"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.