“I’d like to start right in getting the rooms fixed up, Mr. Twist,” said the manager pleasantly.  “Mrs. Hart of Boston is very—­”

“See here,” said Mr. Twist, straightening himself and turning the full light of his big spectacles on to him, “I don’t care a curse for Mrs. Hart of Boston.”

The manager expressed regret that Mr. Twist should connect a curse with a lady.  It wasn’t American to do that.  Mrs. Hart—­

“Damn Mrs. Hart,” said Mr. Twist, who had become full-bodied of speech while in France, and when he was goaded let it all out.

The manager went away.  And so, two hours later, did Mr. Twist and the twins.

“I don’t know what you’ve been saying,” he said in an extremely exasperated voice, as he sat opposite them in the taxi with their grips, considerably added to and crowned by the canary who was singing, piled up round him.

“Saying?” echoed the twins, their eyes very round.

“But whatever it was you’d have done better to say something else.  Confound that bird.  Doesn’t it ever stop screeching?”

It was the twins, however, who were confounded.  So much confounded by what they considered his unjust severity that they didn’t attempt to defend themselves, but sat looking at him with proud hurt eyes.

By this time they both had become very fond of Mr. Twist, and accordingly he was able to hurt them.  Anna-Rose, indeed, was so fond of him that she actually thought him handsome.  She had boldly said so to the astonished Anna-Felicitas about a week before; and when Anna-Felicitas was silent, being unable to agree, Anna-Rose had heatedly explained that there was handsomeness, and there was the higher handsomeness, and that that was the one Mr. Twist had.  It was infinitely better than mere handsomeness, said Anna-Rose—­curly hair and a straight nose and the rest of the silly stuff—­because it was real and lasting; and it was real and lasting because it lay in the play of the features and not in their exact position and shape.

Anna-Felicitas couldn’t see that Mr. Twist’s features played.  She looked at him now in the taxi while he angrily stared out of the window, and even though he was evidently greatly stirred his features weren’t playing.  She didn’t particularly want them to play.  She was fond of and trusted Mr. Twist, and would never even have thought whether he had features or not ii Anna-Rose hadn’t taken lately to talking so much about them.  And she couldn’t help remembering how this very Christopher, so voluble now on the higher handsomeness, had said on board the St. Luke when first commenting on Mr. Twist that God must have got tired of making him by the time his head was reached.  Well, Christopher had always been an idealist.  When she was eleven she had violently loved the coachman.  Anna-Felicitas hadn’t ever violently loved anybody yet, and seeing Anna-Rose like this now about Mr. Twist made her wonder when she too was going to begin.  Surely it was time.  She hoped her inability to begin wasn’t perhaps because she had no heart.  Still, she couldn’t begin if she didn’t see anybody to begin on.