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.