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 passed?  And try to stop her.  And want to talk to her.  And Wangelbecker actually laying his hand—­no, his paw; in his annoyance Mr. Twist wouldn’t admit that the object at the end of Mr. Wangelbecker’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 nobody 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.

“I’ll take this,” he said, laying hold of the dish of cakes.  “I’ll send Mrs. Bilton for the tea.  Go into the office, Anna-Felicitas.  Your sister is there and wants you badly.  I don’t know,” he added, as Li Koo pushed the tea-tray through the serving window, “how it strikes you about laughter, but it strikes me as sheer silly to laugh except at something.”