“There,” he said.  “You sit here quiet and good.  I’ll come back about one o’clock with sandwiches and candy for your dinner, and maybe a story-book or two.  You mustn’t leave this, do you hear?  I’m going to hunt for those lodgings.”

And he was in the act of taking off his hat valedictorily when Anna-Rose again said with the same passion, “You’re not.”

“Not what?” inquired Mr. Twist, pausing with his hat in mid-air.

“Going to hunt for lodgings.  We won’t go to them.”

“Of course we won’t,” said Anna-Felicitas, with no passion but with an infinitely rock-like determination.

“And pray—­” began Mr. Twist.

“Go into lodgings alone with Mrs. Bilton?” interrupted Anna-Rose her face scarlet, her whole small body giving the impression of indignant feathers standing up on end.  “While you’re somewhere else?  Away from us?  We won’t.”

“Of course we won’t,” said Anna-Felicitas again, an almost placid quality in her determination, it was so final and so unshakable.  “Would you?”

“See here—­” began Mr. Twist.

“We won’t see anywhere,” said Anna-Rose.

“Would you,” inquired Anna-Felicitas, again reasoning with him, “like being alone in lodgings with Mrs. Bilton?”

“This is no time for conversation,” said Mr. Twist, making for the door.  “You’ve got to do what I think best on this occasion.  And that’s all about it.”

“We won’t,” repeated Anna-Rose, on the verge of those tears which always with her so quickly followed any sort of emotion.

Mr. Twist paused on his way to the door.  “Well now what the devil’s the matter with lodgings?” he asked angrily.

“It isn’t the devil, it’s Mrs. Bilton,” said Anna-Felicitas.  “Would you yourself like—­”

’But you’ve got to have Mrs. Bilton with you anyhow from to-day on.”

“But not unadulterated Mrs. Bilton.  You were to have been with us too.  We can’t be drowned all by ourselves in Mrs. Bilton. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.  But it’s only for a few days anyhow,” said Mr. Twist, who had been quite unprepared for opposition to his very sensible arrangement.

“I shouldn’t wonder if it’s only a few days now before we can all squeeze into some part of the cottage.  If you don’t mind dust and noise and workmen about all day long.”

A light pierced the gloom that had gathered round Anna-Felicitas’s soul.

“We’ll go into it to-day,” she said firmly, “Why not?  We can camp out.  We can live in those little rooms at the back over the kitchen,—­the ones you got ready for Li Koo.  We’d be on the spot.  We wouldn’t mind anything.  It would just be a picnic.”

“And we—­we wouldn’t be—­sep—­separated,” said Anna-Rose, getting it out with a gasp.

Mr. Twist stood looking at them.

“Well, of all the—­” he began, pushing his hat back.  “Are you aware,” he went on more calmly, “that there are only two rooms over that kitchen, and that you and Mrs. Bilton will have to be all together in one of them?”