Mr. Twist heard no more. He finished lacing his boots in silence. What he had been so much afraid of had happened: he and the twins had got under a cloud.
The twins had been saying things. Last night they told him they had made some friends. He had been uneasy at that, and questioned them. But it appeared they had talked chiefly of their Uncle Arthur. Well, damnable as Uncle Arthur was as a man he was safe enough as a topic of conversation. He was English. He was known to people in America like the Delloggs and the Sacks. But it was now clear they must have said things besides that. Probably they had expatiated on Uncle Arthur from some point of view undesirable to American ears. The American ear was very susceptible. He hadn't been born in New England without becoming aware of that.
Mr. Twist tied his bootlaces with such annoyance that he got them into knots. He ought never to have come with the Annas to a big hotel. Yet lodgings would have been worse. Why hadn't that white-haired gasbag, Mrs. Bilton—Mr. Twist's thoughts were sometimes unjust—joined them sooner? Why had that shirker Dellogg died? He got his bootlaces hopelessly into knots.
"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.