Part 46 (1/2)

”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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed? And try to stop her. And want to talk to her. And w.a.n.gelbecker actually laying his hand--no, his paw; in his annoyance Mr. Twist wouldn't admit that the object at the end of Mr.

w.a.n.gelbecker'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 n.o.body 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.