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.