Christopher and Columbus Part 7

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 a.s.sure 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."