +change of mood of those whose chins are weak and whose hearts are warm, +a flood of love for them gushed up within him and put out his anger. +After all, if Uncle Arthur had been decent he, Edward A. Twist, never +would have met these blessed children. He would now have been at Clark; +leading lightless days; hopelessly involved with his mother. + +His loose, unsteady mouth broke into a big smile. Instantly the two +faces opposite cleared into something shining. + +"Oh dear," said Anna-Felicitas with a sigh of relief, "it _is_ +refreshing when you leave off being cross." + +"We're fearfully sorry if we've said anything we oughtn't to have," said +Anna-Rose, "and if you tell us what it is we won't say it again." + +"I can't tell you, because I don't know what it was," said Mr. Twist, in +his usual kind voice. "I only see the results. And the results are that +the Cosmopolitan is tired of us, and we've got to find lodgings." + +"Lodgings?" + +"Till we can move into the cottage. I'm going to put you and Mrs. Bilton +in an apartment in Acapulco, and go myself to some hotel." + +The twins stared at him a moment in silence. Then Anna-Rose said with +sudden passion, "You're not." + +"How's that?" asked Mr. Twist; but she was prevented answering by the +arrival of the taxi at the station. + +There followed ten minutes' tangle and confusion, at the end of which +the twins found themselves free of their grips and being piloted into +the waiting-room by Mr. Twist. + +"There," he said. "You sit here quiet and good. I'll come back about one +o'clock with sandwiches and candy for your dinner, and maybe a +story-book or two. You mustn't leave this, do you hear? I'm going to +hunt for those lodgings." + +And he was in the act of taking off his hat valedictorily when Anna-Rose +again said with the same passion, "You're not." + +"Not what?" inquired Mr. Twist, pausing with his hat in mid-air. + +"Going to hunt for lodgings. We won't go to them." + +"Of course we won't," said Anna-Felicitas, with no passion but with an +infinitely rock-like determination. + +"And pray--" began Mr. Twist. + +"Go into lodgings alone with Mrs. Bilton?" interrupted Anna-Rose her +face scarlet, her whole small body giving the impression of indignant +feathers standing up on end. "While you're somewhere else? Away from us? +We won't." + +"Of course we won't," said Anna-Felicitas again, an almost placid +quality in her determination, it was so final and so unshakable. "Would +you?" + +"See here--" began Mr. Twist. + +"We won't see anywhere," said Anna-Rose. + +"Would you," inquired Anna-Felicitas, again reasoning with him, "like +being alone in lodgings with Mrs. Bilton?" + +"This is no time for conversation," said Mr. Twist, making for the door. +"You've got to do what I think best on this occasion. And that's all +about it." + +"We won't," repeated Anna-Rose, on the verge of those tears which always +with her so quickly followed any sort of emotion. + +Mr. Twist paused on his way to the door. "Well now what the devil's the +matter with lodgings?" he asked angrily. + +"It isn't the devil, it's Mrs. Bilton," said Anna-Felicitas. "Would you +yourself like--" + +'But you've got to have Mrs. Bilton with you anyhow from to-day on." + +"But not unadulterated Mrs. Bilton. You were to have been with us too. +We can't be drowned all by ourselves in Mrs. Bilton. _You_ wouldn't like +it." + +"Of course I wouldn't. But it's only for a few days anyhow," said Mr. +Twist, who had been quite unprepared for opposition to his very +sensible arrangement. + +"I shouldn't wonder if it's only a few days now before we can all +squeeze into some part of the cottage. If you don't mind dust and noise +and workmen about all day long." + +A light pierced the gloom that had gathered round Anna-Felicitas's soul. + +"We'll go into it to-day," she said firmly, "Why not? We can camp out. +We can live in those little rooms at the back over the kitchen,--the +ones you got ready for Li Koo. We'd be on the spot. We wouldn't mind +anything. It would just be a picnic." + +"And we--we wouldn't be--sep--separated," said Anna-Rose, getting it out +with a gasp. + +Mr. Twist stood looking at them. + +"Well, of all the--" he began, pushing his hat back. "Are you aware," +he went on more calmly, "that there are only two rooms over that +kitchen, and that you and Mrs. Bilton will have to be all together in +one of them?" + +"We don't mind that as long as you're in the other one," said Anna-Rose. + +"Of course," suggested Anna-Felicitas, "if you were to happen to marry +Mrs. Bilton it would make a fairer division." + +Mr. Twist's spectacles stared enormously at her. + +"No, no," said Anna-Rose quickly. "Marriage is a sacred thing, and you +can't just marry so as to be more comfortable." + +"I guess if I married Mrs. Bilton I'd be more uncomfortable," remarked +Mr. Twist with considerable dryness. + +He seemed however to be quieted by the bare suggestion, for he fixed his +hat properly on his head and said, sobriety in his voice and manner, +"Come along, then. We'll get a taxi and anyway go out and have a look at +the rooms. But I shouldn't be surprised," he added, "if before I've done +with you you'll have driven me sheer out of my wits." + +"Oh, _don't_ say that," said the twins together, with all and more of +their usual urbanity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +By superhuman exertions and a lavish expenditure of money, the rooms Li +Koo was later on to inhabit were ready to be slept in by the time Mrs. +Bilton arrived. They were in an outbuilding at the back of the house, +and consisted of a living-room with a cooking-stove in it, a bedroom +behind it, and up a narrow and curly staircase a larger room running the +whole length and width of the shanty. This sounds spacious, but it +wasn't. The amount of length and width was small, and it was only just +possible to get three camp-beds into it and a washstand. The beds nearly +touched each other. Anna-Felicitas thought she and Anna-Rose were going +to be regrettably close to Mrs. Bilton in them, and again urged on Mr. +Twist's consideration the question of removing Mrs. Bilton from the room +by marriage; but Anna-Rose said it was all perfect, and that there was +lots of room, and she was sure Mrs. Bilton, used to the camp life so +extensively practised in America, would thoroughly enjoy herself. + +They worked without stopping all the rest of the day at making the +little place habitable, nailing up some of the curtains intended for the +other house, unpacking cushions, and fetching in great bunches of the +pale pink and mauve geraniums that scrambled about everywhere in the +garden and hiding the worst places in the rooms with them. Mr. Twist was +in Acapulco most of the time, getting together the necessary temporary +furniture and cooking utensils, but the twins didn't miss him, for they +were helped with zeal by the architect, the electrical expert, the +garden expert and the chief plumber. + +These young men--they were all young, and very go-ahead--abandoned the +main building that day to the undirected labours of the workmen they +were supposed to control, and turned to on the shanty as soon as they +realized what it was to be used for with a joyous energy that delighted +the twins. They swept and they garnished. They cleaned the dust off the +windows and the rust off the stove. They fetched out the parcels with +the curtains and cushions in them from the barn where all parcels and +packages had been put till the house was ready, and extracted various +other comforts from the piled up packing-cases,--a rug or two, an easy +chair for Mrs. Bilton, a looking-glass. They screwed in hooks behind the +doors for clothes to be hung on, and they tied the canary to a +neighbouring eucalyptus tree where it could be seen and hardly heard. +The chief plumber found buckets and filled them with water, and the +electrical expert rigged up a series of lanterns inside the shanty, even +illuminating its tortuous staircase. There was much _badinage_, but as +it was all in American, a language of which the twins were not yet able +to apprehend the full flavour, they responded only with pleasant smiles. +But their smiles were so pleasant and the family dimple so engaging that +the hours flew, and the young men were sorry indeed when Mr. Twist came +back. + +He came back laden, among other things, with food for the twins, whom he +had left in his hurry high and dry at the cottage with nothing at all to +eat; and he found them looking particularly comfortable and +well-nourished, having eaten, as they explained when they refused his +sandwiches and fruit, the chief plumber's dinner. + +They were sitting on the stump of an oak tree when he arrived, resting +from their labours, and the grass at their feet was dotted with the four +experts. It was the twins now who were talking, and the experts who were +smiling. Mr. Twist wondered uneasily what they were saying. It wouldn't +have added to his comfort if he had heard, for they were giving the +experts an account of their attempt to go and live with the Sacks, and +interweaving with it some general reflections of a philosophical nature +suggested by the Sack _ménage_. The experts were keenly interested, and +everybody looked very happy, and Mr. Twist was annoyed; for clearly if +the experts were sitting there on the grass they weren't directing the +workmen placed under their orders. Mr. Twist perceived a drawback to the +twins living on the spot while the place was being finished; another +drawback. He had perceived several already, but not this one. Well, Mrs. +Bilton would soon be there. He now counted the hours to Mrs. Bilton. He +positively longed for her. + +When they saw him coming, the experts moved away. "Here's the boss," +they said, nodding and winking at the twins as they got up quickly and +departed. Winking was not within the traditions of the Twinkler family, +but no doubt, they thought, it was the custom of the country to wink, +and they wondered whether they ought to have winked back. The young men +were certainly deserving of every friendliness in return for all they +had done. They decided they would ask Mrs. Bilton, and then they could +wink at them if necessary the first thing to-morrow morning. + +Mr. Twist took them with him when he went down to the station to meet +the Los Angeles train. It was dark at six, and the workmen had gone home +by then, but the experts still seemed to be busy. He had been astonished +at the amount the twins had accomplished in his absence in the town till +they explained to him how very active the experts had been, whereupon he +said, "Now isn't that nice," and briefly informed them they would go +with him to the station. + +"That's waste of time," said Anna-Felicitas. "We could be giving +finishing touches if we stayed here." + +"You will come with me to the station," said Mr. Twist. + +Mrs. Bilton arrived in a thick cloud of conversation. She supposed she +was going to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, as indeed she originally was, and +all the way back in the taxi Mr. Twist was trying to tell her she +wasn't; but Mrs. Bilton had so much to say about her journey, and her +last days among her friends, and all the pleasant new acquaintances she +had made on the train, and her speech was so very close-knit, that he +felt he was like a rabbit on the wrong side of a thick-set hedge running +desperately up and down searching for a gap to get through. It was +nothing short of amazing how Mrs. Bilton talked; positively, there +wasn't at any moment the smallest pause in the flow. + +"It's a disease," thought Anna-Rose, who had several things she wanted +to say herself, and found herself hopelessly muzzled. + +"No wonder Mr. Bilton preferred heaven," thought Anna-Felicitas, also a +little restless at the completeness of her muzzling. + +"Anyhow she'll never hear the Annas saying anything," thought Mr. Twist, +consoling himself. + +"This hotel we're going to seems to be located at some distance from +the station," said Mrs. Bilton presently, in the middle of several pages +of rapid unpunctuated monologue. "Isolated, surely--" and off she went +again to other matters, just as Mr. Twist had got his mouth open to +explain at last. + +She arrived therefore at the cottage unconscious of the change in her +fate. + +Now Mrs. Bilton was as fond of comfort as any other woman who has been +deprived for some years of that substitute for comfort, a husband. She +had looked forward to the enveloping joys of the Cosmopolitan, its bath, +its soft bed and good food, with frank satisfaction. She thought it +admirable that before embarking on active duties she should for a space +rest luxuriously in an excellent hotel, with no care in regard to +expense, and exchange ideas while she rested with the interesting people +she would be sure to meet in it. Before the interview in Los Angeles, +Mr. Twist had explained to her by letter and under the seal of +confidence the philanthropic nature of the project he and the Miss +Twinklers were engaged upon, and she was prepared, in return for the +very considerable salary she had accepted, to do her duty loyally and +unremittingly; but after the stress and hard work of her last days in +Los Angeles she had certainly looked forward with a particular pleasure +to two or three weeks' delicious wallowing in flesh-pots for which she +had not to pay. She was also, however, a lady of grit; and she +possessed, as she said her friends often told her, a redoubtable psyche, +a genuine American free and fearless psyche; so that when, talking +ceaselessly, her thoughts eagerly jostling each other as they streamed +through her brain to get first to the exit of her tongue, she caught her +foot in some builder's débris carelessly left on the path up to the +cottage and received in this way positively her first intimation that +this couldn't be the Cosmopolitan, she did not, as a more timid female +soul well might have, become alarmed and suppose that Mr. Twist, whom +after all she didn't know, had brought her to this solitary place for +purposes of assassination, but stopped firmly just where she was, and +turning her head in the darkness toward him said, "Now Mr. Twist, I'll +stand right here till you're able to apply some sort of illumination to +what's at my feet. I can't say what it is I've walked against but I'm +not going any further with this promenade till I can say. And when +you've thrown light on the subject perhaps you'll oblige me with +information as to where that hotel is I was told I was coming to." + +"Information?" cried Mr. Twist. "Haven't I been trying to give it you +ever since I met you? Haven't I been trying to stop your getting out of +the taxi till I'd fetched a lantern? Haven't I been trying to offer you +my arm along the path--" + +"Then why didn't you say so, Mr. Twist?" asked Mrs. Bilton. + +"Say so!" cried Mr. Twist. + +At that moment the flash of an electric torch was seen jerking up and +down as the person carrying it ran toward them. It was the electrical +expert who, most fortunately, happened still to be about. + +Mrs. Bilton welcomed him warmly, and taking his torch from him first +examined what she called the location of her feet, then gave it back to +him and put her hand through his arm. "Now guide me to whatever it is +has been substituted without my knowledge for that hotel," she said; and +while Mr. Twist went back to the taxi to deal with her grips, she walked +carefully toward the shanty on the expert's arm, expressing, in an +immense number of words, the astonishment she felt at Mr. Twist's not +having told her of the disappearance of the Cosmopolitan from her +itinerary. + +The electrical expert tried to speak, but was drowned without further +struggle. Anna-Rose, unable to listen any longer without answering to +the insistent inquiries as to why Mr. Twist had kept her in the dark, +raised her voice at last and called out, "But he wanted to--he wanted to +all the time--you wouldn't listen--you wouldn't stop--" + +Mrs. Bilton did stop however when she got inside the shanty. Her tongue +and her feet stopped dead together. The electrical expert had lit all +the lanterns, and coming upon it in the darkness its lighted windows +gave it a cheerful, welcoming look. But inside no amount of light and +bunches of pink geraniums could conceal its discomforts, its dreadful +smallness; besides, pink geraniums, which the twins were accustomed to +regard as precious, as things brought up lovingly in pots, were nothing +but weeds to Mrs. Bilton's experienced Californian eye. + +She stared round her in silence. Her sudden quiet fell on the twins with +a great sense of refreshment. Standing in the doorway--for Mrs. Bilton +and the electrical expert between them filled up most of the +kitchen--they heaved a deep sigh. "And see how beautiful the stars are," +whispered Anna-Felicitas in Anna-Rose's ear; she hadn't been able to see +them before somehow, Mrs. Bilton's voice had so much ruffled the night. + +"Do you think she talks in her sleep?" Anna-Rose anxiously whispered +back. + +But Mr. Twist, arriving with his hands full, was staggered to find Mrs. +Bilton not talking. An icy fear seized his heart. She was going to +refuse to stay with them. And she would be within her rights if she did, +for certainly what she called her itinerary had promised her a +first-rate hotel, in which she was to continue till a finished and +comfortable house was stepped into. + +"I wish you'd say something," he said, plumping down the bags he was +carrying on the kitchen floor. + +The twins from the doorway looked at him and then at each other in great +surprise. Fancy _asking_ Mrs. Bilton to say something. + +"They would come," said Mr. Twist, resentfully, jerking his head toward +the Annas in the doorway. + +"It's worse upstairs," he went on desperately as Mrs. Bilton still was +dumb. + +"Worse upstairs?" cried the twins, as one woman. + +"It's perfect upstairs," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"It's like camping out without _being_ out," said Anna-Rose. + +"The only drawback is that there are rather a lot of beds in our room," +said Anna-Felicitas, "but that of course"--she turned to Mr. +Twist--"might easily be arranged--" + +"I wish you'd _say_ something, Mrs. Bilton," he interrupted quickly and +loud. + +Mrs. Bilton drew a deep breath and looked round her. She looked round +the room, and she looked up at the ceiling, which the upright feather in +her hat was tickling, and she looked at the faces of the twins, lit +flickeringly by the uncertain light of the lanterns. Then, woman of +grit, wife who had never failed him of Bruce D. Bilton, widow who had +remained poised and indomitable on a small income in a circle of +well-off friends, she spoke; and she said: + +"Mr. Twist, I can't say what this means, and you'll furnish me no doubt +with information, but whatever it is I'm not the woman to put my hand to +a plough and then turn back again. That type of behaviour may have been +good enough for Pharisees and Sadducees, who if I remember rightly had +to be specially warned against the practice, but it isn't good enough +for me. You've conducted me to a shack instead of the hotel I was +promised, and I await your explanation. Meanwhile, is there any supper?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was only a fortnight after this that the inn was ready to be opened, +and it was only during the first days of this fortnight that the party +in the shanty had to endure any serious discomfort. The twins didn't +mind the physical discomfort at all; what they minded, and began to mind +almost immediately, was the spiritual discomfort of being at such close +quarters with Mrs. Bilton. They hardly noticed the physical side of that +close association in such a lovely climate, where the whole of +out-of-doors can be used as one's living-room; and their morning +dressing, a difficult business in the shanty for anybody less young and +more needing to be careful, was rather like the getting up of a dog +after its night's sleep--they seemed just to shake themselves, and there +they were. + +They got up before Mrs. Bilton, who was, however, always awake and +talking to them while they dressed, and they went to bed before she did, +though she came up with them after the first night and read aloud to +them while they undressed; so that as regarded the mysteries of Mrs. +Bilton's toilette they were not, after all, much in her way. It was like +caravaning or camping out: you managed your movements and moments +skilfully, and if you were Mrs. Bilton you had a curtain slung across +your part of the room, in case your younger charges shouldn't always be +asleep when they looked as if they were. + +Gradually one alleviation was added to another, and Mrs. Bilton forgot +the rigours of the beginning. Li Koo arrived, for instance, fetched by a +telegram, and under a tent in the eucalyptus grove at the back of the +house set up an old iron stove and produced, with no apparent exertion, +extraordinarily interesting and amusing food. He went into Acapulco at +daylight every morning and did the marketing. He began almost +immediately to do everything else in the way of housekeeping. He was +exquisitely clean, and saw to it that the shanty matched him in +cleanliness. To the surprise and gratification of the twins, who had +supposed it would be their lot to go on doing the housework of the +shanty, he took it over as a matter of course, dusting, sweeping, and +tidying like a practised and very excellent housemaid. The only thing he +refused to do was to touch the three beds in the upper chamber. "Me no +make lady-beds," he said briefly. + +Li Koo's salary was enormous, but Mr. Twist, with a sound instinct, +cared nothing what he paid so long as he got the right man. He was, +indeed, much satisfied with his two employees, and congratulated himself +on his luck. It is true in regard to Mrs. Bilton his satisfaction was +rather of the sorrowful sort that a fresh ache in a different part of +one's body from the first ache gives: it relieved him from one by +substituting another. Mrs. Bilton overwhelmed him; but so had the Annas +begun to. Her overwhelming, however, was different, and freed him from +that other worse one. He felt safe now about the Annas, and after all +there were parts of the building in which Mrs. Bilton wasn't. There was +his bedroom, for instance. Thank God for bedrooms, thought Mr. Twist. He +grew to love his. What a haven that poky and silent place was; what a +blessing the conventions were, and the proprieties. Supposing +civilization were so far advanced that people could no longer see the +harm there is in a bedroom, what would have become of him? Mr. Twist +could perfectly account for Bruce D. Bilton's death. It wasn't diabetes, +as Mrs. Bilton said; it was just bedroom. + +Still, Mrs. Bilton was an undoubted find, and did immediately in those +rushed days take the Annas off his mind. He could leave them with her in +the comfortable certitude that whatever else they did to Mrs. Bilton +they couldn't talk to her. Never would she know the peculiar ease of the +Twinkler attitude toward subjects Americans approach with care. Never +would they be able to tell her things about Uncle Arthur, the kind of +things that had caused the Cosmopolitan to grow so suddenly cool. There +was, most happily for this particular case, no arguing with Mrs. Bilton. +The twins couldn't draw her out because she was already, as it were, so +completely out. This was a great thing, Mr. Twist felt, and made up for +any personal suffocation he had to bear; and when on the afternoon of +Mrs. Bilton's first day the twins appeared without her in the main +building in search of him, having obviously given her the slip, and said +they were sorry to disturb him but they wanted his advice, for though +they had been trying hard all day, remembering they were ladies and +practically hostesses, they hadn't yet succeeded in saying anything at +all to Mrs. Bilton and doubted whether they ever would, he merely smiled +happily at them and said to Anna-Rose, "See how good comes out of +evil"--a remark that they didn't like when they had had time to think +over it. + +But they went on struggling. It seemed so unnatural to be all alone all +day long with someone and only listen. Mrs. Bilton never left their +side, regarding it as proper and merely fulfilling her part of the +bargain, in these first confused days when there was nothing for ladies +to do but look on while perspiring workmen laboured at apparently +producing more and more chaos, to become thoroughly acquainted with her +young charges. This she did by imparting to them intimate and meticulous +information about her own life, with the whole of the various uplifts, +as she put it, her psyche had during its unfolding experienced. There +was so much to tell about herself that she never got to inquiring about +the twins. She knew they were orphans, and that this was a good work, +and for the moment had no time for more. + +The twins were profoundly bored by her psyche, chiefly because they +didn't know what part of her it was, and it was no use asking for she +didn't answer; but they listened with real interest to her concrete +experiences, and especially to the experiences connected with Mr. +Bilton. They particularly wished to ask questions about Mr. Bilton, and +find out what he had thought of things. Mrs. Bilton was lavish in her +details of what she had thought herself, but Mr. Bilton's thoughts +remained impenetrable. It seemed to the twins that he must have thought +a lot, and have come to the conclusion that there was much to be said +for death. + +The Biltons, it appeared, had been the opposite of the Clouston-Sacks, +and had never been separated for a single day during the whole of their +married life. This seemed to the twins very strange, and needing a great +deal of explanation. In order to get light thrown on it the first thing +they wanted to find out was how long the marriage had lasted; but Mrs. +Bilton was deaf to their inquiries, and having described Mr. Bilton's +last moments and obsequies--obsequies scheduled by her, she said, with +so tender a regard for his memory that she insisted on a horse-drawn +hearse instead of the more fashionable automobile conveyance, on the +ground that a motor hearse didn't seem sorry enough even on first +speed--she washed along with an easy flow to descriptions of the +dreadfulness of the early days of widowhood, when one's crepe veil keeps +on catching in everything--chairs, overhanging branches, and passers-by, +including it appeared on one occasion a policeman. She inquired of the +twins whether they had ever seen a new-made widow in a wind. Chicago, +she said, was a windy place, and Mr. Bilton passed in its windiest +month. Her long veil, as she proceeded down the streets on the daily +constitutional she considered it her duty toward the living to take, for +one owes it to one's friends to keep oneself fit and not give way, was +blown hither and thither in the buffeting cross-currents of that uneasy +climate, and her walk in the busier streets was a series of +entanglements. Embarrassing entanglements, said Mrs. Bilton. Fortunately +the persons she got caught in were delicacy and sympathy itself; often, +indeed, seeming quite overcome by the peculiar poignancy of the +situation, covered with confusion, profuse in apologies. Sometimes the +wind would cause her veil for a few moments to rear straight up above +her head in a monstrous black column of woe. Sometimes, if she stopped a +moment waiting to cross the street, it would whip round the body of any +one who happened to be near, like a cord. It did this once about the +body of the policeman directing the traffic, by whose side she had +paused, and she had to walk round him backwards before it could be +unwound. The Chicago evening papers, prompt on the track of a sensation, +had caused her friends much painful if only short-lived amazement by +coming out with huge equivocal headlines: + +WELL-KNOWN SOCIETY WIDOW AND POLICEMAN CAUGHT TOGETHER + +and beginning their description of the occurrence by printing her name +in full. So that for the first sentence or two her friends were a prey +to horror and distress, which turned to indignation on discovering there +was nothing in it after all. + +The twins, their eyes on Mrs. Bilton's face, their hands clasped round +their knees, their bodies sitting on the grass at her feet, occasionally +felt as they followed her narrative that they were somehow out of their +depth and didn't quite understand. It was extraordinarily exasperating +to them to be so completely muzzled. They were accustomed to elucidate +points they didn't understand by immediate inquiry; they had a habit of +asking for information, and then delivering comments on it. + +This condition of repression made them most uncomfortable. The ilex tree +in the field below the house, to which Mrs. Bilton shepherded them each +morning and afternoon for the first three days, became to them, in spite +of its beauty with the view from under its dark shade across the sunny +fields to the sea and the delicate distant islands, a painful spot. The +beauty all round them was under these conditions exasperating. Only once +did Mrs. Bilton leave them, and that was the first afternoon, when they +instantly fled to seek out Mr. Twist; and she only left them then--for +it wasn't just her sense of duty that was strong, but also her dislike +of being alone--because something unexpectedly gave way in the upper +part of her dress, she being of a tight well-held-in figure, depending +much on its buttons; and she had very hastily to go in search of a +needle. + +After that they didn't see Mr. Twist alone for several days. They hardly +indeed saw him at all. The only meal he shared with them was supper, and +on finding the first evening that Mrs. Bilton read aloud to people after +supper, he made the excuse of accounts to go through and went into his +bedroom, repeating this each night. + +The twins watched him go with agonized eyes. They considered themselves +deserted; shamefully abandoned to a miserable fate. + +"And it isn't as if he didn't _like_ reading aloud," whispered +Anna-Rose, bewildered and indignant as she remembered the "Ode to +Dooty." + +"Perhaps he's one of those people who only like it if they do it +themselves," Anna-Felicitas whispered back, trying to explain his base +behaviour. + +And while they whispered, Mrs. Bilton with great enjoyment +declaimed--she had had a course of elocution lessons during Mr. Bilton's +life so as to be able to place the best literature advantageously before +him--the diary of a young girl written in prison. The young girl had +been wrongfully incarcerated, Mrs. Bilton explained, and her pure soul +only found release by the demise of her body. The twins hated the young +girl from the first paragraph. She wrote her diary every day till her +demise stopped her. As nothing happens in prisons that hasn't happened +the day before, she could only write her reflections; and the twins +hated her reflections, because they were so very like what in their +secret moments of slush they were apt to reflect themselves. Their +mother had had a horror of slush. There had been none anywhere about +her; but it is in the air in Germany, in people's blood, everywhere; and +though the twins, owing to the English part of them, had a horror of it +too, there it was in them, and they knew it,--genuine German slush. + +They felt uncomfortably sure that if they were in prison they would +write a diary very much on these lines. For three evenings they had to +listen to it, their eyes on Mr. Twist's door. Why didn't he come out and +save them? What happy, what glorious evenings they used to have at the +Cosmopolitan, spent in intelligent conversation, in a decent give and +take--not this button-holing business, this being got into a corner and +held down; and alas, how little they had appreciated them! They used to +get sleepy and break them off and go to bed. If only he would come out +now and talk to them they would sit up all night. They wriggled with +impatience in their seats beneath the _épanchements_ of the young girl, +the strangely and distressingly familiar _épanchements_. The diary was +published in a magazine, and after the second evening, when Mrs. Bilton +on laying it down announced she would go on with it while they were +dressing next morning, they got up very early before Mrs. Bilton was +awake and crept out and hid it. + +But Li Koo found it and restored it. + +Li Koo found everything. He found Mrs. Bilton's outdoor shoes the third +morning, although the twins had hidden them most carefully. Their idea +was that while she, rendered immobile, waited indoors, they would +zealously look for them in all the places where they well knew that they +weren't, and perhaps get some conversation with Mr. Twist. + +But Li Koo found everything. He found the twins themselves the fourth +morning, when, unable any longer to bear Mrs. Bilton's voice, they ran +into the woods instead of coming in to breakfast. He seemed to find them +at once, to walk unswervingly to their remote and bramble-filled ditch. + +In order to save their dignity they said as they scrambled out that they +were picking flowers for Mrs. Bilton's breakfast, though the ditch had +nothing in it but stones and thorns. Li Koo made no comment. He never +did make comments; and his silence and his ubiquitous efficiency made +the twins as fidgety with him as they were with Mrs. Bilton for the +opposite reason. They had an uncomfortable feeling that he was rather +like the _liebe Gott_,--he saw everything, knew everything, and said +nothing. In vain they tried, on that walk back as at other times, to +pierce his impassivity with genialities. Li Koo--again, they silently +reflected, like the _liebe Gott_--had a different sense of geniality +from theirs; he couldn't apparently smile; they doubted if he even ever +wanted to. Their genialities faltered and froze on their lips. + +Besides, they were deeply humiliated by having been found hiding, and +were ashamed to find themselves trying anxiously in this manner to +conciliate Li Koo. Their dignity on the walk back to the shanty seemed +painfully shrunk. They ought never to have condescended to do the +childish things they had been doing during the last three days. If they +hadn't been found out it would, of course, have remained a private +matter between them and their Maker, and then one doesn't mind so much; +but they had been found out, and by Li Koo, their own servant. It was +intolerable. All the blood of all the Twinklers, Junkers from time +immemorial and properly sensitive to humiliation, surged within them. +They hadn't felt so naughty and so young for years. They were sure Li +Koo didn't believe them about the ditch. They had a dreadful sensation +of being led back to Mrs. Bilton by the ear. + +If only they could sack Mrs. Bilton! + +This thought, immense and startling, came to Anna-Rose, who far more +than Anna-Felicitas resented being cut off from Mr. Twist, besides being +more naturally impetuous; and as they walked in silence side by side, +with Li Koo a little ahead of them, she turned her head and looked at +Anna-Felicitas. "Let's give her notice," she murmured, under her breath. + +Anna-Felicitas was so much taken aback that she stopped in her walk and +stared at Anna-Rose's flushed face. + +She too hardly breathed it. The suggestion seemed fantastic in its +monstrousness. How could they give anybody so old, so sure of herself, +so determined as Mrs. Bilton, notice? + +"Give her notice?" she repeated. + +A chill ran down Anna-Felicitas's spine. Give Mrs. Bilton notice! It was +a great, a breath-taking idea, magnificent in its assertion of +independence, of rights; but it needed, she felt, to be approached with +caution. They had never given anybody notice in their lives, and they +had always thought it must be a most painful thing to do--far, far worse +than tipping. Uncle Arthur usedn't to mind it a bit; did it, indeed, +with gusto. But Aunt Alice hadn't liked it at all, and came out in a +cold perspiration and bewailed her lot to them and wished that people +would behave and not place her in such a painful position. + +Mrs. Bilton couldn't be said not to have behaved. Quite the contrary. +She had behaved too persistently; and they had to endure it the whole +twenty-four hours. For Mrs. Bilton had no turn, it appeared, in spite +of what she had said at Los Angeles, for solitary contemplation, and +after the confusion of the first night, when once she had had time to +envisage the situation thoroughly, as she said, she had found that to +sit alone downstairs in the uncertain light of the lanterns while the +twins went to bed and Mr. Twist wouldn't come out of his room, was not +good for her psyche; so she had followed the twins upstairs, and +continued to read the young girl's diary to them during their undressing +and till the noises coming from their beds convinced her that it was +useless to go on any longer. And that morning, the morning they hid in +the ditch, she had even done this while they were getting up. + +"It isn't to be borne," said Anna-Rose under her breath, one eye on Li +Koo's ear which, a little in front of her, seemed slightly slanted +backward and sideways in the direction of her voice. "And why should it +be? We're not in her power." + +"No," said Anna-Felicitas, also under her breath and also watching Li +Koo's ear, "but it feels extraordinarily as if we were." + +"Yes. And that's intolerable. And it forces us to do silly baby things, +wholly unsuited either to our age or our position. Who would have +thought we'd ever hide from somebody in a ditch again!" Anna-Rose's +voice was almost a sob at the humiliation. + +"It all comes from sleeping in the same room," said Anna-Felicitas. +"Nobody can stand a thing that doesn't end at night either." + +"Of course they can't," said Anna-Rose. "It isn't fair. If you have to +have a person all day you oughtn't to have to have the same person all +night. Some one else should step in and relieve you then. Just as they +do in hospitals." + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Mr. Twist ought to. He ought to remove her +forcibly from our room by marriage. + +"No he oughtn't," said Anna-Rose hastily, "because we can remove her +ourselves by the simple process of giving her notice." + +"I don't believe it's simple," said Anna-Felicia again feeling a chill +trickling down her spine. + +"Of course it is. We just go to her very politely and inform her that +the engagement is terminated on a basis of mutual esteem but inflexible +determination." + +"And suppose she doesn't stop talking enough to hear?" + +"Then we'll hand it to her in writing." + +The rest of the way they walked in silence, Anna-Rose with her chin +thrust out in defiance, Anna-Felicitas dragging her feet along with a +certain reluctance and doubt. + +Mrs. Bilton had finished her breakfast when they got back, having seen +no sense in letting good food get cold, and was ready to sit and chat to +them while they had theirs. She was so busy telling them what she had +supposed they were probably doing, that she was unable to listen to +their attempted account of what they had done. Thus they were saved from +telling humiliating and youthful fibs; but they were also prevented, as +by a wall of rock, from getting the speech through to her ear that +Anna-Rose, trembling in spite of her defiance, had ready to launch at +her. It was impossible to shout at Mrs. Bilton in the way Mr. Twist, +when in extremity of necessity, had done. Ladies didn't shout; +especially not when they were giving other ladies notice. Anna-Rose, +who was quite cold and clammy at the prospect of her speech, couldn't +help feeling relieved when breakfast was over and no opportunity for it +had been given. + +"We'll write it," she whispered to Anna-Felicitas beneath the cover of a +lively account Mrs. Bilton was giving them, _à propos_ of their being +late for breakfast, of the time it took her, after Mr. Bilton's passing, +to get used to his unpunctuality at meals. + +That Mr. Bilton, who had breakfasted and dined with her steadily for +years, should suddenly leave off being punctual freshly astonished her +every day, she said. The clock struck, yet Mr. Bilton continued late. It +was poignant, said Mrs. Bilton, this way of being reminded of her loss. +Each day she would instinctively expect; each day would come the stab of +recollection. The vacancy these non-appearances had made in her life was +beyond any words of hers. In fact she didn't possess such words, and +doubted if the completest dictionary did either. Everything went just +vacant, she said. No need any more to hurry down in the morning, so as +to be behind the coffee pot half a minute before the gong went and Mr. +Bilton simultaneously appeared. No need any more to think of him when +ordering meals. No need any more to eat the dish he had been so fond of +and she had found so difficult to digest, Boston baked beans and bacon; +yet she found herself ordering it continually after his departure, and +choking memorially over the mouthfuls--"And people in Europe," cried Mrs +Bilton, herself struck as she talked by this extreme devotion, "say that +American women are incapable of passion!" + +"We'll write it," whispered Anna-Rose to Anna-Felicitas. + +"Write what?" asked Anna-Felicitas abstractedly, who as usual when Mrs. +Bilton narrated her reminiscences was absorbed in listening to them and +trying to get some clear image of Mr. Bilton. + +But she remembered the next moment, and it was like waking up to the +recollection that this is the day you have to have a tooth pulled out. +The idea of not having the tooth any more, of being free from it charmed +and thrilled her, but how painful, how alarming was the prospect of +pulling it out! + +There was one good thing to be said for Mrs. Bilton's talk, and that was +that under its voluminous cover they could themselves whisper +occasionally to each other. Anna-Rose decided that if Mrs. Bilton didn't +notice that they whispered neither probably would she notice if she +wrote. She therefore under Mrs. Bilton's very nose got a pencil and a +piece of paper, and with many pauses and an unsteady hand wrote the +following: + +DEAR MRS. BILTON--For some time past my sister and I have felt that we +aren't suited to you, and if you don't mind would you mind regarding the +engagement as terminated? We hope you won't think this abrupt, because +it isn't really, for we seem to have lived ages since you came, and +we've been thinking this over ripely ever since. And we hope you won't +take it as anything personal either, because it isn't really. It's only +that we feel we're unsuitable, and we're sure we'll go on getting more +and more unsuitable. Nobody can help being unsuitable, and we're +fearfully sorry. But on the other hand we're inflexible.--Yours +affectionately, + +ANNA-ROSE and ANNA-FELICITAS TWINKLER + +With a beating heart she cautiously pushed the letter across the table +under cover of the breakfast _débris_ to Anna-Felicitas, who read it +with a beating heart and cautiously pushed it back. + +Anna-Felicitas felt sure Christopher was being terribly impetuous, and +she felt sure she ought to stop her. But what a joy to be without Mrs. +Bilton! The thought of going to bed in the placid sluggishness dear to +her heart, without having to listen, to be attentive, to remember to be +tidy because if she weren't there would be no room for Mrs. Bilton's +things, was too much for her. Authority pursuing her into her bedroom +was what she had found most difficult to bear. There must be respite. +There must be intervals in every activity or endurance. Even the _liebe +Gott_, otherwise so indefatigable, had felt this and arranged for the +relaxation of Sundays. + +She pushed the letter back with a beating heart, and told herself that +she couldn't and never had been able to stop Christopher when she was in +this mood of her chin sticking out. What could she do in face of such a +chin? And besides, Mrs. Bilton's friends must be missing her very much +and ought to have her back. One should always live only with one's own +sort of people. Every other way of living, Anna-Felicitas was sure even +at this early stage of her existence, was bound to come to a bad end. +One could be fond of almost anybody, she held, if they were somewhere +else. Even of Uncle Arthur. Even he somehow seemed softened by distance. +But for living-together purposes there was only one kind of people +possible, and that was one's own kind. Unexpected and various were the +exteriors of one's own kind and the places one found them in, but one +always knew them. One felt comfortable with them at once; comfortable +and placid. Whatever else Mrs. Bilton might be feeling she wasn't +feeling placid. That was evident; and it was because she too wasn't with +her own kind. With her eyes fixed nervously on Mrs. Bilton who was +talking on happily, Anna-Felicitas reasoned with herself in the above +manner as she pushed back the letter, instead of, as at the back of her +mind she felt she ought to have done, tearing it up. + +Anna-Rose folded it and addressed it to Mrs. Bilton. Then she got up and +held it out to her. + +Anna-Felicitas got up too, her inside feeling strangely unsteady and +stirred round and round. + +"Would you mind reading this?" said Anna-Rose faintly to Mrs. Bilton, +who took the letter mechanically and held it in her hand without +apparently noticing it, so much engaged was she by what she was saying. + +"We're going out a moment to speak to Mr. Twist," Anna-Rose then said, +making for the door and beckoning to Anna-Felicitas, who still stood +hesitating. + +She slipped out; and Anna-Felicitas, suddenly panic-stricken lest she +should be buttonholed all by herself fled after her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Mr. Twist, his mind at ease, was in the charming room that was to be the +tea-room. It was full of scattered fittings and the noise of hammering, +but even so anybody could see what a delightful place it would presently +turn into. + +The Open Arms was to make a specialty of wet days. Those were the days, +those consecutive days of downpour that came in the winter and lasted +without interruption for a fortnight at a time, when visitors in the +hotels were bored beyond expression and ready to welcome anything that +could distract them for an hour from the dripping of the rain on the +windows. Bridge was their one solace, and they played it from after +breakfast till bedtime; but on the fourth or fifth day of doing this, +just the mere steady sitting became grievous to them. They ached with +weariness. They wilted with boredom. All their natural kindness got +damped out of them, and they were cross. Even when they won they were +cross, and when they lost it was really distressing. They wouldn't, of +course, have been in California at all at such a time if it were +possible to know beforehand when the rains would begin, but one never +did know, and often it was glorious weather right up to and beyond +Christmas. And then how glorious! What a golden place of light and +warmth to be in, while in the East one's friends were being battered by +blizzards. + +Mr. Twist intended to provide a break in the day each afternoon for +these victims of the rain. He would come to their rescue. He made up +his mind, clear and firm on such matters, that it should become the +habit of these unhappy people during the bad weather to motor out to The +Open Arms for tea; and, full of forethought, he had had a covered way +made, by which one could get out of a car and into the house without +being touched by a drop of rain, and he had had a huge open fireplace +made across the end of the tea-room, which would crackle and blaze a +welcome that would cheer the most dispirited arrival. The cakes, at all +times wonderful were on wet days to be more than wonderful. Li Koo had a +secret receipt, given him, he said, by his mother for cakes of a quite +peculiar and original charm, and these were to be reserved for the rainy +season only, and be made its specialty. They were to become known and +endeared to the public under the brief designation of Wet Day Cakes. Mr. +Twist felt there was something thoroughly American about this +name--plain and business-like, and attractively in contrast to the +subtle, the almost immoral exquisiteness of the article itself. This +cake had been one of those produced by Li Koo from the folds of his +garments the day in Los Angeles, and Mr. Twist had happened to be the +one of his party who ate it. He therefore knew what he was doing when he +decided to call it and its like simply Wet Day Cakes. + +The twins found him experimenting with a fire in the fireplace so as to +be sure it didn't smoke, and the architect and he were in their shirt +sleeves, deftly manipulating wood shavings and logs. There was such a +hammering being made by the workmen fixing in the latticed windows, and +such a crackling being made by the logs Mr. Twist and the architect kept +on throwing on the fire, that only from the sudden broad smile on the +architect's face as he turned to pick up another log did Mr. Twist +realize that something that hadn't to do with work was happening behind +his back. + +He looked round and saw the Annas picking their way toward him. They +seemed in a hurry. + +"Hello," he called out. + +They made no reply to this, but continued hurriedly to pick their way +among the obstacles in their path. They appeared to be much perturbed. +What, he wondered, had they done with Mrs. Bilton? He soon knew. + +"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," panted Anna-Rose as soon as she got +near enough to his ear for him to hear her in the prevailing noise. + +Her face, as usual when she was moved and excited, was scarlet, her eyes +looking bluer and brighter than ever by contrast. + +"We simply can't stand it any longer," she went on as Mr. Twist only +stared at her. + +"And you wouldn't either if you were us," she continued, the more +passionately as he still didn't say anything. + +"Of course," said Anna-Felicitas, taking a high line, though her heart +was full of doubt, "it's your fault really. We could have borne it if we +hadn't had to have her at night." + +"Come outside," said Mr. Twist, walking toward the door that led on to +the verandah. + +They followed him, Anna-Rose shaking with excitement, Anna-Felicitas +trying to persuade herself that they had acted in the only way +consistent with real wisdom. + +The architect stood with a log in each hand looking after them and +smiling all by himself. There was something about the Twinklers that +lightened his heart whenever he caught sight of them. He and his fellow +experts had deplored the absence of opportunities since Mrs. Bilton came +of developing the friendship begun the first day, and talked of them on +their way home in the afternoons with affectionate and respectful +familiarity as The Cutes. + +"Now," said Mr. Twist, having passed through the verandah and led the +twins to the bottom of the garden where he turned and faced them, +"perhaps you'll tell me exactly what you've done." + +"You should rather inquire what Mrs. Bilton has done," said +Anna-Felicitas, pulling herself up as straight and tall as she would go. +She couldn't but perceive that the excess of Christopher's emotion was +putting her at a disadvantage in the matter of dignity. + +"I can guess pretty much what she has done," said Mr. Twist. + +"You can't--you can't," burst out Anna-Rose. "Nobody could--nobody ever +could--who hadn't been with her day and night." + +"She's just been Mrs. Bilton," said Mr. Twist, lighting a cigarette to +give himself an appearance of calm. + +"Exactly," said Anna-Felicitas. "So you won't be surprised at our having +just been Twinklers." + +"Oh Lord," groaned Mr. Twist, in spite of his cigarette, "oh, Lord." + +"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," continued Anna-Felicitas, making a +gesture of great dignity with her hand, "because we find with regret +that she and we are incompatible." + +"Was she aware that you were giving it her?" asked Mr. Twist, +endeavouring to keep calm. + +"We wrote it." + +"Has she read it?" + +"We put it into her hand, and then came away so that she should have an +opportunity of quietly considering it." + +"You shouldn't have left us alone with her like this," burst out +Anna-Rose again, "you shouldn't really. It was cruel, it was wrong, +leaving us high and dry--never seeing you--leaving us to be talked to +day and night--to be read to--would _you_ like to be read to while +you're undressing by somebody still in all their clothes? We've never +been able to open our mouths. We've been taken into the field for our +airing and brought in again as if we were newborns, or people in prams, +or flocks and herds, or prisoners suspected of wanting to escape. We +haven't had a minute to ourselves day or night. There hasn't been a +single exchange of ideas, not a shred of recognition that we're grown +up. We've been followed, watched, talked to--oh, oh, how awful it has +been! Oh, oh, how awful! Forced to be dumb for days--losing our power of +speech--" + +"Anna-Rose Twinkler," interrupted Mr. Twist sternly, "you haven't lost +it. And you not only haven't, but that power of yours has increased +tenfold during its days of rest." + +He spoke with the exasperation in his voice that they had already heard +several times since they landed in America. Each time it took them +aback, for Mr. Twist was firmly fixed in their minds as the kindest and +gentlest of creatures, and these sudden kickings of his each time +astonished them. + +On this occasion, however, only Anna-Rose was astonished. Anna-Felicitas +all along had had an uncomfortable conviction in the depth of her heart +that Mr. Twist wouldn't like what they had done. He would be upset, she +felt, as her reluctant feet followed Anna-Rose in search of him. He +would be, she was afraid very much upset. And so he was. He was appalled +by what had happened. Lose Mrs. Bilton? Lose the very foundation of the +party's respectability? And how could he find somebody else at the +eleventh hour and where and how could the twins and he live, +unchaperoned as they would be, till he had? What a peculiar talent these +Annas had for getting themselves and him into impossible situations! Of +course at their age they ought to be safe under the wing of a wise and +unusually determined mother. Well, poor little wretches, they couldn't +help not being under it; but that aunt of theirs ought to have stuck to +them--faced up to her husband, and stuck to them. + +"I suppose," he said angrily, "being you and not being able to see +farther than the ends of your noses, you haven't got any sort of an idea +of what you've done." + +"We--" + +"She--" + +"And I don't suppose it's much use my trying to explain, either. Hasn't +it ever occurred to you, though I'd be real grateful if you'd give me +information on this point--that maybe you don't know everything?" + +"She--" + +"We--" + +"And that till you do know everything, which I take it won't be for some +time yet, judging from the samples I've had of your perspicacity, you'd +do well not to act without first asking some one's advice? Mine, for +instance?" + +"She--" began Anna-Rose again; but her voice was trembling, for she +couldn't bear Mr. Twist's anger. She was too fond of him. When he looked +at her like that her own anger was blown out as if by an icy draught and +she could only look back at him piteously. + +But Anna-Felicitas, being free from the weaknesses inherent in +adoration, besides continuing to perceive how Christopher's feelings put +her at a disadvantage, drew Mr. Twist's attention from her by saying +with gentleness, "But why add to the general discomfort by being +bitter?" + +"Bitter!" cried Mr. Twist, still glaring at Anna-Rose. + +"Do you dispute that God made us?" inquired Anna-Felicitas, placing +herself as it were like a shield between Mr. Twist's wrathful +concentration on Christopher and that unfortunate young person's +emotion. + +"See here," said Mr. Twist turning on her, "I'm not going to argue with +you--not about _anything_. Least of all about God." + +"I only wanted to point out to you," said Anna-Felicitas mildly, "that +that being so, and we not able to help it, there seems little use in +being bitter with us because we're not different. In regard to anything +fundamental about us that you deplore I'm afraid we must refer you to +Providence." + +"Say," said Mr. Twist, not in the least appeased by this reasoning but, +as Anna-Felicitas couldn't but notice, quite the contrary, "used you to +talk like this to that Uncle Arthur of yours? Because if you did, upon +my word I don't wonder--" + +But what Mr. Twist didn't wonder was fortunately concealed from the +twins by the appearance at that moment of Mrs. Bilton, who, emerging +from the shades of the verandah and looking about her, caught sight of +them and came rapidly down the garden. + +There was no escape. + +They watched her bearing down on them without a word. It was a most +unpleasant moment. Mr. Twist re-lit his cigarette to give himself a +countenance, but the thought of all that Mrs. Bilton would probably say +was dreadful to him, and his hand couldn't help shaking a little. +Anna-Rose showed a guilty tendency to slink behind him. Anna-Felicitas +stood motionless, awaiting the deluge. All Mr. Twist's sympathies were +with Mrs. Bilton, and he was ashamed that she should have been treated +so. He felt that nothing she could say would be severe enough, and he +was extraordinarily angry with the Annas. Yet when he saw the injured +lady bearing down on them, if he only could he would have picked up an +Anna under each arm, guilty as they were, and run and run; so much did +he prefer them to Mrs. Bilton and so terribly did he want, at this +moment, to be somewhere where that lady wasn't. + +There they stood then, anxiously watching the approaching figure, and +the letter in Mrs. Bilton's hand bobbed up and down as she walked, white +and conspicuous in the sun against her black dress. What was their +amazement to see as she drew nearer that she was looking just as +pleasant as ever. They stared at her with mouths falling open. Was it +possible, thought the twins, that she was longing to leave but hadn't +liked to say so, and the letter had come as a release? Was it possible, +thought Mr. Twist with a leap of hope in his heart, that she was taking +the letter from a non-serious point of view? + +And Mr. Twist, to his infinite relief, was right. For Mrs. Bilton, woman +of grit and tenacity, was not in the habit of allowing herself to be +dislodged or even discouraged. This was the opening sentence of her +remarks when she had arrived, smiling, in their midst. Had she not +explained the first night that she was one who, having put her hand to +the plough, held on to it however lively the movements of the plough +might be? She would not conceal from them, she said, that even Mr. Bilton +had not, especially, at first, been entirely without such movements. He +had settled down, however on finding he could trust her to know better +than he did what he wanted. Don't wise wives always? she inquired. And +the result had been that no man ever had a more devoted wife while he +was alive, or a more devoted widow after he wasn't. She had told him one +day, when he was drawing near the latter condition and she was +conversing with him, as was only right, on the subject of wills, and he +said that his affairs had gone wrong and as far as he could see she +would be left a widow and that was about all she would be left--she had +told him that if it was any comfort to him to know it, he might rely on +it that he would have the most devoted widow any man had ever had, and +he said--Mr. Bilton had odd fancies, especially toward the end--that a +widow was the one thing a man never could have because he wasn't there +by the time he had got her. Yes, Mr. Bilton had odd fancies. And if she +had managed, as she did manage, to steer successfully among them, he +being a man of ripe parts and character, was it likely that encountering +odd fancies in two very young and unformed girls--oh, it wasn't their +fault that they were unformed, it was merely because they hadn't had +time enough yet--she would be unable, experienced as she was, to steer +among them too? Besides, she had a heart for orphans; orphans and dumb +animals always had had a special appeal for her. "No, no, Mr. Twist," +Mrs. Bilton wound up, putting a hand affectionately on Anna-Rose's +shoulder as a more convenient one than Anna-Felicitas's, "my young +charges aren't going to be left in the lurch, you may rely on that. I +don't undertake a duty without carrying it out. Why, I feel a lasting +affection for them already. We've made real progress these few days in +intimacy. And I just love to sit and listen to all their fresh young +chatter." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +This was the last of Mr. Twist's worries before the opening day. + +Remorseful that he should have shirked helping the Annas to bear Mrs. +Bilton, besides having had a severe fright on perceiving how near his +shirking had brought the party to disaster, he now had his meals with +the others and spent the evenings with them as well. He was immensely +grateful to Mrs. Bilton. Her grit had saved them. He esteemed and +respected her. Indeed, he shook hands with her then and there at the end +of her speech, and told her he did, and the least he could do after that +was to come to dinner. But this very genuine appreciation didn't prevent +his finding her at close quarters what Anna-Rose, greatly chastened, now +only called temperately "a little much," and the result was a really +frantic hurrying on of the work. He had rather taken, those first four +days of being relieved of responsibility in regard to the twins, to +finnicking with details, to dwelling lovingly on them with a sense of +having a margin to his time, and things accordingly had considerably +slowed down; but after twenty-four hours of Mrs. Bilton they hurried up +again, and after forty-eight of her the speed was headlong. At the end +of forty-eight hours it seemed to Mr. Twist more urgent than anything he +had ever known that he should get out of the shanty, get into somewhere +with space in it, and sound-proof walls--lots of walls--and long +passages between people's doors; and before the rooms in the inn were +anything like finished he insisted on moving in. + +"You must turn to on this last lap and help fix them up," he said to the +twins. "It'll be a bit uncomfortable at first, but you must just take +off your coats to it and not mind." + +Mind? Turn to? It was what they were languishing for. It was what, in +the arid hours under the ilex tree, collected so ignominiously round +Mrs. Bilton's knee they had been panting for, like thirsty dogs with +their tongues out. And such is the peculiar blessedness of work that +instantly, the moment there was any to be done, everything that was +tangled and irritating fell quite naturally into its proper place. +Magically life straightened itself out smooth, and left off being +difficult. _Arbeit und Liebe_, as their mother used to say, dropping +into German whenever a sentence seemed to her to sound better that +way--_Arbeit und Liebe_: these were the two great things of life; the +two great angels, as she assured them, under whose spread-out wings lay +happiness. + +With a hungry zeal, with the violent energy of reaction, the Annas fell +upon work. They started unpacking. All the things they had bought in +Acapulco, the linen, the china, the teaspoons, the feminine touches that +had been piled up waiting in the barn, were pulled out and undone and +carried indoors. They sorted, and they counted, and they arranged on +shelves. Anna-Rose flew in and out with her arms full. Anna-Felicitas +slouched zealously after her, her arms full too when she started, but +not nearly so full when she got there owing to the way things had of +slipping through them and dropping on to the floor. They were in a +blissful, busy confusion. Their faces shone with heat and happiness. +Here was liberty; here was freedom; here was true dignity--_Arbeit und +Liebe_.... + +When Mr. Twist, as he did whenever he could, came and looked on for a +moment in his shirt sleeves, with his hat on the back of his head and +his big, benevolent spectacles so kind, Anna-Rose's cup seemed full. Her +dimple never disappeared for a moment. It was there all day long now; +and even when she was asleep it still lurked in the corner of her mouth. +_Arbeit und Liebe_. + +Immense was the reaction of self-respect that took hold of the twins. +They couldn't believe they were the people who had been so crude and +ill-conditioned as to hide Mrs. Bilton's belongings, and actually +finally to hide themselves. How absurd. How like children. How +unpardonably undignified. Anna-Rose held forth volubly to this effect +while she arranged the china, and Anna-Felicitas listened assentingly, +with a kind of grave, ashamed sheepishness. + +The result of this reaction was that Mrs. Bilton, whose pressure on them +was relieved by the necessity of her too being in several places at +once, and who was displaying her customary grit, now became the definite +object of their courtesy. They were the mistresses of a house, they +began to realize, and as such owed her every consideration. This bland +attitude was greatly helped by their not having to sleep with her any +more, and they found that the mere coming fresh to her each morning made +them feel polite and well-disposed. Besides, they were thoroughly and +finally grown-up now, Anna-Rose declared--never, never to lapse again. +They had had their lesson, she said, gone through a crisis, and done +that which Aunt Alice used to say people did after severe trials, aged +considerably. + +Anna-Felicitas wasn't quite so sure. Her own recent behaviour had +shaken and shocked her too much. Who would have thought she would have +gone like that? Gone all to pieces, back to sheer naughtiness, on the +first provocation? It was quite easy, she reflected while she worked, +and cups kept on detaching themselves mysteriously from her fingers, and +tables tumbling over at her approach, to be polite and considerate to +somebody you saw very little of, and even, as she found herself doing, +to get fond of the person; but suppose circumstances threw one again +into the person's continual society, made one again have to sleep in the +same room? Anna-Felicitas doubted whether it would be possible for her +to stand such a test, in spite of her earnest desire to behave; she +doubted, indeed, whether anybody ever did stand that test successfully. +Look at husbands. + +Meanwhile there seemed no likelihood of its being applied again. Each of +them had now a separate bedroom, and Mrs. Bilton had, in the lavish +American fashion, her own bathroom, so that even at that point there was +no collision. The twins' rooms were connected by a bathroom all to +themselves, with no other door into it except the doors from their +bedrooms, and Mr. Twist, who dwelt discreetly at the other end of the +house, also had a bathroom of his own. It seemed as natural for American +architects to drop bathrooms about, thought Anna-Rose, as for the little +clouds in the psalms to drop fatness. They shed them just as easily, and +the results were just as refreshing. To persons hailing from Pomerania, +a place arid of bathrooms, it was the last word of luxury and comfort to +have one's own. Their pride in theirs amused Mr. Twist, used from +childhood to these civilized arrangements; but then, as they pointed out +to him, he hadn't lived in Pomerania, where nothing stood between you +and being dirty except the pump. + +But it wasn't only the bathrooms that made the inn as planned by Mr. +Twist and the architect seem to the twins the most perfect, the most +wonderful magic little house in the world: the intelligent American +spirit was in every corner, and it was full of clever, simple devices +for saving labour--so full that it almost seemed to the Annas as if it +would get up quite unaided at six every morning and do itself; and they +were sure that if the smallest encouragement were given to the +kitchen-stove it would cook and dish up a dinner all alone. Everything +in the house was on these lines. The arrangements for serving +innumerable teas with ease were admirable. They were marvels of economy +and clever thinking-out. The architect was surprised at the attention +and thought Mr. Twist concentrated on this particular part of the future +housekeeping. "You seem sheer crazy on teas," he remarked; to which Mr. +Twist merely replied that he was. + +The last few days before the opening were as full of present joy and +promise of yet greater joys to come as the last few days of a happy +betrothal. They reminded Anna-Felicitas of those days in April, those +enchanting days she had always loved the best, when the bees get busy +for the first time, and suddenly there are wallflowers and a flowering +currant bush and the sound of the lawn being mown and the smell of cut +grass. How one's heart leaps up to greet them, she thought. What a +thrill of delight rushes through one's body, of new hope, of delicious +expectation. + +Even Li Koo, the wooden-faced, the brief and rare of speech seemed to +feel the prevailing satisfaction and harmony and could be heard in the +evenings singing strange songs among his pots. And what he was singing, +only nobody knew it, were soft Chinese hymns of praise of the two +white-lily girls, whose hair was woven sunlight, and whose eyes were +deep and blue even as the waters that washed about the shores of his +father's dwelling-place. For Li Koo, the impassive and inarticulate, in +secret seethed with passion. Which was why his cakes were so wonderful. +He had to express himself somehow. + +But while up on their sun-lit, eucalyptus-crowned slopes Mr. Twist and +his party--he always thought of them as his party--were innocently and +happily busy full of hopefulness and mutual goodwill, down in the town +and in the houses scattered over the lovely country round the town, +people were talking. Everybody knew about the house Teapot Twist was +doing up, for the daily paper had told them that Mr. Edward A. Twist had +bought the long uninhabited farmhouse in Pepper Lane known as Batt's, +and was converting it into a little _ventre-à-terre_ for his widowed +mother--launching once more into French, as though there were something +about Mr. Twist magnetic to that language. Everybody knew this, and it +was perfectly natural for a well-off Easterner to have a little place +out West, even if the choice of the little place was whimsical. But what +about the Miss Twinklers? Who and what were they? And also, Why? + +There were three weeks between the departure of the Twist party from the +Cosmopolitan and the opening of the inn, and in that time much had been +done in the way of conjecture. The first waves of it flowed out from the +Cosmopolitan, and were met almost at once by waves flowing in from the +town. Good-natured curiosity gave place to excited curiosity when the +rumour got about that the Cosmopolitan had been obliged to ask Mr. +Twist to take his _entourage_ somewhere else. Was it possible the cute +little girls, so well known by sight on Main Street going from shop to +shop, were secretly scandalous? It seemed almost unbelievable, but +luckily nothing was really unbelievable. + +The manager of the hotel, dropped in upon casually by one guest after +the other, and interviewed as well by determined gentlemen from the +local press, was not to be drawn. His reserve was most interesting. Miss +Heap knitted and knitted and was persistently enigmatic. Her silence was +most exciting. On the other hand, Mrs. Ridding's attitude was merely one +of contempt, dismissing the Twinklers with a heavy gesture. Why think or +trouble about a pair of chits like that? They had gone; Albert was quiet +again; and wasn't that the gong for dinner? + +But doubts as to the private morals of the Twist _entourage_ presently +were superseded by much graver and more perturbing doubts. Nobody knew +when exactly this development took place. Acapulco had been enjoying the +first set of doubts. There was no denying that doubts about somebody +else's morals were not unpleasant. They did give one, if one examined +one's sensations carefully, a distinct agreeable tickle; they did add +the kick to lives which, if they had been virtuous for a very long time +like the lives of the Riddings, or virgin for a very long time like the +life of Miss Heap, were apt to be flat. But from the doubts that +presently appeared and overshadowed the earlier ones, one got nothing +but genuine discomfort and uneasiness. Nobody knew how or when they +started. Quite suddenly they were there. + +This was in the November before America's coming into the war. The +feeling in Acapulco was violently anti-German. The great majority of the +inhabitants, permanent and temporary, were deeply concerned at the +conduct of their country in not having, immediately after the torpedoing +of the _Lusitania_, joined the Allies. They found it difficult to +understand, and were puzzled and suspicious, as well as humiliated in +their national pride. Germans who lived in the neighbourhood, or who +came across from the East for the winter, were politely tolerated, but +the attitude toward them was one of growing watchfulness and distrust; +and week by week the whispered stories of spies and gun-emplacements and +secret stores of arms in these people's cellars or back gardens, grew +more insistent and detailed. There certainly had been at least one spy, +a real authentic one, afterward shot in England, who had stayed near-by, +and the nerves of the inhabitants had that jumpiness on this subject +with which the inhabitants of other countries have long been familiar. +All the customary inexplicable lights were seen; all the customary +mysterious big motor cars rushed at forbidden and yet unhindered speeds +along unusual roads at unaccountable hours; all the customary signalling +out to sea was observed and passionately sworn to by otherwise calm +people. It was possible, the inhabitants found, to believe with ease +things about Germans--those who were having difficulty with religion +wished it were equally easy to believe things about God. There was +nothing Germans wouldn't think of in the way of plotting, and nothing +they wouldn't, having thought of it, carry out with deadly thoroughness +and patience. + +And into this uneasy hotbed of readiness to believe the worst, arrived +the Twinkler twins, rolling their r's about. + +It needed but a few inquiries to discover that none of the young +ladies' schools in the neighbourhood had been approached on their +behalf; hardly inquiries,--mere casual talk was sufficient, ordinary +chatting with the principals of these establishments when one met them +at the lectures and instructive evenings the more serious members of the +community organized and supported. Not many of the winter visitors went +to these meetings, but Miss Heap did. Miss Heap had a restless soul. It +was restless because it was worried by perpetual thirst,--she couldn't +herself tell after what; it wasn't righteousness, for she knew she was +still worldly, so perhaps it was culture. Anyhow she would give culture +a chance, and accordingly she went to the instructive evenings. Here she +met that other side of Acapulco which doesn't play bridge and is proud +to know nothing of polo, which believes in education, and goes in for +mind training and welfare work; which isn't, that is, well off. + +Nobody here had been asked to educate the Twinklers. No classes had been +joined by them. + +Miss Heap was so enigmatic, she who was naturally of an unquiet and +exercise-loving tongue, that this graver, more occupied section of the +inhabitants was instantly as much pervaded by suspicions as the idlest +of the visitors in the hotels and country houses. It waved aside the +innocent appearance and obvious extreme youth of the suspects. Useless +to look like cherubs if it were German cherubs you looked like. Useless +being very nearly children if it were German children you very nearly +were. Why, precisely these qualities would be selected by those terribly +clever Germans for the furtherance of their nefarious schemes. It would +be quite in keeping with the German national character, that character +of bottomless artfulness, to pick out two such young girls with just +that type of empty, baby face, and send them over to help weave the +gigantic invisible web with which America was presently to be choked +dead. + +The serious section of Acapulco, the section that thought, hit on this +explanation of the Twinklers with no difficulty whatever once its +suspicions were roused because it was used to being able to explain +everything instantly. It was proud of its explanation, and presented it +to the town with much the same air of deprecating but conscious +achievement with which one presents drinking-fountains. + +Then there was the lawyer to whom Mr. Twist had gone about the +guardianship. He said nothing, but he was clear in his mind that the +girls were German and that Mr. Twist wanted to hide it. He had thought +more highly of Mr. Twist's intelligence than this. Why hide it? America +was a neutral country; technically she was neutral, and Germans could +come and go as they pleased. Why unnecessarily set tongues wagging? He +did not, being of a continuous shrewd alertness himself, a continuous +wide-awakeness and minute consideration of consequences, realize, and if +he had he wouldn't have believed, the affectionate simplicity and +unworldliness of Mr. Twist. If it had been pointed out to him he would +have dismissed it as a pose; for a man who makes money in any quantity +worth handling isn't affectionately simple and unworldly--he is +calculating and steely. + +The lawyer was puzzled. How did Mr. Twist manage to have a forehead and +a fortune like that, and yet be a fool? True, he had a funny sort of +face on him once you got down to the nose part and what came after,--a +family sort of face, thought the lawyer; a sort of rice pudding, +wet-nurse face. The lawyer listened intently to all the talk and +rumours, while himself saying nothing. In spite of being a married man, +his scruples about honour hadn't been blunted by the urge to personal +freedom and the necessity for daily self-defence that sometimes afflicts +those who have wives. He remained honourably silent, as he had said he +would, but he listened; and he came to the conclusion that either there +was a quite incredible amount of stupidity about the Twist party, or +that there was something queer. + +What he didn't know, and what nobody knew, was that the house being got +ready with such haste was to be an inn. He, like the rest of the world, +took the newspapers _ventre-à-terre_ theory of the house for granted, +and it was only the expectation of the arrival of that respectable lady, +the widowed Mrs. Twist, which kept the suspicions a little damped down. +They smouldered, hesitating, beneath this expectation; for Teapot +Twist's family life had been voluminously described in the entire +American press when first his invention caught on, and it was known to +be pure. There had been snapshots of the home at Clark where he had been +born, of the home at Clark (west aspect) where he would die--Mr. Twist +read with mild surprise that his liveliest wish was to die in the old +home--of the corner in the Clark churchyard where he would probably be +entombed, with an inset showing his father's gravestone on which would +clearly be read the announcement that he was the Resurrection and the +Life. And there was an inset of his mother, swathed in the black symbols +of ungluttable grief,--a most creditable mother. And there were accounts +of the activities of another near relative, that Uncle Charles who +presided over the Church of Heavenly Refreshment in New York, and a +snapshot of his macerated and unrefreshed body in a cassock,--a most +creditable uncle. + +These articles hadn't appeared so very long ago, and the impression +survived and was general that Mr. Twist's antecedents were +unimpeachable. If it were true that the house was for his mother and she +was shortly arriving, then, although still very odd and unintelligible, +it was probable that his being there now with the two Germans was after +all capable of explanation. Not much of an explanation, though. Even the +moderates who took this view felt this. One wasn't with Germans these +days if one could help it. There was no getting away from that simple +fact. The inevitable deduction was that Mr. Twist couldn't help it. Why +couldn't he help it? Was he enslaved by a scandalous passion for them, a +passion cold-bloodedly planned for him by the German Government, which +was known to have lists of the notable citizens of the United States +with photographs and details of their probable weaknesses, and was +exactly informed of their movements? He had met the Twinklers, so it was +reported, on a steamer coming over from England. Of course. All arranged +by the German Government. That was the peculiar evil greatness of this +dangerous people, announced the serious section of Acapulco, again with +the drinking-fountain-presentation air, that nothing was too private or +too petty to escape their attention, to be turned to their own wicked +uses. They were as economical of the smallest scraps of possible +usefulness as a French cook of the smallest scraps and leavings of food. +Everything was turned to account. Nothing was wasted. Even the +mosquitoes in Germany were not wasted. They contained juices, Germans +had discovered, especially after having been in contact with human +beings, and with these juices the talented but unscrupulous Germans made +explosives. Could one sufficiently distrust a nation that did things +like that? asked the serious section of Acapulco. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +People were so much preoccupied by the Twinkler problem that they were +less interested than they otherwise would have been in the sea-blue +advertisements, and when the one appeared announcing that The Open Arms +would open wide on the 29th of the month and exhorting the public to +watch the signposts, they merely remarked that it wasn't, then, the +title of a book after all. Mr. Twist would have been surprised and +nettled if he had known how little curiosity his advertisements were +exciting; he would have been horrified if he had known the reason. As it +was, he didn't know anything. He was too busy, too deeply absorbed, to +be vulnerable to rumour; he, and the twins, and Mrs. Bilton were safe +from it inside their magic circle of _Arbeit und Liebe_. + +Sometimes he was seen in Main Street, that street in Acapulco through +which everybody passes at certain hours of the morning, looking as +though he had a great deal to do and very little time to do it in; and +once or twice the Twinklers were seen there, also apparently very busy, +but they didn't now come alone. Mrs. Bilton, the lady from Los +Angeles--Acapulco knew all about her and admitted she was a lady of +strictest integrity and unimpeachable character, but this only made the +Twinkler problem more obscure--came too, and seemed, judging from the +animation of her talk, to be on the best of terms with her charges. + +But once an idea has got into people's heads, remarked the lawyer, who +was nudged by the friend he was walking with as the attractive trio were +seen approaching,--Mrs. Bilton with her black dress and her snowy hair +setting off, as they in their turn set her off, the twins in their clean +white frocks and shining youth,--once an idea has got into people's +heads it sticks. It is slow to get in, and impossible to get out. Yet on +the face of it, was it likely that Mrs. Bilton-- + +"Say," interrupted his friend, "since when have you joined up with the +water-blooded believe-nothing-but-good-ites?" + +And only his personal affection for the lawyer restrained him from using +the terrible word pro-German; but it had been in his mind. + +The day before the opening, Miss Heap heard from an acquaintance in the +East to whom she had written in her uneasiness, and who was staying with +some people living in Clark. Miss Heap wrote soon after the +departure--she didn't see why she shouldn't call it by its proper name +and say right out expulsion--of the Twist party from the Cosmopolitan, +but letters take a long time to get East and answers take the same long +time to come back in, and messages are sometimes slow in being delivered +if the other person doesn't realize, as one does oneself, the tremendous +interests that are at stake. What could be a more tremendous interest, +and one more adapted to the American genius, than safe-guarding public +morals? Miss Heap wrote before the sinister rumours of German +machinations had got about; she was still merely at the stage of +uneasiness in regard to the morals of the Twist party; she couldn't +sleep at night for thinking of them. Of course if it were true that his +mother was coming out ... but was she? Miss Heap somehow felt unable to +believe it. "Do tell your friends in Clark," she wrote, "how +_delighted_ we all are to hear that Mrs. Twist is going to be one of us +in our sunny refuge here this winter. A real warm welcome awaits her. +Her son is working day and night getting the house ready for her, helped +indefatigably by the two Miss Twinklers." + +She had to wait over a fortnight for the answer, and by the time she got +it those other more terrible doubts had arisen, the doubts as to the +exact position occupied by the Twinklers and Mr. Twist in the German +secret plans for, first, the pervasion, and, second, the invasion of +America; and on reading the opening lines of the letter Miss Heap found +she had to sit down, for her legs gave way beneath her. + +It appeared that Mrs. Twist hadn't known where her son was till Miss +Heap's letter came. He had left Clark in company of the two girls +mentioned, and about whom his mother knew nothing, the very morning +after his arrival home from his long absence in Europe. That was all his +mother knew. She was quite broken. Coming on the top of all her other +sorrow her only son's behaviour had been a fearful, perhaps a finishing +blow, but she was such a good woman that she still prayed for him. Clark +was horrified. His mother had decided at first she would try to shield +him and say nothing, but when she found that nobody had the least idea +of what he had done she felt she owed it to her friends to be open and +have no secrets from them. Whatever it cost her in suffering and +humiliation she would be frank. Anything was better than keeping up +false appearances to friends who believed in you. She was a brave woman, +a splendid woman. The girls--poor Mrs. Twist--were Germans. + +On reading this Miss Heap was all of a tingle. Her worst suspicions +hadn't been half bad enough. Here was everything just about as black as +it could be; and Mr Twist, a well-known and universally respected +American citizen, had been turned, by means of those girls playing upon +weaknesses she shuddered to think of but that she had reason to believe, +from books she had studied and conversations she had reluctantly taken +part in, were not altogether uncommon, into a cat's-paw of the German +Government. + +What should she do? What should she say? To whom should she go? Which +was the proper line of warning for her to take? It seemed to her that +the presence of these people on the Pacific coast was a real menace to +its safety, moral and physical; but how get rid of them? And if they +were got rid of wouldn't it only be exposing some other part of America, +less watchful, less perhaps able to take care of itself, to the ripening +and furtherance of their schemes, whatever their schemes might be? Even +at that moment Miss Heap unconsciously felt that to let the Twinklers go +would be to lose thrills. And she was really thrilled. She prickled with +excitement and horror. Her circulation hadn't been so good for years. +She wasn't one to dissect her feelings, so she had no idea of how +thoroughly she was enjoying herself. And it was while she sat alone in +her bedroom, her fingers clasping and unclasping the arms of her chair, +her feet nervously nibbing up and down on the thick soft carpet, +hesitating as to the best course for her to take, holding her knowledge +meanwhile tight, hugging it for a little altogether to herself, her very +own, shared as yet by no one,--it was while she sat there, that people +out of doors in Acapulco itself, along the main roads, out in the +country towards Zamora on the north and San Blas on the south, became +suddenly aware of new signposts. + +They hadn't been there the day before. They all turned towards the spot +at the foot of the mountains where Pepper Lane was. They all pointed, +with a long white finger, in that direction. And on them all was written +in plain, sea-blue letters, beneath which the distance in miles or +fractions of a mile was clearly marked, _To The Open Arms_. + +Curiosity was roused at last. People meeting each other in Main Street +stopped to talk about these Arms wondered where and what they were, and +decided to follow the signposts that afternoon in their cars and track +them down. They made up parties to go and track together. It would be a +relief to have something a little different to do. What on earth could +The Open Arms be? Hopes were expressed that they weren't something +religious. Awful to follow signposts out into the country only to find +they landed you in a meeting-house. + +At lunch in the hotels, and everywhere where people were together, the +signposts were discussed. Miss Heap heard them being discussed from her +solitary table, but was so much taken up with her own exciting thoughts +that she hardly noticed. After lunch, however, as she was passing out of +the restaurant, still full of her unshared news and still uncertain as +to whom she should tell it first, Mr. Ridding called out from his table +and said he supposed she was going too. + +They had been a little chilly to each other since the afternoon of the +conversation with the Twinklers, but he would have called out to any one +at that moment. He was sitting waiting while Mrs. Ridding finished her +lunch, his own lunch finished long ago, and was in the condition of +muffled but extreme exasperation which the unoccupied watching of Mrs. +Ridding at meals produced. Every day three times this happened, that Mr. +Ridding got through his meal first by at least twenty minutes and then +sat trying not to mind Mrs. Ridding. She wasn't aware of these efforts. +They would greatly have shocked her; for to try not to mind one's wife +surely isn't what decent, loving husbands ever have to do. + +"Going where?" asked Miss Heap, stopping by the table; whereupon Mr. +Ridding had the slight relief of getting up. + +Mrs. Ridding continued to eat impassively. + +"Following these new signposts that are all over the place," said Mr. +Ridding. "Sort of paper-chase business." + +"Yes. I'd like to. Were you thinking of going, Mrs. Ridding?" + +"After our nap," said Mrs. Ridding, steadily eating. "I'll take you. Car +at four o'clock, Albert." + +She didn't raise her eyes from her plate, and as Miss Heap well knew +that Mrs. Ridding was not open to conversation during meals and as she +had nothing to say to Mr. Ridding, she expressed her thanks and +pleasure, and temporarily left them. + +This was a day of shocks and thrills. When the big limousine--symbol of +Mrs. Ridding's power, for Mr. Ridding couldn't for the life of him see +why he should have to provide a strange old lady with cars, and yet did +so on an increasing scale of splendour--arrived at the turn on the main +road to San Blas which leads into Pepper Lane and was confronted by the +final signpost pointing up it, for the first time The Open Arms and the +Twist and Twinkler party entered Miss Heap's mind in company. So too +did they enter Mr. Ridding's mind; and they only remained outside Mrs. +Ridding's because of her profound uninterest. Her thoughts were merged +in aspic. That was the worst of aspic when it was as good as it was at +the Cosmopolitan; one wasn't able to leave off eating it quite in time, +and then, unfortunately, had to go on thinking of it afterwards. + +The Twist house, remembered her companions simultaneously, was in Pepper +Lane. Odd that this other thing, whatever it was, should happen to be +there too. Miss Heap said nothing, but sat very straight and alert, her +eyes everywhere. Mr. Ridding of course said nothing either. Not for +worlds would he have mentioned the word Twist, which so instantly and +inevitably suggested that other and highly controversial word Twinkler. +But he too sat all eyes; for anyhow he might in passing get a glimpse of +the place containing those cunning little bits of youngness, the +Twinkler sisters, and even with any luck a glimpse of their very selves. + +Up the lane went the limousine, slowly because of the cars in front of +it. It was one of a string of cars, for the day was lovely, there was no +polo, and nobody happened to be giving a party. All the way out from +Acapulco they had only had to follow other cars. Cars were going, and +cars were coming back. The cars going were full of solemn people, +pathetically anxious to be interested. The cars coming back were full of +animated people who evidently had achieved interest. + +Miss Heap became more and more alert as they approached the bend in the +lane round which the Twist house was situated. She had been there +before, making a point of getting a friend to motor her past it in +order to see what she could for herself, but Mr. Ridding, in spite of +his desire to go and have a look too, had always, each time he tried to, +found Mrs. Ridding barring the way. So that he didn't exactly know where +it was; and when on turning the corner the car suddenly stopped, and +putting his head out--he was sitting backwards--- he saw a great, +old-fashioned signboard, such as he was accustomed to in pictures of +ancient English village greens, with + + The Open Arms + +in medieval letters painted on it, all he said was, "Guess we've run it +to earth." + +Miss Heap sat with her hands in her lap, staring. Mrs. Ridding, her mind +blocked by aspic, wasn't receiving impressions. She gazed with heavy +eyes straight in front of her. There she saw cars. Many cars. All +stopped at this particular spot. With a dull sensation of fathomless +fatigue she dimly wondered at them. + +"Looks as though it's a hostelry," said Mr. Ridding, who remembered his +Dickens; and he blinked up, craning his head out, at the signboard, on +which through a gap in the branches of the pepper trees a shaft of +brilliant late afternoon sun was striking. "Don't see one, though." + +He jerked his thumb. "Up back of the trees there, I reckon," he said. + +Then he prepared to open the door and go and have a look. + +A hand shot out of Miss Heap's lap at him. "Don't," she said quickly. +"Don't, Mr. Ridding." + +There was a little green gate in the thick hedge that grew behind the +pepper trees, and some people he knew, who had been in the car in front, +were walking up to it. Some other people he knew had already got to it, +and were standing talking together with what looked like leaflets in +their hands. These leaflets came out of a green wooden box fastened on +to one of the gate-posts, with the words _Won't you take one_? painted +on it. + +Mr. Ridding naturally wanted to go and take one, and here was Miss Heap +laying hold of him and saying "Don't." + +"Don't what?" he asked looking down at her, his hand on the door. + +"Hello Ridding," called out one of the people he knew. "No good getting +out. Show doesn't open till to-morrow at four. Can't get in to-day. +Gate's bolted. Nothing doing." + +And then the man detached himself from the group at the gate and came +over to the car with a leaflet in his hand. + +"Say--" he said,--"how are you to-day, Miss Heap? Mrs. Ridding, your +humble servant--say, look at this. Teapot Twist wasn't born yesterday +when it comes to keeping things dark. No mention of his name on this +book of words, but it's the house he was doing up all right, and it is +to be used as an inn. Afternoon-tea inn. Profits to go to the American +Red Cross. Price per head five dollars. Bit stiff, five dollars for tea. +Wonder where those Twinkler girls come in. Here--you have this, Ridding, +and study it. I'll get another." And taking off his hat a second time to +the ladies he went back to his friends. + +In great agitation Miss Heap turned to Mrs. Ridding, whose mind, +galvanized by the magic words Twist and Twinkler, was slowly heaving +itself free of aspic. "Perhaps we had best go back to the hotel, Mrs +Ridding," said Miss Heap, her voice shaking. "There's something I wish +particularly to tell you. I ought to have done so this morning, directly +I knew, but I had no idea of course that this...." She waved a hand at +the signboard, and collapsed into speechlessness. + +"Albert--hotel," directed Mrs. Ridding. + +And Mr. Ridding, clutching the leaflet, his face congested with +suppressed emotions, obediently handed on the order through the +speaking-tube to the chauffeur. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +"It's _perfect_," said the twins, looking round the tea-room. + +This was next day, at a quarter to four. They had been looking round +saying it was perfect at intervals since the morning. Each time they +finished getting another of the little tables ready, each time they +brought in and set down another bowl of flowers they stood back and +gazed a moment in silence, and then said with one voice, "It's +_perfect_." + +Mr. Twist, though the house was not, as we have seen, quite as sober, +quite as restrained in its effect as he had intended, was obliged to +admit that it did look very pretty. And so did the Annas. Especially the +Annas. They looked so pretty in the sea-blue frocks and little Dutch +caps and big muslin aprons that he took off his spectacles and cleaned +them carefully so as to have a thoroughly uninterrupted view; and as +they stood at a quarter to four gazing round the room, he stood gazing +at them, and when they said "It's _perfect_," he said, indicating them +with his thumb, "Same here," and then they all laughed for they were all +very happy, and Mrs. Bilton, arrayed exactly as Mr. Twist had pictured +her when he engaged her in handsome black, her white hair beautifully +brushed and neat, crossed over to the Annas and gave each of them a +hearty kiss--for luck, she said--which Mr. Twist watched with an odd +feeling of jealousy. + +"I'd like to do that," he thought, filled with a sudden desire to hug. +Then he said it out loud. "I'd like to do that," he said boldly. And +added, "As it's the opening day." + +"I don't think it would afford you any permanent satisfaction," said +Anna-Felicitas placidly. "There's nothing really to be gained, we think, +by kissing. Of course," she added politely to Mrs. Bilton, "we like it +very much as an expression of esteem." + +"Then why not in that spirit--" began Mr. Twist. + +"We don't hold with kissing," said Anna-Rose quickly, turning very red. +Intolerable to be kissed _en famille_. If it had to be done at all, +kissing should be done quietly, she thought. But she and Anna-Felicitas +didn't hold with it anyhow. Never. Never. To her amazement she found +tears in her eyes. Well, of all the liquid idiots.... It must be that +she was so happy. She had never been so happy. Where on earth had her +handkerchief got to.... + +"Hello," said Mr. Twist, staring at her. + +Anna-Felicitas looked at her quickly. + +"It's merely bliss," she said, taking the corner of her beautiful new +muslin apron to Christopher's eyes. "Excess of it. We are, you know," +she said, smiling over her shoulder at Mr. Twist, so that the corner of +her apron, being undirected, began dabbing at Christopher's perfectly +tearless ears, "quite extraordinarily happy, and all through you. +Nevertheless Anna-R." she continued, addressing her with firmness while +she finished her eyes and began her nose, "You may like to be reminded +that there's only ten minutes left now before all those cars that were +here yesterday come again, and you wouldn't wish to embark on your +career as a waitress hampered by an ugly face, would you?" + +But half an hour later no cars had come. Pepper Lane was still empty. +The long shadows lay across it in a beautiful quiet, and the crickets in +the grass chirruped undisturbed. Twice sounds were heard as if something +was coming up it, and everybody flew to their posts--Li Koo to the +boiling water, Mrs. Bilton to her raised desk at the end of the room, +and the twins to the door--but the sounds passed on along the road and +died away round the next corner. + +At half-past four the _personnel_ of The Open Arms was sitting about +silently in a state of increasing uneasiness, when Mr. Ridding walked +in. + +There had been no noise of a car to announce him; he just walked in +mopping his forehead, for he had come in the jitney omnibus to the +nearest point and had done the last mile on his own out-of-condition +feet. Mrs. Ridding thought he was writing letters in the smoking-room. +She herself was in a big chair on the verandah, and with Miss Heap and +most of the other guests was discussing The Open Arms in all its +probable significance. He hadn't been able to get away sooner because of +the nap. He had gone through with the nap from start to finish so as not +to rouse suspicion. He arrived very hot, but with a feeling of +dare-devil running of risks that gave him great satisfaction. He knew +that he would cool down again presently and that then the consequences +of his behaviour would be unpleasant to reflect upon, but meanwhile his +blood was up. + +He walked in feeling not a day older than thirty,--most gratifying +sensation. The _personnel_, after a moment's open-mouthed surprise, +rushed to greet him. Never was a man more welcome. Never had Mr. Ridding +been so warmly welcomed anywhere in his life. + +"Now isn't this real homey," he said, beaming at Anna-Rose who took his +stick. "Wish I'd known you were going to do it, for then I'd have had +something to look forward to." + +"Will you have tea or coffee?" asked Anna-Felicitas, trying to look very +solemn and like a family butler but her voice quivering with eagerness. +"Or perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate? Each of these beverages +can be provided either hot or iced--" + +"There's ice-cream as well," said Anna-Rose, tumultuously in spite of +also trying to look like a family butler. "_I'd_ have ice-cream if I +were you. There's more body in it. Cold, delicious body. And you look so +hot. Hot things should always as soon as possible be united to cold +things, so as to restore the proper balance--" + +"And there's some heavenly stuff called cinnamon-toast--hot, you know, +but if you have ice-cream at the same time it won't matter," said +Anna-Felicitas, hanging up his hat for him. "I don't know whether you've +studied the leaflets," she continued, "but in case you haven't I feel I +oughtn't to conceal from you that the price is five dollars whatever you +have." + +"So that," said Anna-Rose, "you needn't bother about trying to save, for +you can't." + +"Then I'll have tea to start with and see how I get on," said Mr. +Ridding, sitting down in the chair Anna-Felicitas held for him and +beaming up at her. + +She flicked an imaginary grain of dust off the cloth with the corner of +her apron to convey to him that she knew her business, and hurried away +to give the order. Indeed, they both hurried away to give the order. + +"Say--" called out Mr. Ridding, for he thought one Anna would have been +enough for this and he was pining to talk to them; but the twins weren't +to be stopped from both giving the very first order, and they +disappeared together into the pantry. + +Mrs. Bilton sat in the farthest corner at her desk, apparently absorbed +in an enormous ledger. In this ledger she was to keep accounts and to +enter the number of teas, and from this high seat she was to preside +over the activities of the _personnel_. She had retired hastily to it on +the unexpected entrance of Mr. Ridding, and pen in hand was endeavouring +to look as if she were totting up figures. As the pages were blank this +was a little difficult. And it was difficult to sit there quiet. She +wanted to get down and go and chat with the guest; she felt she had +quite a good deal she could say to him; she had a great itch to go and +talk, but Mr. Twist had been particular that to begin with, till the room +was fairly full, he and she should leave the guests entirely to the +Annas. + +He himself was going to keep much in the background at all times, but +through the half-open door of his office he could see and hear; and he +couldn't help thinking, as he sat there watching and observed the +effulgence of the beams the old gentleman just arrived turned on the +twins, that the first guest appeared to be extraordinarily and +undesirably affectionate. He thought he had seen him at the +Cosmopolitan, but wasn't sure. He didn't know that the Annas, after +their conversation with him there, felt towards him as old friends, and +he considered their manner was a little unduly familiar. Perhaps, after +all, he thought uneasily, Mrs. Bilton had better do the waiting and the +Annas sit with him in the office. The ledger could be written up at the +end of the day. Or he could hire somebody.... + +Mr. Twist felt worried, and pulled at his ear. And why was there only +one guest? It was twenty minutes to five; and this time yesterday the +road had been choked with cars. He felt very much worried. With every +minute this absence of guests grew more and more remarkable. Perhaps he +had better, this beings the opening day, go in and welcome the solitary +one there was. Perhaps it would be wise to elaborate the idea of the inn +for his edification, so that he could hand on what he had heard to those +others who so unaccountably hadn't come. + +He got up and went into the other room; and just as Anna-Felicitas was +reappearing with the teapot followed by Anna-Rose with a tray of cakes, +Mr. Ridding, who was sitting up expectantly and giving his tie a little +pat of adjustment, perceived bearing down upon him that fellow Teapot +Twist. + +This was a blow. He hadn't run risks and walked in the afternoon heat to +sit and talk to Twist. Mr. Ridding was a friendly and amiable old man, +and at any other time would have talked to him with pleasure; but he had +made up his mind for the Twinklers as one makes up one's mind for a +certain dish and is ravaged by strange fury if it isn't produced. +Besides, hang it all, he was going to pay five dollars for his tea, and +for that sum he ought to least to have it under the conditions he +preferred. + +"Glad to meet you, Mr. Twist," he nevertheless said as Mr. Twist +introduced himself, his eyes, however, roving over the ministering +Annas,--a roving Mr. Twist noticed with fresh misgivings. + +It made him sit down firmly at the table and say, "If you don't mind, +Mr.--" + +"Ridding is my name." + +"If you don't mind, Mr. Ridding, I'd like to explain our objects to +you." + +But he couldn't help wondering what he would do if there were several +tables with roving-eyed guests at them, it being clear that there +wouldn't be enough of him in such a case to go round. + +Mr. Ridding, for his part, couldn't help wondering why the devil Teapot +Twist sat down unasked at his table. Five dollars. Come now. For that a +man had a right to a table to himself. + +But anyhow the Annas wouldn't have stayed talking for at that moment a +car stopped in the lane and quite a lot of footsteps were heard coming +up the neatly sanded path. Mr. Ridding pricked up his ears, for from the +things he had heard being said all the evening before and all that +morning in Acapulco, besides most of the night from the lips of that +strange old lady with whom by some dreadful mistake he was obliged to +sleep, he hadn't supposed there would be exactly a rush. + +Four young men came in. Mr. Ridding didn't know them. No class, he +thought, looking them over; and was seized with a feeling of sulky +vexation suitable to twenty when he saw with what enthusiasm the +Twinklers flew to meet them. They behaved, thought Mr. Ridding crossly, +as if they were the oldest and dearest friends. + +"Who are they?" he asked curtly of Mr. Twist, cutting into the long +things he was saying. + +"Only the different experts who helped me rebuild the place," said Mr. +Twist a little impatiently; he too had pricked up his ears in +expectation at the sound of all those feet, and was disappointed. + +He continued what Mr. Ridding, watching the group of young people, +called sulkily to himself his rigmarole, but continued more +abstractedly. He also was watching the Annas and the experts. The young +men were evidently in the highest spirits, and were walking round the +Annas admiring their get-up and expressing their admiration in laughter +and exclamations. One would have thought they had known each other all +their lives. The twins were wreathed in smiles. They looked as pleased, +Mr. Twist thought, as cats that are being stroked. Almost he could hear +them purring. He glanced helplessly across to where Mrs. Bilton sat, as +he had told her, bent pen in hand over the ledger. She didn't move. It +was true he had told her to sit like that, but hadn't the woman any +imagination? What she ought to do now was to bustle forward and take +that laughing group in charge. + +"As I was telling you--" resumed Mr. Twist, returning with an effort to +Mr. Ridding, only to find his eyes fixed on the young people and catch +an unmistakably thwarted look in his face. + +In a flash Mr. Twist realized what he had come for,--it was solely to +see and talk to the twins. He must have noticed them at the +Cosmopolitan, and come out just for them. Just for that. "Unprincipled +old scoundrel," said Mr. Twist under his breath, his ears flaming. Aloud +he said, "As I was telling you--" and went on distractedly with his +rigmarole. + +Then some more people came in. They had motored, but the noise the +experts were making had drowned the sound of their arrival. Mr. Ridding +and Mr. Twist, both occupied in glowering at the group in the middle of +the room, were made aware of their presence by Anna-Felicitas suddenly +dropping the pencil and tablets she had been provided with for writing +down orders and taking an uncertain and obviously timid step forward. + +They both looked round in the direction of her reluctant step, and saw +a man and two women standing on the threshold. Mr. Twist, of course, +didn't know them; he hardly knew anybody, even by sight. But Mr. Ridding +did. That is, he knew them well by sight and had carefully avoided +knowing them any other way, for they were Germans. + +Mr. Ridding was one of those who didn't like Germans. He was a man who +liked or disliked what his daily paper told him to, and his daily paper +was anti-German. For reasons natural to one who disliked Germans and yet +at the same time had a thirstily affectionate disposition, he declined +to believe the prevailing theory about the Twinklers. Besides, he didn't +believe it anyhow. At that age people were truthful, and he had heard +them explain they had come from England and had acquired their rolling +r's during a sojourn abroad. Why should he doubt? But he refrained from +declaring his belief in their innocence of the unpopular nationality, +owing to a desire to avoid trouble in that bedroom he couldn't call his +but was obliged so humiliatingly to speak of as ours. Except, however, +for the Twinklers, for all other persons of whom it was said that they +were Germans, naturalized or not, immediate or remote, he had, +instructed by his newspaper, what his called a healthy instinctive +abhorrence. + +"And she's got it too," he thought, much gratified at this bond between +them, as he noted Anna-Felicitas's hesitating and reluctant advance to +meet the new guests. "There's proof that people are wrong." + +But what Anna-Felicitas had got was stage-fright; for here were the +first strangers, the first real, proper visitors such as any shop or +hotel might have. Mr. Ridding was a friend. So were the experts friends. +This was trade coming in,--real business being done. Anna-Felicitas +hadn't supposed she would be shy when the long-expected and prepared-for +moment arrived, but she was. And it was because the guests seemed so +disconcertingly pleased to see her. Even on the threshold the whole +three stood smiling broadly at her. She hadn't been prepared for that, +and it unnerved her. + +"Charming, charming," said the newcomers, advancing towards her and +embracing the room and the tables and the Annas in one immense inclusive +smile of appreciation. + +"Know those?" asked Mr. Ridding, again cutting into Mr. Twist's +explanations. + +"No," said he. + +"Wangelbeckers," said Mr. Ridding briefly. + +"Indeed," said Mr. Twist, off whose ignorance the name glanced +harmlessly. "Well, as I was telling yous--" + +"But this is delicious--this is a conception of genius," said Mr. +Wangelbecker all-embracingly, after he had picked up Anna-Felicitas's +tablets and restored them to her with a low bow. + +"Charming, charming," said Mrs. Wangelbecker, looking round. + +"Real cunning," said Miss Wangelbecker, "as they say here." And she +laughed at Anna-Felicitas with an air of mutual understanding. + +"Will you have tea or coffee?" asked Anna-Felicitas nervously. "Or +perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate. Each of these beverages can +be--" + +"Delicious, delicious," said Mrs. Wangelbecker, enveloping +Anna-Felicitas in her smile. + +"The frothed chocolate is very delicious," said Anna-Felicitas with a +kind of grave nervousness. + +"Ah--charming, charming," said Mrs. Wangelbecker, obstinately +appreciative. + +"And there's ice-cream as well," said Anna-Felicitas, her eyes on her +tablets so as to avoid seeing the Wangelbecker smile. "And--and a great +many kinds of cakes--" + +"Well, hadn't we better sit down first," said Mr. Wangelbecker genially, +"or are all the tables engaged?" + +"Oh I _beg_ your pardon," said Anna-Felicitas, blushing and moving +hastily towards a table laid for three. + +"Ah--that's better," said Mr. Wangelbecker, following closely on her +heels. "Now we can go into the serious business of ordering what we +shall eat comfortably. But before I sit down allow me to present myself. +My name is Wangelbecker. An honest German name. And this is my wife. She +too had an honest German name before she honoured mine by accepting +it--she was a Niedermayer. And this is my daughter, with whom I trust +you will soon be friends." + +And they all put out their hands to be shaken, and Anna-Felicitas shook +them. + +"Look at that now," said Mr. Ridding watching. + +"As I was telling you--" said Mr. Twist irritably, for really why should +Anna II. shake hands right off with strangers? Her business was to wait, +not to get shaking hands. He must point out to her very plainly. + +"Pleased to meet you Miss von Twinkler," said Mrs. Wangelbecker; and at +this Anna-Felicitas was so much startled that she dropped her tablets a +second time. + +"As they say here," laughed Miss Wangelbecker, again with that air of +mutual comprehension. + +"But they don't," said Anna Felicitas hurriedly, taking her tablets from +the restoring hand of Mr. Wangelbecker and forgetting to thank him. + +"What?" said Mrs. Wangelbecker. "When you are both so charming that for +once the phrase must be sincere?" + +"Miss von Twinkler means she finds it wiser not to use her title," said +Mr. Wangelbecker. "Well, perhaps--perhaps. Wiser perhaps from the point +of view of convenience. Is that where you will sit, Güstchen? Still, we +Germans when we are together can allow ourselves the refreshment of +being ourselves, and I hope to be frequently the means of giving you the +relief, you and your charming sister, of hearing yourselves addressed +correctly. It is a great family, the von Twinklers. A great family. In +these sad days we Germans must hang together--" + +Anna-Felicitas stood, tablets in hand, looking helplessly from one +Wangelbecker to the other. The situation was beyond her. + +"But--" she began; then stopped. "Shall I bring you tea or coffee?" she +ended by asking again. + +"Well now this is amusing," said Mr. Wangelbecker, sitting down +comfortably and leaning his elbows on the table. "Isn't it, Güstchen. To +see a von Twinkler playing at waiting on us." + +"Charming, charming," said his wife. + +"It's real sporting," said his daughter, laughing up at Anna-Felicitas, +again with comprehension,--with, almost, a wink. "You must let me come +and help. I'd look nice in that costume, wouldn't I mother." + +"There is also frothed choc--" + +"I suppose, now, Mr. Twist--he must be completely sympathy--" +interrupted Mr. Wangelbecker confidentially, leaning forward and +lowering his voice a little. + +Anna-Felicitas gazed at him blankly. Some more people were coming in at +the door, and behind them she could see on the path yet more, and +Anna-Rose was in the pantry fetching the tea for the experts. + +"Would you mind telling me what I am to bring you?" she asked. "Because +I'm afraid--" + +Mr. Wangelbecker turned his head in the direction she was looking. + +"Ah--" he said getting up, "but this is magnificent Güstchen, here are +Mrs. Kleinbart and her sister--why, and there come the Diederichs--but +splendid, splendid--" + +"Say," said Mr. Ridding, turning to Mr. Twist with a congested face, +"ever been to Berlin?" + +"No," said Mr. Twist, annoyed by a question of such wanton irrelevance +flung into the middle of his sentence. + +"Well, it's just like this." + +"Like this?" repeated Mr. Twist. + +"Those there," said Mr. Ridding, jerking his head. "That lot there--see +'em any day in Berlin, or Frankfurt, or any other of their confounded +towns." + +"I don't follow," said Mr. Twist, very shortly indeed. + +"Germans," said Mr. Ridding. + +"Germans?" + +"All Germans," said Ridding. + +"All Germans?" + +"Wangelbeckers are Germans," said Mr. Ridding. "Didn't you know?" + +"No," said Mr. Twist. + +"So are the ones who've just come in." + +"Germans?" + +"All Germans. So are those behind, just coming in." + +"Germans?" + +"All Germans." + +There was a pause, during which Mr. Twist stared round the room. It was +presenting quite a populous appearance. Then he said slowly, "Well I'm +damned." + +And Mr. Ridding for the first time looked pleased with Mr. Twist. He +considered that at last he was talking sense. + +"Mr. Twist," he said heartily, "I'm exceedingly glad you're damned. It +was what I was sure at the bottom of my heart you would be. Shake hands, +sir." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +That evening depression reigned in The Open Arms. + +Mr. Twist paced up and down the tea-room deep in thought that was +obviously unpleasant and perplexed; Mrs. Bilton went to bed abruptly, +after a short outpour of words to the effect that she had never seen so +many Germans at once before, that her psyche was disharmonious to +Germans, that they made her go goose-fleshy just as cats in a room made +Mr. Bilton go goose-fleshy in the days when he had flesh to go it with, +that she hadn't been aware the inn was to be a popular resort and +rendezvous for Germans, and that she wished to speak alone with Mr. +Twist in the morning; while the twins, feeling the ominousness of this +last sentence,--as did Mr. Twist, who started when he heard it,--and +overcome by the lassitude that had succeeded the shocks of the +afternoon, a lassitude much increased by their having tried to finish up +the pailsful of left-over ices and the huge piles of cakes slowly +soddening in their own souring cream, went out together on to the +moonlit verandah and stood looking up in silence at the stars. There +they stood in silence, and thought things about the immense distance and +indifference of those bright, cold specks, and how infinitely +insignificant after all they, the Twinklers were, and how they would +both in any case be dead in a hundred years. And this last reflection +afforded them somehow a kind of bleak and draughty comfort. + +Thus the first evening, that was to have been so happy, was spent by +everybody in silence and apart. Li Koo felt the atmosphere of oppression +even in his kitchen, and refrained from song. He put away, after dealing +with it cunningly so that it should keep until a more propitious hour, a +wonderful drink he had prepared for supper in celebration of the opening +day--"Me make li'l celebrity," he had said, squeezing together strange +essences and fruits--and he moved softly about so as not to disturb the +meditations of the master. Li Koo was perfectly aware of what had gone +wrong: it was the unexpected arrival to tea of Germans. Being a member +of the least blood-thirsty of the nations, he viewed Germans with +peculiar disfavour and understood his master's prolonged walking up and +down. Also he had noted through a crack in the door the way these people +of blood and death crowded round the white-lily girls; and was not that +sufficient in itself to cause his master's numerous and rapid steps? + +Numerous indeed that evening were Mr. Twist's steps. He felt he must +think, and he could think better walking up and down. Why had all those +Germans come? Why, except old Ridding and the experts, had none of the +Americans come? It was very strange. And what Germans! So cordial, so +exuberant to the twins, so openly gathering them to their bosoms, as +though they belonged there. And so cordial too to him, approaching him +in spite of his withdrawals, conveying to him somehow, his disagreeable +impression had been, that he and they perfectly understood each other. +Then Mrs. Bilton; was she going to give trouble? It looked like it. It +looked amazingly like it. Was she after all just another edition of his +mother, and unable to discriminate between Germans and Germans, between +the real thing and mere technicalities like the Twinklers? It is true he +hadn't told her the twins were German, but then neither had he told her +they weren't. He had been passive. In Mrs. Bilton's presence passivity +came instinctively. Anything else involved such extreme and unusual +exertion. He had never had the least objection to her discovering their +nationality for herself, and indeed had been surprised she hadn't done +so long ago, for he felt sure she would quickly begin to love the Annas, +and once she loved them she wouldn't mind what their father had happened +to be. He had supposed she did love them. How affectionately she had +kissed them that very afternoon and wished them luck. Was all that +nothing? Was lovableness nothing, and complete innocence, after all in +the matter of being born, when weighed against the one fact of the von? +What he would do if Mrs. Bilton left him he couldn't imagine. What would +happen to The Open Arms and the twins in such a case, his worried brain +simply couldn't conceive. + +Out of the corner of his eye every time he passed the open door on to +the verandah he could see the two Annas standing motionless on its edge, +their up-turned faces, as they gazed at the stars, white in the +moonlight and very serious. Pathetic children. Pathetic, solitary, alien +children. What were they thinking of? He wouldn't mind betting it was +their mother. + +Mr. Twist's heart gave a kind of tug at him. His sentimental, maternal +side heaved to the top. A great impulse to hurry out and put his arms +round them seized him, but he frowned and overcame it. He didn't want to +go soft now. Nor was this the moment, his nicely brought up soul told +him, his soul still echoing with the voice of Clark, to put his arms +round them--this, the very first occasion on which Mrs. Bilton had left +them alone with him. Whether it would become proper on the very second +occasion was one of those questions that would instantly have suggested +itself to the Annas themselves, but didn't occur to Mr. Twist. He merely +went on to think of another reason against it, which was the chance of +Mrs. Bilton's looking out of her window just as he did it. She might, he +felt, easily misjudge the situation, and the situation, he felt, was +difficult enough already. So he restrained himself; and the Annas +continued to consider infinite space and to perceive, again with that +feeling of dank and unsatisfactory consolation, that nothing really +mattered. + +Next day immediately after breakfast Mrs. Bilton followed him into his +office and gave notice. She called it formally tendering her +resignation. She said that all her life she had been an upholder of +straight dealing, as much in herself towards others as in others towards +herself-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" interrupted Mr. Twist, only it didn't interrupt. + +She had also all her life been intensely patriotic, and Mr. Twist, she +feared, didn't look at patriotism with quite her single eye-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" + +As her eye saw it, patriotism was among other things a determination to +resist the encroachments of foreigners-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" + +She had no wish to judge him, but she had still less wish to be mixed up +with foreigners, and foreigners for her at that moment meant Germans-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" + +She regretted, but psychically she would never be able to flourish in a +soil so largely composed, as the soil of The Open Arms appeared to be, +of that nationality-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" + +And though it was none of her business, still she must say it did seem +to her a pity that Mr. Twist with his well-known and respected American +name should be mixed up-- + +"Mrs. Bilton--" + +And though she had no wish to be inquisitive, still she must say it did +seem to her peculiar that Mr. Twist should be the guardian of two girls +who, it was clear from what she had overheard that afternoon, were +German-- + +Here Mr. Twist raised his voice and shouted. "Mrs. Bilton," he shouted, +so loud that she couldn't but stop, "if you'll guarantee to keep quiet +for just five minutes--sit down right here at this table and not say one +single thing, not one single thing for just five minutes," he said, +banging the table, "I'll tell you all about it. Oh yes, I'll accept your +resignation at the end of that time if you're still set on leaving, but +just for this once it's me that's going to do the talking." + +And this must be imagined as said so loud that only capital letters +would properly represent the noise Mr. Twist made. + +Mrs. Bilton did sit down, her face flushed by the knowledge of how good +her intentions had been when she took the post, and how deceitful--she +was forced to think it--Mr. Twist's were when he offered it. She was +prepared, however, to give him a hearing. It was only fair. But Mr. +Twist had to burst into capitals several times before he had done, so +difficult was it for Mrs. Bilton, even when she had agreed, even when +she herself wished, not to say anything. + +It wasn't five minutes but twenty before Mrs. Bilton came out of the +office again. She went straight into the garden, where the Annas, aware +of the interview going on with Mr. Twist, had been lingering anxiously, +unable at so crucial a moment to settle to anything, and with solemnity +kissed them. Her eyes were very bright. Her face, ordinarily colourless +as parchment, was red. Positively she kissed them without saying a +single word; and they kissed her back with such enthusiasm, with a +relief that made them hug her so tight and cling to her so close, that +the brightness in her eyes brimmed over and she had to get out her +handkerchief and wipe it away. + +"Gurls," said Mrs. Bilton, "I had a shock yesterday, but I'm through +with it. You're motherless. I'm daughterless. We'll weld." + +And with this unusual brevity did Mrs. Bilton sum up the situation. + +She was much moved. Her heart was touched; and once that happened +nothing could exceed her capacity for sticking through what she called +thick and thin to her guns. For years Mr. Bilton had occupied the +position of the guns; now it would be these poor orphans. No Germans +could frighten her away, once she knew their story; no harsh judgments +and misconceptions of her patriotic friends. Mr. Twist had told her +everything, from the beginning on the _St. Luke_, harking back to Uncle +Arthur and the attitude of England, describing what he knew of their +mother and her death, not even concealing the part his own mother had +played or that he wasn't their guardian at all. He made the most of Mrs. +Bilton's silence; and as she listened her heart melted within her, and +the immense store of grit which was her peculiar pride came to the top +and once and for all overwhelmed her prejudices. But she couldn't think, +and at last she burst out and told Mr. Twist she couldn't think, why he +hadn't imparted all this to her long ago. + +"Ah," murmured Mr. Twist, bowing his head as a reed in the wind before +the outburst of her released volubility. + +Hope once more filled The Open Arms, and the Twist party looked forward +to the afternoon with renewed cheerfulness. It had just happened so the +first day, that only Germans came. It was just accident. Mr. Twist, with +the very large part of him that wasn't his head, found himself feeling +like this too and declining to take any notice of his intelligence, +which continued to try to worry him. + +Yet the hope they all felt was not realized, and the second afternoon +was almost exactly like the first. Germans came and clustered round the +Annas, and made friendly though cautious advances to Mr. Twist. The ones +who had been there the first day came again and brought others with them +worse than themselves, and they seemed more at home than ever, and the +air was full of rolling r's--among them, Mr. Twist was unable to deny, +being the r's of his blessed Annas. But theirs were such little r's, he +told himself. They rolled, it is true, but with how sweet a rolling. +While as for these other people--confound it all, the place might really +have been, from the sounds that were filling it, a _Conditorei_ Unter +den Linden. + +All his doubts and anxieties flocked back on him as time passed and no +Americans appeared. Americans. How precious. How clean, and straight, +and admirable. Actually he had sometimes, he remembered, thought they +weren't. What an aberration. Actually he had been, he remembered, +impatient with them when first he came back from France. What folly. +Americans. The very word was refreshing, was like clear water on a +thirsty day. One American, even one, coming in that afternoon would have +seemed to Mr. Twist a godsend, a purifier, an emollient--like some +blessed unction dropped from above. + +But none appeared; not even Mr. Ridding. + +At six o'clock it was quite dark, and obviously too late to go on +hoping. The days in California end abruptly. The sun goes down, and +close on its heels comes night. In the tea-room the charmingly shaded +lights had been turned on some time, and Mr. Twist, watching from the +partly open door of his office, waited impatiently for the guests to +begin to thin out. But they didn't. They took no notice of the signals +of lateness, the lights turned on, the stars outside growing bright in +the surrounding blackness. + +Mr. Twist watched angrily. He had been driven into his office by the +disconcerting and incomprehensible overtures of Mr. Wangelbecker, and +had sat there watching in growing exasperation ever since. When six +struck and nobody showed the least sign of going away he could bear it +no longer, and touched the little muffled electric bell that connected +him to Mrs. Bilton in what Anna-Felicitas called a mystical union--Anna +II. was really excessively tactless; she had said this to Mrs. Bilton in +his presence, and then enlarged on unions, mystical and otherwise, with +an embarrassing abundance of imagery--by buzzing gently against her knee +from the leg of the desk. + +She laid down her pen, as though she had just finished adding up a +column, and went to him. + +"Now don't talk," said Mr. Twist, putting up an irritable hand directly +she came in. + +Mrs. Bilton looked at him in much surprise. "Talk, Mr. Twist?" she +repeated. "Why now, as though--" + +"Don't _talk_ I say, Mrs. Bilton, but listen. Listen now. I can't stand +seeing those children in there. It sheer makes my gorge rise. I want you +to fetch them in here--now don't talk--you and me'll do the confounded +waiting--no, no, don't talk--they're to stay quiet in here till the last +of those Germans have gone. Just go and fetch them, please Mrs. Bilton. +No, no, we'll talk afterwards. I'll stay here till they come." And he +urged her out into the tea-room again. + +The guests had finished their tea long ago, but still sat on, for they +were very comfortable. Obviously they were thoroughly enjoying +themselves, and all were growing, as time passed, more manifestly at +home. They were now having a kind of supper of ices and fruit-salads. +Five dollars, thought the sensible Germans, was after all a great deal +to pay for afternoon tea, however good the cause might be and however +important one's own ulterior motives; and since one had in any case to +pay, one should eat what one could. So they kept the Annas very busy. +There seemed to be no end, thought the Annas as they ran hither and +thither, to what a German will hold. + +Mrs. Bilton waylaid the heated and harried Anna-Rose as she was carrying +a tray of ices to a party she felt she had been carrying ices to +innumerable times already. The little curls beneath her cap clung damply +to her forehead. Her face was flushed and distressed. What with having +to carry so many trays, and remember so many orders, and try at the same +time to escape from the orderers and their questions and admiration, +she was in a condition not very far from tears. + +Mrs. Bilton took the tray out of her hands, and told her Mr. Twist +wanted to speak to her; and Anna-Rose was in such a general bewilderment +that she felt quite scared, and thought he must be going to scold her. +She went towards the office reluctantly. If Mr. Twist were to be severe, +she was sure she wouldn't be able not to cry. She made her way very +slowly to the office, and Mrs. Bilton looked round the room for the +other one. There was no sign of her. Perhaps, thought Mrs. Bilton, she +was fetching something in the kitchen, and would appear in a minute; and +seeing a group over by the entrance door, for whom the tray she held was +evidently destined, gesticulating to her, she felt she had better keep +them quiet first and then go and look for Anna-Felicitas. + +Mrs. Bilton set her teeth and plunged into her strange new duties. Never +would she have dreamed it possible that she should have to carry trays +to Germans. If Mr. Bilton could see her now he would certainly turn in +his grave. Well, she was a woman of grit, of adhesiveness to her guns; +if Mr. Bilton did see her and did turn in his grave, let him; he would, +she dared say, be more comfortable on his other side after all these +years. + +For the next few minutes she hurried hither and thither, and waited +single-handed. She seemed to be swallowed up in activity. No wonder that +child had looked so hot and bewildered. Mr. Twist didn't come and help, +as he had promised, and nowhere was there any sign of Anna-Felicitas; +and the guests not only wanted things to eat, they wanted to talk,--talk +and ask questions. Well, she would wait on them, but she wouldn't talk. +She turned a dry, parchment-like face to their conversational +blandishments, and responded only by adding up their bills. Wonderful +are the workings of patriotism. For the first time in her life, Mrs. +Bilton was grumbled at for not talking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +In the office Anna-Rose found Mr. Twist walking up and down. + +"See here," he said, turning on her when she came in, "I'm about tired +of looking on at all this twittering round that lot in there. You're +through with that for to-day, and maybe for to-morrow and the day after +as well." + +He waved his arm at the deep chair that had been provided for his +business meditations. "You'll sit down in that chair now," he said +severely, "and stay put." + +Anna-Rose looked at him with a quivering lip. She went rather unsteadily +to the chair and tumbled into it. "I don't know if you're angry or being +kind," she said tremulously, "but whichever it is I--I wish you +wouldn't. I--I wish you'd manage to be something that isn't either." +And, as she had feared, she began to cry. + +"Anna-Rose," said Mr. Twist, staring down at her in concern mixed with +irritation--out there all those Germans, in here the weeping child; what +a day he was having--"for heaven's sake don't do that." + +"I know," sobbed Anna-Rose. "I don't want to. It's awful being so +natu--natu--naturally liquid." + +"But what's the matter?" asked Mr. Twist helplessly. + +"Nothing," sobbed Anna-Rose. + +He stood over her in silence for a minute, his hands in his pockets. If +he took them out he was afraid he might start stroking her, and she +seemed to him to be exactly between the ages when such a form of comfort +would be legitimate. If she were younger ... but she was a great girl +now; if she were older ... ah, if she were older, Mr. Twist could +imagine.... + +"You're overtired," he said aloofly. "That's what you are." + +"No," sobbed Anna-Rose. + +"And the Germans have been too much for you." + +"They haven't," sobbed Anna-Rose, her pride up at the suggestion that +anybody could ever be that. + +"But they're not going to get the chance again," said Mr. Twist, setting +his teeth as much as they would set, which wasn't, owing to his natural +kindliness, anything particular. "Mrs. Bilton and me--" Then he +remembered Anna-Felicitas. "Why doesn't she come?" he asked. + +"Who?" choked Anna-Rose. + +"The other one. Anna II. Columbus." + +"I haven't seen her for ages," sobbed Anna-Rose, who had been much upset +by Anna-Felicitas's prolonged disappearance and had suspected her, +though she couldn't understand it after last night's finishings up, of +secret unworthy conduct in a corner with ice-cream. + +Mr. Twist went to the door quickly and looked through. "I can't see her +either," he said. "Confound them--what have they done to her? Worn her +out too, I daresay. I shouldn't wonder if she'd crawled off somewhere +and were crying too." + +"Anna-F.--doesn't crawl," sobbed Anna-Rose, "and she--doesn't cry but--I +wish you'd find--her." + +"Well, will you stay where you are while I'm away, then?" he said, +looking at her from the door uncertainly. + +And she seemed so extra small over there in the enormous chair, and +somehow so extra motherless as she obediently gurgled and choked a +promise not to move, that he found himself unable to resist going back +to her for a minute in order to pat her head. "There, there," said Mr. +Twist, very gently patting her head, his heart yearning over her; and it +yearned the more that, the minute he patted, her sobs got worse; and +also the more because of the feel of her dear little head. + +"You little bit of blessedness," murmured Mr. Twist before he knew what +he was saying; at which her sobs grew louder than ever,--grew, indeed, +almost into small howls, so long was it since anybody had said things +like that to her. It was her mother who used to say things like that; +things almost exactly like that. + +"Hush," said Mr. Twist in much distress, and with one anxious eye on the +half-open door, for Anna-Rose's sobs were threatening to outdo the noise +of teacups and ice-cream plates, "hush, hush--here's a clean +handkerchief--you just wipe up your eyes while I fetch Anna II. She'll +worry, you know, if she sees you like this,--hush now, hush--there, +there--and I expect she's being miserable enough already, hiding away in +some corner. You wouldn't like to make her more miserable, would you--" + +And he pressed the handkerchief into Anna-Rose's hands, and feeling much +flurried went away to search for the other one who was somewhere, he was +sure, in a state of equal distress. + +He hadn't however to search. He found her immediately. As he came out of +the door of his office into the tea-room he saw her come into the +tea-room from the door of the verandah, and proceed across it towards +the pantry. Why the verandah? wondered Mr. Twist. He hurried to +intercept her. Anyhow she wasn't either about to cry or getting over +having done it. He saw that at once with relief. Nor was she, it would +seem, in any sort of distress. On the contrary, Anna-Felicitas looked +particularly smug. He saw that once too, with surprise,--why smug? +wondered Mr. Twist. She had a pleased look of complete satisfaction on +her face. She was oblivious, he noticed, as she passed between the +tables, of the guests who tried in vain to attract her attention and +detain her with orders. She wasn't at all hot, as Anna-Rose had been, +nor rattled, nor in any way discomposed; she was just smug. And also she +was unusually, extraordinarily pretty. How dared they all stare up at +her like that as she passed? And try to stop her. And want to talk to +her. And Wangelbecker actually laying his hand--no, his paw; in his +annoyance Mr. Twist wouldn't admit that the object at the end of Mr. +Wangelbecker's arm was anything but a paw--on her wrist to get her to +listen to some confounded order or other. She took no notice of that +either, but walked on towards the pantry. Placidly. Steadily. Obvious. +Smug. + +"You're to come into the office," said Mr. Twist when he reached her. + +She turned her head and considered him with abstracted eyes. Then she +appeared to remember him. "Oh, it's you," she said amiably. + +"Yes. It's me all right. And you're to come into the office." + +"I can't. I'm busy." + +"Now Anna II.," said Mr. Twist, walking beside her towards the pantry +since she didn't stop but continued steadily on her way, "that's +trifling with the facts. You've been in the garden. I saw you come in. +Perhaps you'll tell me the exact line of business you've been engaged +in." + +"Waiting," said Anna-Felicitas placidly. + +"Waiting? In the garden? Where it's pitch dark, and there's nobody to +wait on?" + +They had reached the pantry, and Anna-Felicitas gave an order to Li Koo +through the serving window before answering; the order was tea and hot +cinnamon toast for one. + +"He's having his tea on the verandah," she said, picking out the most +delicious of the little cakes from the trays standing ready, and +carefully arranging them on a dish. "It isn't pitch dark at all there. +There's floods of light coming through the windows. He won't come in." + +"And why pray won't he come in?" asked Mr. Twist. + +"Because he doesn't like Germans." + +"And who pray is he?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well I do," burst out Mr. Twist. "It's old Ridding, of course. His name +is Ridding. The old man who was here yesterday. Now listen: I won't +have--" + +But Anna-Felicitas was laughing, and her eyes had disappeared into two +funny little screwed-up eyelashy slits. + +Mr. Twist stopped abruptly and glared at her. These Twinklers. That one +in there shaken with sobs, this one in here shaken with what she would +no doubt call quite the contrary. His conviction became suddenly final +that the office was the place for both the Annas. He and Mrs. Bilton +would do the waiting. + +"I'll take this," he said, laying hold of the dish of cakes. "I'll send +Mrs. Bilton for the tea. Go into the office, Anna-Felicitas. Your sister +is there and wants you badly. I don't know," he added, as Li Koo pushed +the tea-tray through the serving window, "how it strikes you about +laughter, but it strikes me as sheer silly to laugh except at +something." + +"Well, I was," said Anna-Felicitas, unscrewing her eyes and with gentle +firmness taking the plate of cakes from him and putting it on the tray. +"I was laughing at your swift conviction that the man out there is Mr. +Ridding. I don't know who he is but I know heaps of people he isn't, and +one of the principal ones is Mr. Ridding." + +"I'm going to wait on him," said Mr. Twist, taking the tray. + +"It would be most unsuitable," said Anna-Felicitas, taking it too. + +"Let go," said Mr. Twist, pulling. + +"Is this to be an unseemly wrangle?" inquired Anna-Felicitas mildly; and +her eyes began to screw up again. + +"If you'll oblige me by going into the office," he said, having got the +tray, for Anna-Felicitas was never one to struggle, "Mrs. Bilton and me +will do the rest of the waiting for to-day." + +He went out grasping the tray, and made for the verandah. His appearance +in this new rôle was greeted by the Germans with subdued +applause--subdued, because they felt Mr. Twist wasn't quite as cordial +to them as they had supposed he would be, and they were accordingly +being a little more cautious in their methods with him than they had +been at the beginning of the afternoon. He took no notice of them, +except that his ears turned red when he knocked against a chair and the +tray nearly fell out of his hands and they all cried out _Houp là_. +Damn them, thought Mr. Twist. _Houp là_ indeed. + +In the farthest corner of the otherwise empty and very chilly verandah, +sitting alone and staring out at the stars, was a man. He was a young +man. He was also an attractive young man, with a thin brown face and +very bright blue twinkling eyes. The light from the window behind him +shone on him as he turned his head when he heard the swing doors open, +and Mr. Twist saw these things distinctly and at once. He also saw how +the young man's face fell on his, Mr. Twist's, appearance with the tray, +and he also saw with some surprise how before he had reached him it +suddenly cleared again. And the young man got up too, just as Mr. Twist +arrived at the table--got up with some little difficulty, for he had to +lean hard on a thick stick, but yet obviously with _empressement._ + +"You've forgotten the sugar," said Anna-Felicitas's gentle voice behind +Mr. Twist as he was putting down the tray; and there she was, sure +enough, looking smugger than ever. + +"This is Mr. Twist," said Anna-Felicitas with an amiable gesture. "That +I was telling you about," she explained to the young man. + +"When?" asked Mr. Twist, surprised. + +"Before," said Anna-Felicitas. "We were talking for some time before I +went in to order the tea, weren't we?" she said to the young man, +angelically smiling at him. + +"Rather," he said; and since he didn't on this introduction remark to +Mr. Twist that he was pleased to meet him, it was plain he couldn't be +an American. Therefore he must be English. Unless, suddenly suspected +Mr. Twist who had Germans badly on his nerves that day and was ready to +suspect anything, he was German cleverly got up for evil purposes to +appear English. But the young man dispersed these suspicions by saying +that he was over from England on six months' leave, and that his name +was Elliott. + +"Like us," said Anna-Felicitas. + +The young man looked at her with what would have been a greater interest +than ever if a greater interest had been possible, only it wasn't. + +"What, are you an Elliott too?" he asked eagerly. + +Anna-Felicitas shook her head. "On the contrary," she said, "I'm a +Twinkler. And so is my sister. What I meant was, you're like us about +coming from England. We've done that. Only our leave is for ever and +ever. Or the duration of the war." + +Mr. Twist waved her aside. "Anna-Felicitas," he said, "your sister is +waiting for you in the office and wants you badly. I'll see to Mr. +Elliott." + +"Why not bring your sister here?" said the young man, who, being in the +navy, was fertile in resourcefulness. And he smiled at Anna-Felicitas, +who smiled back; indeed, they did nothing but smile at each other. + +"I think that's a brilliant idea," she said; and turned to Mr. Twist. +"You go," she said gently, thereby proving herself, the young man +considered, at least his equal in resourcefulness. "It's much more +likely," she continued, as Mr. Twist gazed at her without moving, "that +she'll come for you than for me. My sister," she explained to the young +man, "is older than I am." + +"Then certainly I should say Mr. Twist is more likely--" + +"But only about twenty minutes older." + +"What? A twin? I say, how extraordinarily jolly. Two of you?" + +"Anna-Felicitas," interrupted Mr. Twist, "you will go to your sister +immediately. She needs you. She's upset. I don't wish to draw Mr. +Elliott behind the scenes of family life, but as nothing seems to get +you into the office you force me to tell you that she is very, much +upset indeed, and is crying." + +"Crying?" echoed Anna-Felicitas. "Christopher?" And she turned and +departed in such haste that the young man, who luckily was alert as well +as resourceful, had only just time to lean over and grab at a chair in +her way and pull it aside, and so avert a deplorable catastrophe. + +"I hope it's nothing serious?" he inquired of Mr. Twist. + +"Oh no. Children will cry." + +"Children?" + +Mr. Twist sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. "Tell me about +England," he said. "You've been wounded, I see." + +"Leg," said the young man, still standing leaning on his stick and +looking after Anna-Felicitas. + +"But that didn't get you six months' leave." + +"Lungs," said the young man, looking down impatiently at Mr. Twist. + +Then the swing doors swung to, and he sat down and poured out his tea. + +He had been in the battle of Jutland, and was rescued after hours in the +water. For months he was struggling to recover, but finally tuberculosis +had developed and he was sent to California, to his sister who had +married an American and lived in the neighbourhood of Acapulco. This Mr. +Twist extracted out of him by diligent questioning. He had to question +very diligently. What the young man wanted to talk about was +Anna-Felicitas; but every time he tried to, Mr. Twist headed him off. + +And she didn't come back. He waited and waited, and drank and drank. +When the teapot was empty he started on the hot water. Also he ate all +the cakes, more and more deliberately, eking them out at last with +slowly smoked cigarettes. He heard all about France and Mr. Twist's +activities there; he had time to listen to the whole story of the +ambulance from start to finish; and still she didn't come back. In vain +he tried at least to get Mr. Twist off those distant fields, nearer +home--to the point, in fact, where the Twinklers were. Mr. Twist +wouldn't budge. He stuck firmly. And the swing doors remained shut. And +the cakes were all eaten. And there was nothing for it at last but to +go. + +So after half-an-hour of solid sitting he began slowly to get up, still +spreading out the moments, with one eye on the swing doors. It was both +late and cold. The Germans had departed, and Li Koo had lit the usual +evening wood fire in the big fireplace. It blazed most beautifully, and +the young man looked at it through the window and hesitated. + +"How jolly," he said. + +"Firelight is very pleasant," agreed Mr. Twist, who had got up too. + +"I oughtn't to have stayed so long out here," said the young man with a +little shiver. + +"I was thinking it was unwise," said Mr. Twist. + +"Perhaps I'd better go in and warm myself a bit before leaving." + +"I should say your best plan is to get back quickly to your sister and +have a hot bath before dinner," said Mr. Twist. + +"Yes. But I think I might just go in there and have a cup of hot coffee +first." + +"There is no hot coffee at this hour," said Mr. Twist, looking at his +watch. "We close at half-past six, and it is now ten minutes after." + +"Then there seems nothing for it but to pay my bill and go," said the +young man, with an air of cheerful adaptation to what couldn't be +helped. "I'll just nip in there and do that." + +"Luckily there's no need for you to nip anywhere," said Mr. Twist, "for +surely that's a type of movement unsuited to your sick leg. You can pay +me right here." + +And he took the young man's five dollars, and went with him as far as +the green gate, and would have helped him into the waiting car, seeing +his leg wasn't as other legs and Mr. Twist was, after all, humane, but +the chauffeur was there to do that; so he just watched from the gate +till the car had actually started, and then went back to the house. + +He went back slowly, perturbed and anxious, his eyes on the ground. This +second day had been worse than the first. And besides the continued and +remarkable absence of Americans and the continued and remarkable +presence of Germans, there was a slipperiness suddenly developed in the +Annas. He felt insecure; as though he didn't understand, and hadn't got +hold. They seemed to him very like eels. And this Elliott--what did he +think _he_ was after, anyway? + +For the second time that afternoon Mr. Twist set his teeth. He defied +Elliott. He defied the Germans. He would see this thing successful, this +Open Arms business, or his name wasn't Twist. And he stuck out his +jaw--or would have stuck it out if he hadn't been prevented by the +amiable weakness of that feature. But spiritually and morally, when he +got back into the house he was all jaw. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +That night he determined he would go into Acapulco next morning and drop +in at his bank and at his lawyer's and other places, and see if he could +pick up anything that would explain why Americans wouldn't come and have +tea at The Open Arms. He even thought he might look up old Ridding. He +didn't sleep. He lay all night thinking. + +The evening had been spent _tête-à-tête_ with Anna-Felicitas. Anna-Rose +was in bed, sleeping off her tears; Mrs. Bilton had another headache, +and disappeared early; so he was left with Anna-Felicitas, who slouched +about abstractedly eating up the remains of ice-cream. She didn't talk, +except once to remark a little pensively that her inside was dreadfully +full of cold stuff, and that she knew now what it must feel like to be a +mausoleum; but, eyeing her sideways as he sat before the fire, Mr. Twist +could see that she was still smug. He didn't talk either. He felt he had +nothing at present to say to Anna-Felicitas that would serve a useful +purpose, and was, besides, reluctant to hear any counter-observations +she might make. Watchfulness was what was required. Silent watchfulness. +And wariness. And firmness. In fact all the things that were most +foreign to his nature, thought Mr. Twist, resentful and fatigued. + +Next morning he had a cup of coffee in his room, brought by Li Koo, and +then drove himself into Acapulco in his Ford without seeing the others. +It was another of the perfect days which he was now beginning to take +as a matter of course, so many had there been since his arrival. People +talked of the wet days and of their desolate abundance once they +started, but there had been as yet no sign of them. The mornings +succeeded each other, radiant and calm. November was merging into +December in placid loveliness. "Oh yes," said Mr. Twist to himself +sardonically, as he drove down the sun-flecked lane in the gracious +light, and crickets chirped at him, and warm scents drifted across his +face, and the flowers in the grass, standing so bright and unruffled +that they seemed almost as profoundly pleased as Anna-Felicitas, nodded +at him, and everything was obviously perfectly contented and happy, "Oh +yes--I daresay." And he repeated this remark several times as he looked +round him,--he couldn't but look, it was all so beautiful. These things +hadn't to deal with Twinklers. No wonder they could be calm and bright. +So could he, if-- + +He turned a corner in the lane and saw some way down it two figures, a +man and a girl, sitting in the grass by the wayside. Lovers, of course. +"Oh yes--I daresay," said Mr. Twist again, grimly. They hadn't to deal +with Twinklers either. No wonder they could sit happily in the grass. So +could he, if-- + +At the noise of the approaching car, with the smile of the last thing +they had been saying still on their faces, the two turned their heads, +and it was that man Elliott and Anna-Felicitas. + +"Hello," called out Mr. Twist, putting on the brakes so hard that the +Ford skidded sideways along the road towards them. + +"Hello," said the young man cheerfully, waving his stick. + +"Hello," said Anna-Felicitas mildly, watching his sidelong approach +with complacent interest. + +She had no hat on, and had evidently escaped from Mrs. Bilton just as +she was. Escaped, however, was far too violent a word Mr. Twist felt; +sauntered from Mrs. Bilton better described her effect of natural and +comfortable arrival at the place where she was. + +"I didn't know you were here," said Mr. Twist addressing her when the +car had stopped. He felt it was a lame remark. He had torrents of things +he wanted to say, and this was all that came out. + +Anna-Felicitas considered it placidly for a moment, and came to the +conclusion that it wasn't worth answering, so she didn't. + +"Going into the town?" inquired Elliott pleasantly. + +"Yes. I'll give you a lift." + +"No thanks. I've just come from there." + +"I see. Then _you'd_ better come with me," said Mr. Twist to +Anna-Felicitas. + +"I'm afraid I can't. I'm rather busy this morning." + +"Really," said Mr. Twist, in a voice of concentrated sarcasm. But it had +no effect on Anna-Felicitas. She continued to contemplate him with +perfect goodwill. + +He hesitated a moment. What could he do? Nothing, that he could see, +before the young man; nothing that wouldn't make him ridiculous. He felt +a fool already. He oughtn't to have pulled up. He ought to have just +waved to them and gone on his way, and afterwards in the seclusion of +his office issued very plain directions to Anna-Felicitas as to her +future conduct. Sitting by the roadside like that! Openly; before +everybody; with a young man she had never seen twenty-four hours ago. + +He jammed in the gear and let the clutch out with such a jerk that the +car leaped forward. Elliott waved his stick again. Mr. Twist responded +by the briefest touch of his cap, and whirred down the road out of +sight. + +"Does he mind your sitting here?" asked Elliott. + +"It would be very unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas gently. "One has to +sit somewhere." + +And he laughed with delight at this answer as he laughed with delight at +everything she said, and he told her for the twentieth time that she was +the most wonderful person he had ever met, and she settled down to +listen again, after the interruption caused by Mr. Twist, with a ready +ear and the utmost complacency to these agreeable statements, and began +to wonder whether perhaps after all she mightn't at last be about to +fall in love. + +In the new interest of this possibility she turned her head to look at +him, and he told her tumultuously--for being a sailor-man he went +straight ahead on great waves when it came to love-making--that her eyes +were as if pansies had married stars. + +She turned her head away again at this, for though it sounded lovely it +made her feel a little shy and unprovided with an answer; and then he +said, again tumultuously, that her ear was the most perfect thing ever +stuck on a girl's cheek, and would she mind turning her face to him so +that he might see if she had another just like it on the other side. + +She blushed at this, because she couldn't remember whether she had +washed it lately or not--one so easily forgot one's ears; there were so +many different things to wash--and he told her that when she blushed it +was like the first wild rose of the first summer morning of the world. + +At this Anna-Felicitas was quite overcome, and subsided into a +condition of blissful, quiescent waiting for whatever might come next. +Fancy her face reminding him of all those nice things. She had seen it +every day for years and years in the looking-glass, and not noticed +anything particular about it. It had seemed to her just a face. +Something you saw out of, and ate with, and had to clean whatever else +you didn't when you were late for breakfast, because there it was and +couldn't be hidden,--an object remote indeed from pansies, and stars, +and beautiful things like that. + +She would have liked to explain this to the young man, and point out +that she feared his imagination ran ahead of the facts and that perhaps +when his leg was well again he would see things more as they were, but +to her surprise when she turned to him to tell him this she found she +was obliged to look away at once again. She couldn't look at him. Fancy +that now, thought Anna-Felicitas, attentively gazing at her toes. And he +had such dear eyes; and such a dear, eager sort of face. All the more, +then, she reasoned, should her own eyes have dwelt with pleasure on him. +But they couldn't. "Dear me," she murmured, watching her toes as +carefully as if they might at any moment go away and leave her there. + +"I know," said Elliott. "You think I'm talking fearful flowery stuff. +I'd have said Dear me at myself three years ago if I had ever caught +myself thinking in terms of stars and roses. But it's all the beastly +blood and muck of the war that does it,--sends one back with a rush to +things like that. Makes one shameless. Why, I'd talk to you about God +now without turning a hair. Nothing would have induced me so much as to +mention seriously that I'd even heard of him three years ago. Why, I +write poetry now. We all write poetry. And nobody would mind now being +seen saying their prayers. Why, if I were back at school and my mother +came to see me I'd hug her before everybody in the middle of the street. +Do you realize what a tremendous change that means, you little girl +who's never had brothers? You extraordinary adorable little lovely +thing?" + +And off he was again. + +"When I was small," said Anna-Felicitas after a while, still watching +her feet, "I had a governess who urged me to consider, before I said +anything, whether it were the sort of thing I would like to say in the +hearing of my parents. Would you like to say what you're saying to me in +the hearing of your parents?" + +"Hate to," said Elliott promptly. + +"Well, then," said Anna-Felicitas, gentle but disappointed. She rather +wished now she hadn't mentioned it. + +"I'd take you out of earshot," said Elliott. + +She was much relieved. She had done what she felt might perhaps be +regarded by Aunt Alice as her duty as a lady, and could now give herself +up with a calm conscience to hearing whatever else he might have to say. + +And he had an incredible amount to say, and all of it of the most highly +gratifying nature. On the whole, looking at it all round and taking one +thing with another, Anna-Felicitas came to the conclusion that this was +the most agreeable and profitable morning she had ever spent. She sat +there for hours, and they all flew. People passed in cars and saw her, +and it didn't disturb her in the least. She perfectly remembered she +ought to be helping Anna-Rose pick and arrange the flowers for the +tea-tables, and she didn't mind. She knew Anna-Rose would be astonished +and angry at her absence, and it left her unmoved. By midday she was +hopelessly compromised in the eyes of Acapulco, for the people who had +motored through the lane told the people who hadn't what they had seen. +Once a great car passed with a small widow in it, who looked astonished +when she saw the pair but had gone almost before Elliott could call out +and wave to her. + +"That's my sister," he said. "You and she will love each other." + +"Shall we?" said Anna-Felicitas, much pleased by this suggestion of +continuity in their relations; and remarked that she looked as if she +hadn't got a husband. + +"She hasn't. Poor little thing. Rotten luck. Rotten. I hate people to +die now. It seems so infernally unnatural of them, when they're not in +the fighting. He's only been dead a month. And poor old Dellogg was such +a decent chap. She isn't going anywhere yet, or I'd bring her up to tea +this afternoon. But it doesn't matter. I'll take you to her." + +"Shall you?" said Anna-Felicitas, again much pleased. Dellogg. The name +swam through her mind and swam out again. She was too busy enjoying +herself to remark it and its coincidences now. + +"Of course. It's the first thing one does." + +"What first thing?" + +"To take the divine girl to see one's relations. Once one has found her. +Once one has had"--his voice fell to a whisper--"the God-given luck to +find her." And he laid his hand very gently on hers, which were clasped +together in her lap. + +This was a situation to which Anna-Felicitas wasn't accustomed, and she +didn't know what to do with it. She looked down at the hand lying on +hers, and considered it without moving. Elliott was quite silent now, +and she knew he was watching her face. Ought she, perhaps, to be going? +Was this, perhaps, one of the moments in life when the truly judicious +went? But what a pity to go just when everything was so pleasant. Still, +it must be nearly lunch-time. What would Aunt Alice do in a similar +situation? Go home to lunch, she was sure. Yet what was lunch when one +was rapidly arriving, as she was sure now that she was, at the condition +of being in love? She must be, or she wouldn't like his hand on hers. +And she did like it. + +She looked down at it, and found that she wanted to stroke it. But would +Aunt Alice stroke it? No; Anna-Felicitas felt fairly clear about that. +Aunt Alice wouldn't stroke it; she would take it up, and shake it, and +say good-bye, and walk off home to lunch like a lady. Well, perhaps she +ought to do that. Christopher would probably think so too. But what a +pity.... Still, behaviour was behaviour; ladies were ladies. + +She drew out her right hand with this polite intention, and +instead--Anna-Felicitas never knew how it happened--she did nothing of +the sort, but quite the contrary: she put it softly on the top of his. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Meanwhile Mr. Twist had driven on towards Acapulco in a state of painful +indecision. Should he or shouldn't he take a turning he knew of a couple +of miles farther that led up an unused and practically undrivable track +back by the west side to The Open Arms, and instruct Mrs. Bilton to +proceed at once down the lane and salvage Anna-Felicitas? Should he or +shouldn't he? For the first mile he decided he would; then, as his anger +cooled, he began to think that after all he needn't worry much. The +Annas were lucidly too young for serious philandering, and even if that +Elliott didn't realize this, owing to Anna-Felicitas's great length, he +couldn't do much before he, Mr. Twist, was back again along the lane. In +this he under-estimated the enterprise of the British Navy, but it +served to calm him; so that when he did reach the turning he had made up +his mind to continue on his way to Acapulco. + +There he spent some perplexing and harassing hours. + +At the bank his reception was distinctly chilly. He wasn't used, since +his teapot had been on the market, to anything but warmth when he went +into a bank. On this occasion even the clerks were cold; and when after +difficulty--actual difficulty--he succeeded in seeing the manager, he +couldn't but perceive his unusual reserve. He then remembered what he +had put down to mere accident at the time, that as he drove up Main +Street half an hour before, all the people he knew had been looking the +other way. + +From the bank, where he picked up nothing in the way of explanation of +the American avoidance of The Open Arms, the manager going dumb at its +mere mention, he went to the solicitors who had arranged the sale of the +inn, and again in the street people he knew looked the other way. The +solicitor, it appeared, wouldn't be back till the afternoon, and the +clerk, an elderly person hitherto subservient, was curiously short about +it. + +By this time Mr. Twist was thoroughly uneasy, and he determined to ask +the first acquaintance he met what the matter was. But he couldn't find +anybody. Every one, his architect, his various experts--those genial and +frolicsome young men--were either engaged or away on business somewhere +else. He set his teeth, and drove to the Cosmopolitan to seek out old +Ridding--it wasn't a place he drove to willingly after his recent +undignified departure, but he was determined to get to the bottom of +this thing--and walking into the parlour was instantly aware of a hush +falling upon it, a holding of the breath. + +In the distance he saw old Ridding,--distinctly; and distinctly he saw +that old Ridding saw him. He was sitting at the far end of the great +parlour, facing the entrance, by the side of something vast and black +heaped up in the adjacent chair. He had the look on his pink and +naturally pleasant face of one who has abandoned hope. On seeing Mr. +Twist a ray of interest lit him up, and he half rose. The formless mass +in the next chair which Mr. Twist had taken for inanimate matter, +probably cushions and wraps, and now perceived was one of the higher +mammals, put out a hand and said something,--at least, it opened that +part of its face which is called a mouth but which to Mr. Twist in the +heated and abnormal condition of his brain seemed like the snap-to of +some great bag,--and at that moment a group of people crossed the hall +in front of old Ridding, and when the path was again clear the chair +that had contained him was empty. He had disappeared. Completely. Only +the higher mammal was left, watching Mr. Twist with heavy eyes like two +smouldering coals. + +He couldn't face those eyes. He did try to, and hesitated while he +tried, and then he found he couldn't; so he swerved away to the right, +and went out quickly by the side door. + +There was now one other person left who would perhaps clear him up as to +the meaning of all this, and he was the lawyer he had gone to about the +guardianship. True he had been angry with him at the time, but that was +chiefly because he had been angry with himself. At bottom he had carried +away an impression of friendliness. To this man he would now go as a +last resource before turning back home, and once more he raced up Main +Street in his Ford, producing by these repeated appearances an effect of +agitation and restlessness that wasn't lost on the beholders. + +The lawyer was in his office, and disengaged. After his morning's +experience Mr. Twist was quite surprised and much relieved by being +admitted at once. He was received neither coldly nor warmly, but with +unmistakable interest. + +"I've come to consult you," said Mr. Twist. + +The lawyer nodded. He hadn't supposed he had come not to consult him, +but he was used to patience with clients, and he well knew their +preference in conversation for the self-evident. + +"I want a straight answer to a straight question," said Mr. Twist, his +great spectacles glaring anxiously at the lawyer who again nodded. + +"Go on," he said, as Mr. Twist paused. + +"What I want to know is," burst out Mr. Twist, "what the hell--" + +The lawyer put up a hand. "One moment, Mr. Twist," he said. "Sorry to +interrupt--" + +And he got up quickly, and went to a door in the partition between his +office and his clerks' room. + +"You may go out to lunch now," he said, opening it a crack. + +He then shut it, and came back to his seat at the table. + +"Yes, Mr. Twist?" he said, settling down again. "You were inquiring what +the hell--?" + +"Well, I was about to," said Mr. Twist, suddenly soothed, "but you're so +calm--" + +"Of course I'm calm. I'm a quietly married man." + +"I don't see what that's got to do with it." + +"Everything. For some dispositions, everything. Mine is one. Yours is +another." + +"Well, I guess I've not come here to talk about marriage. What I want to +know is why--" + +"Quite so," said the lawyer, as he stopped. "And I can tell you. It's +because your inn is suspected of being run in the interests of the +German Government." + +A deep silence fell upon the room. The lawyer watched Mr. Twist with a +detached and highly intelligent interest. Mr. Twist stared at the +lawyer, his kind, lavish lips fallen apart. Anger had left him. This +blow excluded anger. There was only room in him for blank astonishment. + +"You know about my teapot?" he said at last. + +"Try me again, Mr. Twist." + +"It's on every American breakfast table." + +"Including my own." + +"They wouldn't use it if they thought--" + +"My dear sir, they're not going to," said the lawyer. "They're +proposing, among other little plans for conveying the general sentiment +to your notice, to boycott the teapot. It is to be put on an unofficial +black list. It is to be banished from the hotels." + +Mr. Twist's stare became frozen. The teapot boycotted? The teapot his +mother and sister depended on and The Open Arms depended on, and all his +happiness, and the twins? He saw the rumour surging over America in +great swift waves, that the proceeds of the Twist Non-Trickler were used +for Germany. He saw--but what didn't he see in that moment of submerged +horror? Then he seemed to come to the surface again and resume reason +with a gasp. "Why?" he asked. + +"Why they're wanting to boycott the teapot?" + +"No. Why do they think the inn--" + +"The Miss Twinklers are German." + +"Half." + +"The half that matters--begging my absent wife's pardon. I know all +about that, you see. You started me off thinking them over by that ward +notion of yours. It didn't take me long. It was pretty transparent. So +transparent that my opinion of the intelligence of my fellow-townsfolk +has considerably lowered. But we live in unbalanced times. I guess it's +women at the bottom of this. Women got on to it first, and the others +caught the idea as they'd catch scarlet fever. It's a kind of scarlet +fever, this spy scare that's about. Mind you, I admit the germs are +certainly present among us." And the lawyer smiled. He thought he saw +he had made a little joke in that last remark. + +Mr. Twist was not in the condition to see jokes, and didn't smile. "Do +you mean to say those children--" he began. + +"They're not regarded as children by any one except you." + +"Well, if they're not," said Mr. Twist, remembering the grass by the +wayside in the lane and what he had so recently met in it, "I guess I'd +best be making tracks. But I know better. And so would you if you'd seen +them on the boat. Why, twelve was putting their age too high on that +boat." + +"No doubt. No doubt. Then all I can say is they've matured pretty +considerably since. Now do you really want me to tell you what is being +believed?" + +"Of course. It's what I've come for." + +"You mayn't find it precisely exhilarating, Mr. Twist." + +"Go ahead." + +"What Acapulco says--and Los Angeles, I'm told, too, and probably by +this time the whole coast--is that you threw over your widowed mother, +of whom you're the only son, and came off here with two German girls who +got hold of you on the boat--now, Mr. Twist, don't interrupt--on the +boat crossing from England, that England had turned them out as +undesirable aliens--quite so, Mr. Twist, but let me finish--that they're +in the pay of the German Government--no doubt, no doubt, Mr. Twist--and +that you're their cat's-paw. It is known that the inn each afternoon has +been crowded with Germans, among them Germans already suspected, I can't +say how rightly or how wrongly, of spying, and that these people are so +familiar with the Miss von Twinklers as to warrant the belief in a +complete secret understanding." + +For a moment Mr. Twist continued both his silence and his stare. Then he +took off his spectacles and wiped them. His hand shook. The lawyer was +startled. Was there going to be emotion? One never knew with that sort +of lips. "You're not--" he began. + +Then he saw that Mr. Twist was trying not to laugh. + +"I'm glad you take it that way," he said, relieved but surprised. + +"It's so darned funny," said Mr. Twist, endeavouring to compose his +features. "To anybody who knows those twins it's so darned funny. +Cat's-paw. Yes--rather feel that myself. Cat's-paw. That does seem a bit +of a bull's eye--" And for a second or two his features flatly refused +to compose. + +The lawyer watched him. "Yes," he said. "Yes. But the effect of these +beliefs may be awkward." + +"Oh, damned," agreed Mr. Twist, going solemn again. + +And there came over him in a flood the clear perception of what it would +mean,--the sheer disaster of it, the horrible situation those helpless +Annas would be in. What a limitless fool he must have been in his +conduct of the whole thing. His absorption in the material side of it +had done the trick. He hadn't been clever enough, not imaginative +enough, nor, failing that, worldly enough to work the other side +properly. When he found there was no Dellogg he ought to have insisted +on seeing Mrs. Dellogg, intrusion or no intrusion, and handing over the +twins; and then gone away and left them. A woman was what was wanted. +Fool that he was to suppose that he, a man, an unmarried man, could get +them into anything but a scrape. But he was so fond of them. He just +couldn't leave them. And now here they all were, in this ridiculous and +terrible situation. + +"There are two things you can do," said the lawyer. + +"Two?" said Mr. Twist, looking at him with anxious eyes. "For the life +of me I can't see even one. Except running amoke in slander actions--" + +"Tut, tut," said the lawyer, waving that aside. "No. There are two +courses to pursue. And they're not alternative, but simultaneous. You +shut down the inn--at once, to-morrow--that's Saturday. Close on +Saturday, and give notice you don't re-open--now pray let me +finish--close the inn as an inn, and use it simply as a private +residence. Then, as quick as may be, marry those girls." + +"Marry what girls?" + +"The Miss von Twinklers." + +Mr. Twist stared at him. "Marry them?" he said helplessly. "Marry them +who to?" + +"You for one." + +Mr. Twist stared at him in silence. Then he said, "You've said that to +me before." + +"Yep. And I'll say it again. I'll go on saying it till you've done it." + +"'Well, if that's all you've got to offer as a suggestion for a way +out--" + +But Mr. Twist wasn't angry this time; he was too much battered by +events; he hadn't the spirits to be angry. + +"You've--got to--marry--one--of--those--girls," said the lawyer, at each +word smiting the table with his open palm. "Turn her into an American. +Get her out of this being a German business. And be able at the same +time to protect the one who'll be your sister in-law. Why, even if you +didn't want to, which is sheer nonsense, for of course any man would +want to--I know what I'm talking about because I've seen them--it's your +plain duty, having got them into this mess." + +"But--marry which?" asked Mr. Twist, with increased helplessness and yet +a manifest profound anxiety for further advice. + +For the first time the lawyer showed impatience "Oh--either or both," he +said. "For God's sake don't be such a--" + +He pulled up short. + +"I didn't quite mean that," he resumed, again calm. "The end of that +sentence was, as no doubt you guess, fool. I withdraw it, and will +substitute something milder. Have you any objection to ninny?" + +No, Mr. Twist didn't mind ninny, or any other word the lawyer might +choose, he was in such a condition of mental groping about. He took out +his handkerchief and wiped away the beads on his forehead and round his +mouth. + +"I'm thirty-five," he said, looking terribly worried. + +Propose to an Anna? The lawyer may have seen them, but he hadn't heard +them; and the probable nature of their comments if Mr. Twist proposed to +them--to one, he meant of course, but both would comment, the one he +proposed to and the one he didn't--caused his imagination to reel. He +hadn't much imagination; he knew that now, after his conduct of this +whole affair, but all there was of it reeled. + +"I'm thirty-five," he said helplessly. + +"Pooh," said the lawyer, indicating the negligibleness of this by a +movement of his shoulder. + +"They're seventeen," said Mr. Twist. + +"Pooh," said the lawyer again, again indicating negligibleness. "My +wife was--" + +"I know. You told me that last time. Oh, I know all _that_" said Mr. +Twist with sudden passion. "But these are children. I tell you they're +_children_--" + +"Pooh," said the lawyer a third time, a third time indicating +negligibleness. + +Then he got up and held out his hand. "Well, I've told you," he said. +"You wanted to know, and I've told you. And I'll tell you one thing +more, Mr. Twist. Whichever of those girls takes you, you'll have the +sweetest, prettiest wife of any man in the world except one, and that's +the man who has the luck to get the other one. Why, sweetest and +prettiest are poor words. She'll be the most delectable, the most--" + +Mr. Twist rose from his chair in such haste that he pushed the table +crooked. His ears flamed. + +"See here," he said very loud. "I won't have you talk familiarly like +that about my wife." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Wife. The word had a remarkable effect on him. It churned him all up. +His thoughts were a chaotic jumble, and his driving on the way home +matched them. He had at least three narrow shaves at cross streets +before he got out of the town and for an entire mile afterwards he was +on the wrong side of the road. During this period, deep as he was in +confused thought, he couldn't but vaguely notice the anger on the faces +of the other drivers and the variety and fury of their gesticulations, +and it roused a dim wonder in him. + +Wife. How arid existence had been for him up to then in regard to the +affections, how knobbly the sort of kisses he had received in Clark. +They weren't kisses; they were disapproving pecks. Always disapproving. +Always as if he hadn't done enough, or been enough, or was suspected of +not going to do or be enough. + +His wife. Mr. Twist dreadfully longed to kiss somebody,--somebody kind +and soft, who would let herself be adored. She needn't even love +him,--he knew he wasn't the sort of man to set passion alight; she need +only be kind, and a little fond of him, and let him love her, and be his +very own. + +His own little wife. How sweet. How almost painfully sweet. Yes. But the +Annas.... + +When he thought of the Annas, Mr. Twist went damp. He might +propose--indeed, everything pointed to his simply having got to--but +wouldn't they very quickly dispose? And then what? That lawyer seemed to +think all he had to do was to marry them right away; not them, of +course,--one; but they were so very plural in his mind. Funny man, +thought Mr. Twist; funny man,--yet otherwise so sagacious. It is true he +need only propose to one of them, for which he thanked God, but he could +imagine what that one, and what the other one too, who would be sure to +be somewhere quite near would ... no, he couldn't imagine; he preferred +not to imagine. + +Mr. Twist's dampness increased, and a passing car got his mud-guard. It +was a big car which crackled with language as it whizzed on its way, and +Mr. Twist, slewed by the impact half across the road, then perceived on +which side he had been driving. + +The lane up to the inn was in its middle-day emptiness and somnolence. +Where Anna-Felicitas and Elliott had been sitting cool and shaded when +he passed before, there was only the pressed-down grass and crushed +flowers in a glare of sun. She had gone home long ago of course. She +said she was going to be very busy. Secretly he wished she hadn't gone +home, and that little Christopher too might for a bit be somewhere else, +so that when he arrived he wouldn't immediately have to face everybody +at once. He wanted to think; he wanted to have time to think; time +before four o'clock came, and with four o'clock, if he hadn't come to +any conclusion about shutting up the inn--and how could he if nobody +gave him time to think?--those accursed, swarming Germans. It was they +who had done all this. Mr. Twist blazed into sudden fury. They and their +blasted war.... + +At the gate stood Anna-Rose. Her face looked quite pale in the green +shade of the tunnelled-out syringa bushes. She as peering out down the +lane watching him approach. This was awful, thought Mr. Twist. At the +very gate one of them. Confronted at once. No time, not a minute's time +given him to think. + +"Oh," cried out Anna-Rose the instant he pulled up, for she had waved to +him to stop when he tried to drive straight on round to the stable, "she +isn't with you?" + +"Who isn't?" asked Mr. Twist. + +Anna-Rose became paler than ever. "She has been kidnapped," she said. + +"How's that?" said Mr. Twist, staring at her from the car. + +"Kidnapped," repeated Anna-Rose, with wide-open horror-stricken eyes; +for from her nursery she carried with her at the bottom of her mind, +half-forgotten but ready to fly up to the top at any moment of panic, an +impression that the chief activities and recreations of all those +Americans who weren't really good were two: they lynched, and they +kidnapped. They lynched you if they didn't like you enough, and if they +liked you too much they kidnapped you. Anna-Felicitas, exquisite and +unsuspecting, had been kidnapped. Some American's concupiscent eye had +alighted on her, observed her beauty, and marked her down. No other +explanation was possible of a whole morning's absence from duties of one +so conscientious and painstaking as Anna-Felicitas. She never shirked; +that is, she never had been base enough to shirk alone. If there was any +shirking to be done they had always done it together. As the hours +passed and she didn't appear, Anna-Rose had tried to persuade herself +that she must have motored into Acapulco with Mr. Twist, strange and +unnatural and reprehensible and ignoble as such arch shirking would have +been; and now that the car had come back empty except for Mr. Twist she +was convinced the worst had happened--her beautiful, her precious +Columbus had been kidnapped. + +"Kidnapped," she said again, wringing her hands. + +Mr. Twist was horror-struck too, for he thought she was announcing the +kidnapping of Mrs. Bilton. Somehow he didn't think of Anna-Felicitas; he +had seen her too recently. But that Mrs. Bilton should be kidnapped +seemed to him to touch the lowest depths of American criminal enterprise +and depravity. At the same time though he recoiled before this fresh +blow a thought did fan through his mind with a wonderful effect of +coolness and silence,--"Then they'll gag her," he said. + +"What?" cried Anna-Rose, as though a whip had lashed her. "Gag her?" And +pulling open the gate and running out to him as one possessed she cried +again, "Gag Columbus?" + +"Oh that's it, is it," said Mr. Twist, with relief but also with +disappointment, "Well, if it's that way I can tell you--" + +He stopped; there was no need to tell her; for round the bend of the +lane, walking bare-headed in the chequered light and shade as leisurely +as if such things as tours of absence didn't exist, or a distracted +household, or an anguished Christopher, with indeed, a complete, an +extraordinary serenity, advanced Anna-Felicitas. + +Always placid, her placidity at this moment had a shining quality. Still +smug, she was now of a glorified smugness. If one could imagine a lily +turned into a god, or a young god turned into a lily and walking down +the middle of a sun-flecked Californian lane, it wouldn't be far out, +thought Mr. Twist, as an image of the advancing Twinkler. The god would +be so young that he was still a boy, and he wouldn't be worrying much +about anything in the past or in the future, and he'd just be coming +along like that with the corners of his mouth a little turned up, and +his fair hair a little ruffled, and his charming young face full of a +sober and abstracted radiance. + +"Not much kidnapping there, I guess," said Mr. Twist with a jerk of his +thumb. "And you take it from me, Anna I.," he added quickly, leaning +over towards her, determined to get off to the garage before he found +himself faced by both twins together, "that when next your imagination +gets the jumps the best thing you can do is to hold on to it hard till +it settles down again, instead of wasting your time and ruining your +constitution going pale." + +And he started the Ford with a bound, and got away round the corner into +the yard. + +Here, in the yard, was peace; at least for the moment. The only living +thing in it was a cat the twins had acquired, through the services of +one of the experts, as an indispensable object in a really homey home. +The first thing this cat had done had been to eat the canary, which gave +the twins much unacknowledged relief. It was, they thought secretly, +quite a good plan to have one's pets inside each other,--it kept them so +quiet. She now sat unmoved in the middle of the yard, carefully cleaning +her whiskers while Mr. Twist did some difficult fancy driving in order +to get into the stable without inconveniencing her. + +Admirable picture of peace, thought Mr. Twist with a sigh of envy. + +He might have got out and picked her up, but he was glad to manoeuvre +about, reversing and making intricate figures in the dust, because it +kept him longer away from the luncheon-table. The cat took no notice of +him, but continued to deal with her whiskers even when his front wheel +was within two inches of her tail, for though she hadn't been long at +The Open Arms she had already sized up Mr. Twist and was aware that he +wouldn't hurt a fly. + +Thanks to her he had a lot of trouble getting the Ford into the stable, +all of which he liked because of that luncheon-table; and having got it +in he still lingered fiddling about with it, examining its engine and +wiping its bonnet; and then when he couldn't do that any longer he went +out and lingered in the yard, looking down at the cat with his hands in +his pockets. "I must think," he kept on saying to himself. + +"Lunchee," said Li Koo, putting his head out of the kitchen window. + +"All right," said Mr. Twist. + +He stooped down as though to examine the cat's ear. The cat, who didn't +like her ears touched but was prepared to humour him, got out of it by +lying down on her back and showing him her beautiful white stomach. She +was a black cat, with a particularly beautiful white stomach, and she +had discovered that nobody could see it without wanting to stroke it. +Whenever she found herself in a situation that threatened to become +disagreeable she just lay down and showed her stomach. Human beings in +similar predicaments can only show their tact. + +"Nice pussy--nice, nice pussy," said Mr. Twist aloud, stroking this +irresistible object slowly, and forgetting her ear as she had intended +he should. + +"Lunchee get cold," said Li Koo, again putting his head out of the +kitchen window. "Mis' Bilton say, Come in." + +"All right," said Mr. Twist. + +He straightened himself and looked round the yard. A rake that should +have been propped up against the tool-shed with some other gardening +tools had fallen down. He crossed over and picked it up and stood it up +carefully again. + +Li Koo watched him impassively from the window. + +"Mis' Bilton come out," he said; and there she was in the yard door. + +"Mr. Twist," she called shrilly, "if you don't come in right away and +have your food before it gets all mushed up with cold I guess you'll be +sorry." + +"All right--coming," he called back very loud and cheerfully, striding +towards her as one strides who knows there is nothing for it now but +courage. "All right, Mrs. Bilton--sorry if I've kept you waiting. You +shouldn't have bothered about me--" + +And saying things like this in a loud voice, for to hear himself being +loud made him feel more supported, he strode into the house, through the +house, and out on to the verandah. + +They always lunched on the verandah. The golden coloured awning was +down, and the place was full of a golden shade. Beyond it blazed the +garden. Beneath it was the flower-adorned table set as usual ready for +four, and he went out to it, strung up to finding the Annas at the +table, Anna-Felicitas in her usual seat with her back to the garden, her +little fair head outlined against the glowing light as he had seen it +every day since they had lived in the inn, Anna-Rose opposite, probably +volubly and passionately addressing her. + +And there was no one. + +"Why--" he said, stopping short. + +"Yes. It's real silly of them not to come and eat before everything is +spoilt," said Mrs. Bilton bustling up, who had stayed behind to give an +order to Li Koo. And she went to the edge of the verandah and shaded her +eyes and called, "Gurls! Gurls! I guess you can do all that talking +better after lunch." + +He then saw that down at the bottom of the garden, in the most private +place as regards being overheard, partly concealed by some arum lilies +that grew immensely there like splendid weeds, stood the twins facing +each other. + +"Better leave them alone," he said quickly. "They'll come when they're +ready. There's nothing like getting through with one's talking right +away, Mrs. Bilton. Besides," he went on still more quickly for she +plainly didn't agree with him and was preparing to sally out into the +sun and fetch them in, "you and I don't often get a chance of a quiet +chat together--" + +And this, combined with the resolute way he was holding her chair ready +for her, brought Mrs. Bilton back under the awning again. + +She was flattered. Mr. Twist had not yet spoken to her in quite that +tone. He had always been the gentleman, but never yet the eager +gentleman. Now he was unmistakably both. + +She came back and sat down, and so with a sigh of thankfulness +immediately did he, for here was an unexpected respite,--while Mrs. +Bilton talked he could think. Fortunately she never noticed if one +wasn't listening. For the first time since he had known her he gave +himself up willingly to the great broad stream that at once started +flowing over him, on this occasion with something of the comfort of +warm water, and he was very glad indeed that anyhow that day she wasn't +gagged. + +While he ate, he kept on furtively looking down the garden at the two +figures facing each other by the arum lilies. Whenever Mrs. Bilton +remembered them and wanted to call them in, as she did at the different +stages, of the meal,--at the salad, at the pudding--he stopped her. She +became more and more pleased by his evident determination to lunch alone +with her, for after all one remains female to the end, and her +conversation took on a gradual tinge of Mr. Bilton's views about second +marriages. They had been liberal views; for Mr. Bilton, she said, had +had no post-mortem pettiness about him, but they were lost on Mr. Twist, +whose thoughts were so painfully preoccupied by first marriage. + +The conclusions he came to during that trying meal while Mrs. Bilton +talked, were that he would propose first to Anna-Rose, she being the +eldest and such a course being accordingly natural, and, if she refused, +proceed at once to propose to Anna-Felicitas. But before proceeding to +Anna-Felicitas, a course he regarded with peculiar misgiving, he would +very earnestly explain to Anna-Rose the seriousness of the situation and +the necessity, the urgency, the sanity of her marrying him. These +proposals would be kept on the cool level of strict business. Every +trace of the affection with which he was so overflowing would be sternly +excluded. For instance, he wasn't going to let himself remember the feel +of Christopher's little head the afternoon before when he patted it to +comfort her. Such remembrances would be bound to bring a warmth into his +remarks which wouldn't be fair. The situation demanded the most +scrupulous fairness and delicacy in its treatment, the most careful +avoidance of taking any advantage of it. But how difficult, thought Mr. +Twist, his hand shaking as he poured himself out a glass of iced water, +how difficult when he loved the Annas so inconveniently much. + +Mrs. Bilton observed the shaking of his hand, and felt more female than +ever. + +Still, there it was, this situation forced upon them all by the war. +Nobody could help it, and it had to be faced with calmness, +steadfastness and tact. Calmness, steadfastness and tact, repeated Mr. +Twist, raising the water to his mouth and spilling some of it. + +Mrs. Bilton observed this too, and felt still more female. + +Marriage was the quickest, and really the only, way out of it. He saw +that now. The lawyer had been quite right. And marriage, he would +explain to the Annas, would be a mere formal ceremony which after the +war they--he meant, of course, she--could easily in that land of facile +and honourable divorce get rid of. Meanwhile, he would point out, +they--she, of course; bother these twins--would be safely American, and +he would undertake never to intrude love on them--her--unless by some +wonderful chance, it was wanted. Some wonderful chance ... Mr. Twist's +spectacles suddenly went dim, and he gulped down more water. + +Yes. That was the line to take: the austere line of self-mortification +for the Twinkler good. One Twinkler would be his wife--again at the dear +word he had to gulp down water--and one his sister-in-law. They would +just have to agree to this plan. The position was too serious for +shilly-shallying. Yes. That was the line to take; and by the time he +had got to the coffee it was perfectly clear and plain to him. + +But he felt dreadfully damp. He longed for a liqueur, for anything that +would support him.... + +"Is there any brandy in the house?" he suddenly flung across the web of +Mrs. Bilton's words. + +"Brandy, Mr. Twist?" she repeated, at this feeling altogether female, +for what an unusual thing for him to ask for,--"You're not sick?" + +"With my coffee," murmured Mr. Twist, his mouth very slack, his head +drooping. "It's nice...." + +"I'll go and see," said Mrs. Bilton, getting up briskly and going away +rattling a bunch of keys. + +At once he looked down the garden. Anna-Felicitas was in the act of +putting her arm round Anna-Rose's shoulder, and Anna-Rose was +passionately disengaging herself. Yes. There was trouble there. He knew +there would be. + +He gulped down more water. + +Anna-Felicitas couldn't expect to go off like that for a whole morning +and give Anna-Rose a horrible fright without hearing about it. Besides, +the expression on her face wanted explaining,--a lot of explaining. Mr. +Twist didn't like to think so, but Anna-Felicitas's recent conduct +seemed to him almost artful. It seemed to him older than her years. It +seemed to justify the lawyer's scepticism when he described the twins to +him as children. That young man Elliott-- + +But here Mr. Twist started and lost his thread of thought, for looking +once more down the garden he saw that Anna-Felicitas was coming towards +the verandah, and that she was alone. Anna-Rose had vanished. Why had he +bothered about brandy, and let Mrs. Bilton go? He had counted, somehow, +on beginning with Anna-Rose.... + +He seized a cigarette and lit it. He tried vainly to keep his hand +steady. Before the cigarette was fairly plight there was Anna-Felicitas, +walking in beneath the awning. + +"I'm glad you're alone," she said, "for I want to speak to you." + +And Mr. Twist felt that his hour had come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +"Hadn't you better have lunch first?" he asked, though he knew from the +look on her face that she wouldn't. It was a very remarkable look. It +was as though an angel, dwelling in perfect bliss, had unaccountably got +its feet wet. Not more troubled than that; a little troubled, but not +more than that. + +"No thank you," she said politely. "But if you've finished yours, do you +mind coming into the office? Because otherwise Mrs. Bilton--" + +"She's fetching me some brandy," said Mr. Twist. + +"I didn't know you drank," said Anna-Felicitas, even at this moment +interested. "But do you mind having it afterwards? Because otherwise +Mrs. Bilton--" + +"I guess the idea was to have it first," said Mr. Twist. + +She was however already making for the tea-room, proceeding towards it +without hurry, and with a single-mindedness that would certainly get her +there. + +He could only follow. + +In the office she said, "Do you mind shutting the door?" + +"Not at all," said Mr. Twist; but he did mind. His hour had come, and he +wasn't liking it. He wanted to begin with Anna-Rose. He wanted to get +things clear with her first before dealing with this one. There was less +of Anna-Rose. And her dear little head yesterday when he patted it.... +And she needed comforting.... Anna-Rose cried, and let herself be +comforted.... And it was so sweet to Mr. Twist to comfort.... + +"Christopher--" began Anna-Felicitas, directly he had shut the door. + +"I know. She's mad with you. What can you expect, Anna II.?" he +interrupted in a very matter-of-fact voice, leaning against a bookcase. +Even a bookcase was better than nothing to lean against. + +"Christopher is being unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas, her voice +softer and gentler than he had yet heard it. + +Then she stopped, and considered him a moment with much of the look of +one who on a rather cold day considers the sea before diving in--with, +that is, a slight but temporary reluctance to proceed. + +"Won't you sit down?" said Mr. Twist. + +"Perhaps I'd better," she said, disposing herself in the big chair. +"It's very strange, but my legs feel funny. You wouldn't think being in +love would make one want to sit down." + +"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Twist. + +"I have fallen in love," said Anna-Felicitas, looking up at him with a +kind of pensive radiance. "I did it this morning." + +Mr. Twist stared at her. "I beg your--what did you say?" he asked. + +She said, still with that air as she regarded him of pensive radiance, +of not seeing him but something beyond him that was very beautiful to +her and satisfactory, "I've fallen in love, and I can't tell you how +pleased I am because I've always been afraid I was going to find it a +difficult thing to do. But it wasn't. Quite the contrary." + +Then, as he only staged at her, she said, "He's coming round this +afternoon on the new footing, and I wanted to prepare your and +Christopher's minds in good time so that you shouldn't be surprised." + +And having said this she lapsed into what was apparently, judging from +her expression, a silent contemplation of her bliss. + +"But you're too young," burst out Mr. Twist. + +"Too young?" repeated Anna-Felicitas, coming out of her contemplation +for a moment to smile at him. "We don't think so." + +Well. This beat everything. + +Mr. Twist could only stare down at her. + +Conflicting emotions raged in him. He couldn't tell for a moment what +they were, they were so violent and so varied. How dared Elliott. How +dared a person they had none of them heard of that time yesterday come +making love to a girl he had never seen before. And in such a hurry. So +suddenly. So instantly. Here had he himself been with the twins +constantly for weeks, and wouldn't have dreamed of making love to them. +They had been sacred to him. And it wasn't as if he hadn't wanted to hug +them often and often, but he had restrained himself as a gentleman +should from the highest motives of delicacy, and consideration, and +respect, and propriety, besides a great doubt as to whether they +wouldn't very energetically mind. And then comes along this blundering +Britisher, and straight away tumbles right in where Mr. Twist had feared +to tread, and within twenty-four hours had persuaded Anna-Felicitas to +think she was in love. New footing indeed. There hadn't been an old +footing yet. And who was this Elliott? And how was Mr. Twist going to be +able to find out if he were a proper person to be allowed to pay his +addresses to one so precious as a Twinkler twin? + +Anger, jealousy, anxiety, sense of responsibility and mortification, all +tumbled about furiously together inside Mr. Twist as he leaned against +the bookcase and gazed down at Anna-Felicitas, who for her part was +gazing beatifically into space; but through the anger, and the jealousy, +and the anxiety, and the sense of responsibility and mortification one +great thought was struggling, and it finally pushed every other aside +and got out to the top of the welter: here, in the chair before him, he +beheld his sister-in-law. So much at least was cleared up. + +He crossed to the bureau and dragged his office-stool over next to her +and sat down. "So that's it, is it?" he said, trying to speak very +calmly, but his face pulled all sorts of ways, as it had so often been +since the arrival in his life of the twins. + +"Yes," she said, coming out of her contemplation. "It's love at last." + +"I don't know about at last. Whichever way you look at it, Anna II., +that don't seem to hit it off as a word. What I meant was, it's +Elliott." + +"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Which is the same thing. I believe," she +added, "I now have to allude to him as John." + +Mr. Twist made another effort to speak calmly. "You don't," he said, +"think it at all unusual or undesirable that you should be calling a man +John to-day of whom you'd never heard yesterday." + +"I think it's wonderful," said Anna-Felicitas beaming. + +"It doesn't strike you in any way as imprudent to be so hasty. It +doesn't strike you as foolish." + +"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas. "I can't help thinking I've +been very clever. I shouldn't have thought it of myself. You see, I'm +not _naturally_ quick." And she beamed with what she evidently regarded +as a pardonable pride. + +"It doesn't strike you as even a little--well, a little improper." + +"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas. "Aunt Alice told us that the one +man one could never be improper about, even if one tried, was one's +husband." + +"Husband?" Mr. Twist winced. He loved, as we have seen, the word wife, +but then that was different. + +"It's not time yet to talk of husbands," he said, full of a flaming +unreasonableness and jealousy and the sore feeling that he who had been +toiling so long and so devotedly in the heat of the Twinkler sun had had +a most unfair march stolen on him by this eleventh-hour stranger. + +He flamed with unreasonableness. Yet he knew this was the solution of +half his problem,--and of much the worst half, for it was after all +Anna-Felicitas who had produced the uncomfortable feeling of +slipperiness, of eels; Anna-Rose had been quite good, sitting in a chair +crying and just so sweetly needing comfort. But now that the solution +was presented to him he was full of fears. For on what now could he base +his proposal to Anna-Rose? Elliott would be the legitimate protector of +both the Twinklers. Mr. Twist, who had been so much perturbed by the +idea of having to propose to one or other twin, was miserably upset by +the realization that now he needn't propose to either. Elliott had cut +the ground from under his feet. He had indeed--what was the expression +he used the evening before?--yes, nipped in. There was now no necessity +for Anna-Rose to marry him, and Mr. Twist had an icy and forlorn +feeling that on no other basis except necessity would she. He was +thirty-five. It was all very well for Elliott to get proposing to people +of seventeen; he couldn't be more than twenty-five. And it wasn't only +age. Mr. Twist hadn't shaved before looking-glasses for nothing, and he +was very distinctly aware that Elliott was extremely attractive. + +"It's not time yet to talk of husbands," he therefore hotly and +jealously said. + +"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas gently, "it's not only time but +war-time. The war, I have observed, is making people be quick and sudden +about all sorts of things." + +"You haven't observed it. That's Elliott said that." + +"He may have," said Anna-Felicitas. "He said so many things--" + +And again she lapsed into contemplation; into, thought Mr. Twist as he +gazed jealously at her profile, an ineffable, ruminating, reminiscent +smugness. + +"See here, Anna II.," he said, finding it impossibly painful to wait +while she contemplated, "suppose you don't at this particular crisis +fall into quite so many ecstatic meditations. There isn't as much time +as you seem to think." + +"No--and there's Christopher," said Anna-Felicitas, giving herself a +shake, and with that slightly troubled look coming into her face again +as of having, in spite of being an angel in glory, somehow got her feet +wet. + +"Precisely," said Mr. Twist, getting up and walking about the room. +"There's Christopher. Now Christopher, I should say, would be pretty +well heart-broken over this." + +"But that's so unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas with gentle +deprecation. + +"You're all she has got, and she'll be under the impression--the +remarkably vivid impression--that she's losing you." + +"But _that's_ so unreasonable. She isn't losing me. It's sheer gain. +Without the least effort or bother on her part she's acquiring a +brother-in-law." + +"Oh, I know what Christopher feels," said Mr. Twist, going up and down +the room quickly. "I know right enough, because I feel it all myself." + +"But _that's_ so unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas earnestly. "Why +should two of you be feeling things that aren't?" + +"She has always regarded herself as responsible for you, and I shouldn't +be surprised if she were terribly shocked at your conduct." + +"But there has to _be_ conduct," said Anna-Felicitas, still very gentle, +but looking as though her feet were getting wetter. "I don't see how +anybody is ever to fall in love unless there's been some conduct first." + +"Oh, don't argue--don't argue. You can't expect Anna-Rose not to mind +your wanting to marry a perfect stranger, a man she hasn't even seen." + +"But everybody you marry started by being a perfect stranger and +somebody you hadn't ever seen," said Anna-Felicitas. + +"Oh Lord, if only you wouldn't _argue_!" exclaimed Mr. Twist. "And as +for your aunt in England, what's she going to say to this +twenty-four-hours, quick-lunch sort of engagement? She'll be terribly +upset. And Anna-Rose knows that, and is I expect nigh worried crazy." + +"But what," asked Anna-Felicitas, "have aunts to do with love?" + +Then she said very earnestly, her face a little flushed, her eyes +troubled, "Christopher said all that you're saying now, and a lot more, +down in the garden before I came to you, and I said what I've been +saying to you, and a lot more, but she wouldn't listen. And when I found +she wouldn't listen I tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't be +comforted. And then I came to you; for besides wanting to tell you what +I've done I wanted to ask you to comfort Christopher." + +Mr. Twist paused a moment in his walk. "Yes," he said, staring at the +carpet. "Yes. I can very well imagine she needs it. But I don't suppose +anything I would say--" + +"Christopher is very fond of you," said Anna-Felicitas gently. + +"Oh yes. You're both very fond of me," said Mr. Twist, pulling his mouth +into a crooked and unhappy smile. + +"We love you," said Anna-Felicitas simply. + +Mr. Twist looked at her, and a mist came over his spectacles. "You dear +children," he said, "you dear, dear children--" + +"I don't know about children--" began Anna-Felicitas; but was +interrupted by a knock at the door. + +"It's only the brandy," said Mr. Twist, seeing her face assume the +expression he had learned to associate with the approach of Mrs. Bilton. +"Take it away, please Mrs. Bilton," he called out, "and put it on the--" + +Mrs. Bilton however, didn't take anything away, but opened the door an +inch instead. "There's someone wants to speak to you, Mr. Twist," she +said in a loud whisper, thrusting in a card. "He says he just must. I +found him on the verandah when I took your brandy out, and as I'm not +the woman to leave a stranger alone with good brandy I brought him in +with me, and he's right here back of me in the tea-room." + +"It's John," remarked Anna-Felicitas placidly. "Come early." + +"I say--" said a voice behind Mrs. Bilton. + +"Yes," nodded Anna-Felicitas, getting up out of the deep chair. "That's +John." + +"I say--may I come in? I've got something important--" + +Mr. Twist looked at Anna-Felicitas. "Wouldn't you rather--?" he began. + +"I don't mind John," she said softly, her face flooded with a most +beautiful light. + +Mr. Twist opened the door and went out. "Come in," he said. "Mrs. +Bilton, may I present Mr. Elliott to you--Commander Elliott of the +British Navy." + +"Pleased to meet you, Commander Elliott," said Mrs. Bilton. "Mr. Twist, +your brandy is on the verandah. Shall I bring it to you in here?" + +"No thank you, Mrs. Bilton. I'll go out there presently. Perhaps you +wouldn't mind waiting for me there--I don't suppose Mr. Elliott will +want to keep me long. Come in, Mr. Elliott." + +And having disposed of Mrs. Bilton, who was in a particularly willing +and obedient and female mood, he motioned Elliott into the office. + +There stood Anna-Felicitas. + +Elliott stopped dead. + +"This isn't fair," he said, his eyes twinkling and dancing. + +"What isn't?" inquired Anna-Felicitas gently, beaming at him. + +"Your being here. I've got to talk business. Look here, sir," he said, +turning to Mr. Twist, "could _you_ talk business with her there?" + +"Not if she argued," said Mr. Twist. + +"Argued! I wouldn't mind her arguing. It's just her being there. I've +got to talk business," he said, turning to Anna-Felicitas,--"business +about marrying you. And how can I with you standing there looking +like--well, like that?" + +"I don't know," said Anna-Felicitas placidly, not moving. + +"But you'll interrupt--just your being there will interrupt. I shall see +you out of the corner of my eye, and it'll be impossible not to--I mean +I know I'll want to--I mean, Anna-Felicitas my dear, it isn't done. I've +got to explain all sorts of things to your guardian--" + +"He isn't my guardian," corrected the accurate Anna-Felicitas gently. +"He only very nearly once was." + +"Well, anyhow I've got to explain a lot of things that'll take some +time, and it isn't so much explain as persuade--for I expect," he said, +turning to Mr. Twist, "this strikes you as a bit sudden, sir?" + +"It would strike anybody," said Mr. Twist trying to be stern but finding +it difficult, for Elliott was so disarmingly engaging and so disarmingly +in love. The radiance on Anna-Felicitas's face might have been almost a +reflection caught from his. Mr. Twist had never seen two people look so +happy. He had never, of course, before been present at the first +wonderful dawning of love. The whole room seemed to glow with the +surprise of it. + +"There. You see?" said Elliott, again appealing to Anna-Felicitas, who +stood smiling beatifically at him without moving. "I've got to explain +that it isn't after all as mad as it seems, and that I'm a fearfully +decent chap and can give you lots to eat, and that I've got a jolly +little sister here who's respectable and well-known besides, and I'm +going to produce references to back up these assertions, and proofs that +I'm perfectly sound in health except for my silly foot, which isn't +health but just foot and which you don't seem to mind anyhow, and how--I +ask you _how_, Anna-Felicitas my dear, am I to do any of this with you +standing there looking like--well, like that?" + +"I don't know," said Anna-Felicitas again, still not moving. + +"Anna-Felicitas, my dear," he said, "won't you go?" + +"No, John," said Anna-Felicitas gently. + +His eyes twinkled and danced more than ever. He took a step towards her, +then checked himself and looked round beseechingly at Mr. Twist. + +"_Somebody's_ got to go," he said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Twist. "And I guess it's me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +He went straight in search of Anna-Rose. + +He was going to propose to her. He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear +the idea of his previous twins, his blessed little Twinklers, both going +out of his life at the same time, and he couldn't bear, after what he +had just seen in the office, the loneliness of being left outside love. + +All his life he had stood on the door-mat outside the shut door of love. +He had had no love; neither at home, where they talked so much about it +and there wasn't any, nor, because of his home and its inhibitions got +so thoroughly into his blood, anywhere else. He had never tried to +marry,--again because of his home and his mother and the whole +only-son-of-a-widow business. He would try now. He would risk it. It was +awful to risk it, but it was more awful not to. He adored Anna-Rose. How +nearly the afternoon before, when she sat crying in his chair, had he +taken her in his arms! Why, he would have taken her into them then and +there, while she was in that state, while she was in the need of +comfort, and never let her go out of them again, if it hadn't been that +he had got the idea so firmly fixed in his head that she was a child. +Fool that he was. Elliott had dispelled that idea for him. It wasn't +children who looked as Anna-Felicitas had looked just now in the office. +Anna-Rose, it is true, seemed younger than Anna-Felicitas, but that was +because she was little and easily cried. He loved her for being little. +He loved her because she easily cried. He yearned and hungered to +comfort, to pet to take care of. He was, as has been pointed out, a born +mother. + +Avoiding the verandah and Mrs. Bilton, Mr. Twist filled with +recklessness, hurried upstairs and knocked at Anna-Rose's door. No +answer. He listened. Dead silence. He opened it a slit and peeped in. +Emptiness. Down he went again and made for the kitchen, because Li Koo, +who always knew everything, might know where she was. Li Koo did. He +jerked his head towards the window, and Mr. Twist hurried to it and +looked out. There in the middle of the yard was the cat, exactly where +he had left her an hour before, and kneeling beside her stroking her +stomach was Anna-Rose. + +She had her back to the house and her face was hidden. The sun streamed +down on her bare head and on the pale gold rings of hair that frisked +round her neck. She didn't hear him till he was close to her, so much +absorbed was she apparently in the cat; and when she did she didn't look +up, but bent her head lower than before and stroked more assiduously. + +"Anna-Rose," said Mr. Twist. + +"Yes." + +"Come and talk to me." + +"I'm thinking." + +"Don't think. Come and talk to me, little--little dear one." + +She bent her head lower still. "I'm thinking," she said again. + +"Come and tell me what you're thinking." + +"I'm thinking about cats." + +"About cats?" said Mr. Twist, uncertainly. + +"Yes," said Anna-Rose, stroking the cat's stomach faster and carefully +keeping her face hidden from him. "About how wise and wonderful they +are." + +"Well then if that's all, you can go on with that presently and come and +talk to me now." + +"You see," said Anna-Rose, not heeding this, "they're invariably twins, +and more than twins, for they're often fours and sometimes sixes, but +still they sit in the sun quietly all their lives and don't mind a bit +what their--what their twins do--" + +"Ah," said Mr. Twist. "Now I'm getting there." + +"They don't mind a bit about anything. They just clean their whiskers +and they purr. Perhaps it's that that comforts them. Perhaps if I--if I +had whiskers and a--and a purr--" + +The cat leaped suddenly to her feet and shook herself violently. +Something hot and wet had fallen on her beautiful stomach. + +Anna-Rose made a little sound strangers might have taken for a laugh as +she put out her arms and caught her again, but it was a sound so +wretched, so piteous in the attempt to hide away from him, that Mr. +Twist's heart stood still. "Oh, don't go," she said, catching at the cat +and hugging her tight, "I can't let _you_ go--" And she buried her face +in her fur, so that Mr. Twist still couldn't see it. + +"Now that's enough about the cat," he said, speaking very firmly. +"You're coming with me." And he stooped and picked her up, cat and all, +and set her on her feet. + +Then he saw her face. + +"Good God, Anna-Rose!" he exclaimed. + +"I did try not to show you," she said; and she added, taking shelter +behind her pride and looking at him as defiantly as she could out of +eyes almost closed up, "but you mustn't suppose just because I happen +to--to seem as if I'd been crying that I--that I'm minding anything." + +"Oh no," said Mr. Twist, who at sight of her face had straightway +forgotten about himself and his longings and his proposals, and only +knew that he must comfort Christopher. "Oh no," he said, looking at her +aghast, "I'm not supposing we're minding anything, either of us." + +He took her by the arm. Comfort Christopher; that's what he had got to +do. Get rid as quickly as possible of that look of agony--yes, it was +downright agony--on her face. + +He thought he guessed what she was thinking and feeling; he thought--he +was pretty sure--she was thinking and feeling that her beloved Columbus +had gone from her, and gone to a stranger, in a day, in a few hours, to +a stranger she had never even seen, never even heard of; that her +Columbus had had secrets from her, had been doing things behind her +back; that she had had perfect faith and trust in her twin, and now was +tasting the dreadful desolation of betrayal; and he also guessed that +she must be sick with fears,--for he knew how responsible she felt, how +seriously she took the charge of her beautiful twin--sick with fear +about this unknown man, sick with the feeling of helplessness, of +looking on while Columbus rushed into what might well be, for all any +one knew, a deadly mess-up of her happiness. + +Well, he could reason her out of most of this, he felt. Certainly he +could reassure her about Elliott, who did inspire one with confidence, +who did seem, anyhow outwardly, a very fitting mate for Anna-Felicitas. +But he was aghast at the agony on her face. All that he guessed she was +thinking and feeling didn't justify it. It was unreasonable to suffer so +violently on account of what was, after all, a natural happening. But +however unreasonable it was, she was suffering. + +He took her by the arm. "You come right along with me," he said; and led +her out of the yard, away from Li Koo and the kitchen window, towards +the eucalyptus grove behind the house. "You come right along with me," +he repeated, holding her firmly for she was very wobbly on her feet, +"and we'll tell each other all about the things we're not minding. Do +you remember when the _St. Luke_ left Liverpool? You thought I thought +you were minding things then, and were very angry with me. We've made +friends since, haven't we, and we aren't going to mind anything ever +again except each other." + +But he hardly knew what he was saying, so great was his concern and +distress. + +Anna-Rose went blindly. She stumbled along, helped by him, clutching the +cat. She couldn't see out of her swollen eyes. Her foot caught in a +root, and the cat, who had for some minutes past been thoroughly uneasy, +became panic-stricken and struggled out of her arms, and fled into the +wood. She tried to stop it, but it would go. For some reason this broke +down her self-control. The warm cat clutched to her breast had at least +been something living to hold on to. Now the very cat had gone. Her +pride collapsed, and she tumbled against Mr. Twist's arm and just +sobbed. + +If ever a man felt like a mother it was Mr. Twist at that moment. He +promptly sat her down on the grass. "There now--there, there now," he +said, whipping out his handkerchief and anxiously mopping up her face. +"This is what I did on the _St. Luke_--do you remember?--there now--that +time you told me about your mother--it looks like being my permanent +job--there, there now--don't now--you'll have no little eyes left soon +if you go on like this--" + +"Oh but--oh but--Co-Columbus--" + +"Yes, yes I know all about Columbus. Don't you worry about her. She's +all right. She's all right in the office at this moment, and we're all +right out here if only you knew it, if only you wouldn't cry such +quantities. It beats me where it all comes from, and you so +little--there, there now--" + +"Oh but--oh but Columbus--" + +"Yes, yes, I know--you're worrying yourself sick because you think +you're responsible for her to your aunt and uncle, but you won't be, you +know, once she's married--there, there now--" + +"Oh but--oh but--" + +"Now don't--now please--yes, yes, I know--he's a stranger, and you +haven't seen him yet, but everybody was a stranger once," said Mr. +Twist, quoting Anna-Felicitas's own argument, the one that had +especially irritated him half-an-hour before, "and he's real good--I'm +sure of it. And you'll be sure too the minute you see him. That's to +say, if you're able to see anything or anybody for the next week out of +your unfortunate stuck-together little eyes." + +"Oh but--oh but--you don't--you haven't--" + +"Yes, yes, I have. Now turn your face so that I can wipe the other side +properly. There now, I caught an enormous tear. I got him just in time +before he trickled into your ear. Lord, how sore your poor little eyes +are. Don't it even cheer you to think you're going to be a +sister-in-law, Anna-Rose?" + +"Oh but you don't--you haven't--" she sobbed, her face not a whit less +agonized for all his reassurances. + +"Well, I know I wish I were going to be a brother-in-law," said Mr. +Twist, worried by his inability to reassure, as he tenderly and +carefully dabbed about the corners of her eyes and her soaked eyelashes. +"My, shouldn't I think well of myself." + +Then his hand shook. + +"I wish I were going to be Anna-Felicitas's brother-in-law," he said, +suddenly impelled, perhaps by this failure to get rid of the misery in +her face, to hurl himself on his fate. "Not _yours_--get your mind quite +clear about that,--but Anna-Felicitas's." And his hand shook so much +that he had to leave off drying. For this was a proposal. If only +Anna-Rose would see it, this was a proposal. + +Anna-Rose, however, saw nothing. Even in normal times she +wasn't good at relationships, and had never yet understood the +that-man's-father-was-my-father's-son one; now she simply didn't +hear. She was sitting with her hands limply in her lap, and sobbing +in a curious sort of anguish. + +He couldn't help being struck by it. There was more in this than he had +grasped. Again he forgot himself and his proposal. Again he was +overwhelmed by the sole desire to help and comfort. + +He put his hand on the two hands lying with such an air of being +forgotten on her lap. "What is it?" he asked gently. "Little dear one, +tell me. It's clear I'm not dead on to it yet." + +"Oh--Columbus--" + +She seemed to writhe in her misery. + +"Well yes, yes Columbus. We know all about that." + +Anna-Rose turned her quivering face to him. "Oh, you haven't seen--you +don't see--it's only me that's seen--" + +"Seen what? What haven't I seen? Ah, don't cry--don't cry like that--" + +"Oh, I've lost her--lost her--" + +"Lost her? Because she's marrying?" + +"Lost her--lost her--" sobbed Anna-Rose. + +"Come now," remonstrated Mr. Twist. "Come now. That's just flat contrary +to the facts. You've lost nothing, and you've gained a brother." + +"Oh,--lost her--lost her," sobbed Anna-Rose. + +"Come, come now," said Mr. Twist helplessly. + +"Oh," she sobbed, looking at him out of her piteous eyes, "has nobody +thought of it but me? Columbus hasn't. I--I know she hasn't from +what--from what--she said. She's too--too happy to think. But--haven't +you thought--haven't you seen--that she'll be English now--really +English--and go away from me to England with him--and I--I can't go to +England--because I'm still--I'm still--an alien enemy--and so I've lost +her--lost her--lost my own twin--" + +And Anna-Rose dropped her head on to her knees and sobbed in an +abandonment of agony. + +Mr. Twist sat without saying or doing anything at all. He hadn't thought +of this; nor, he was sure, had Anna-Felicitas. And it was true. Now he +understood Anna-Rose's face and the despair of it. He sat looking at +her, overwhelmed by the realization of her misfortune. For a moment he +was blinded by it, and didn't see what it would mean for him. Then he +did see. He almost leaped, so sudden was the vision, and so luminous. + +"Anna-Rose," he said, his voice trembling, "I want to put my arm round +you. That's because I love you. And if you'll let me do that I could +tell you of a way there is out of this for you. But I can't tell you so +well unless--unless you let me put my arm round you first...." + +He waited trembling. She only sobbed. He couldn't even be sure she was +listening. So he put his arm round her to try. At least she didn't +resist. So he drew her closer. She didn't resist that either. He +couldn't even be sure she knew about it. So he put his other arm round +her too, and though he couldn't be sure, he thought--he hardly dared +think, but it did seem as if--she nestled. + +Happiness, such as in his lonely, loveless life he had never imagined, +flooded Mr. Twist. He looked down at her face, which was now so close to +his, and saw that her eyes were shut. Great sobs went on shaking her +little body, and her tears, now that he wasn't wiping them, were rolling +down her cheeks unchecked. + +He held her closer to him, close to his heart where she belonged, and +again he had that sensation, that wonderful sensation, of nestling. + +"Little Blessed, the way out is so simple," he whispered. "Little +Blessed, don't you see?" + +But whether Anna-Rose saw seemed very doubtful. There was only that +feeling, as to which he was no doubt mistaken, of nestling to go on. Her +eyes, anyhow, remained shut, and her body continued to heave with sobs. + +He bent his head lower. His voice shook. "It's so, so simple," he +whispered. "All you've got to do is to marry me." + +And as she made an odd little movement in his arms he held her tighter +and began to talk very fast. + +"No, no," he said, "don't answer anything yet. Just listen. Just let me +tell you first. I want to tell you to start with how terribly I love +you. But that doesn't mean you've got to love me--you needn't if you +don't want to--if you can't--if you'd rather not I'm eighteen years +older than you, and I know what I'm like to look at--no, don't say +anything yet--just listen quiet first--but if you married me you'd be an +American right away, don't you see? Just as Anna-Felicitas is going to +be English. And I always intended going back to England as soon as may +be, and if you married me what is to prevent your coming too? Coming to +England? With Anna-Felicitas and her husband. Anna-Rose--little +Blessed--think of it--all of us together. There won't be any aliens in +that quartette, I guess, and the day you marry me you'll be done with +being German for good and all. And don't you get supposing it matters +about your not loving me, because, you see, I love you so much, I adore +you so terribly, that anyhow there'll be more than enough love to go +round, and you needn't ever worry about contributing any if you don't +feel like it--" + +Mr. Twist broke off abruptly. "What say?" he said, for Anna-Rose was +making definite efforts to speak. She was also making definite and +unmistakable movements, and this time there could be no doubt about it; +she was coming closer. + +"What say?" said Mr. Twist breathlessly, bending his head. + +"But I do," whispered Anna-Rose. + +"Do what?" said Mr. Twist, again breathlessly. + +She turned her face up to his. On it was the same look he had lately +seen on Anna-Felicitas's, shining through in spite of the disfiguration +of her tears. + +"But--_of course_ I do," whispered Anna-Rose, an extraordinary smile, +an awe-struck sort of smile, coming into her face at the greatness of +her happiness, at the wonder of it. + +"What? Do what?" said Mr. Twist, still more breathlessly. + +"I--always did," whispered Anna-Rose. + +"_What_ did you always did?" gasped Mr. Twist, hardly able to believe +it, and yet--and yet--there on her little face, on her little +transfigured face, shone the same look. + +"Oh--_love_ you," sighed Anna-Rose, nestling as close as she could get. + + * * * * * + +It was Mr. Twist himself who got on a ladder at five minutes past four +that afternoon and pasted a strip of white paper obliquely across the +sign of The Open Arms with the word. + + SHUT + +on it in big letters. Li Koo held the foot of the ladder. Mr. Twist had +only remembered the imminence of four o'clock and the German inrush a +few minutes before the hour, because of his being so happy; and when he +did he flew to charcoal and paper. He got the strip on only just in +time. A car drove up as he came down the ladder. + +"What?" exclaimed the principal male occupant of the car, pointing, +thwarted and astonished, to the sign. + +"Shut," said Mr. Twist. + +"Shut?" + +"Shut." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14646 *** |