“No doubt.  No doubt.  Then all I can say is they’ve matured pretty considerably since.  Now do you really want me to tell you what is being believed?”

“Of course.  It’s what I’ve come for.”

“You mayn’t find it precisely exhilarating, Mr. Twist.”

“Go ahead.”

“What Acapulco says—­and Los Angeles, I’m told, too, and probably by this time the whole coast—­is that you threw over your widowed mother, of whom you’re the only son, and came off here with two German girls who got hold of you on the boat—­now, Mr. Twist, don’t interrupt—­on the boat crossing from England, that England had turned them out as undesirable aliens—­quite so, Mr. Twist, but let me finish—­that they’re in the pay of the German Government—­no doubt, no doubt, Mr. Twist—­and that you’re their cat’s-paw.  It is known that the inn each afternoon has been crowded with Germans, among them Germans already suspected, I can’t say how rightly or how wrongly, of spying, and that these people are so familiar with the Miss von Twinklers as to warrant the belief in a complete secret understanding.”

For a moment Mr. Twist continued both his silence and his stare.  Then he took off his spectacles and wiped them.  His hand shook.  The lawyer was startled.  Was there going to be emotion?  One never knew with that sort of lips.  “You’re not—­” he began.

Then he saw that Mr. Twist was trying not to laugh.

“I’m glad you take it that way,” he said, relieved but surprised.

“It’s so darned funny,” said Mr. Twist, endeavouring to compose his features.  “To anybody who knows those twins it’s so darned funny.  Cat’s-paw.  Yes—­rather feel that myself.  Cat’s-paw.  That does seem a bit of a bull’s eye—­” And for a second or two his features flatly refused to compose.

The lawyer watched him.  “Yes,” he said.  “Yes.  But the effect of these beliefs may be awkward.”

“Oh, damned,” agreed Mr. Twist, going solemn again.

And there came over him in a flood the clear perception of what it would mean,—­the sheer disaster of it, the horrible situation those helpless Annas would be in.  What a limitless fool he must have been in his conduct of the whole thing.  His absorption in the material side of it had done the trick.  He hadn’t been clever enough, not imaginative enough, nor, failing that, worldly enough to work the other side properly.  When he found there was no Dellogg he ought to have insisted on seeing Mrs. Dellogg, intrusion or no intrusion, and handing over the twins; and then gone away and left them.  A woman was what was wanted.  Fool that he was to suppose that he, a man, an unmarried man, could get them into anything but a scrape.  But he was so fond of them.  He just couldn’t leave them.  And now here they all were, in this ridiculous and terrible situation.

“There are two things you can do,” said the lawyer.

“Two?” said Mr. Twist, looking at him with anxious eyes.  “For the life of me I can’t see even one.  Except running amoke in slander actions—­”