"Brandy, Mr. Twist?" she repeated, at this feeling altogether female, for what an unusual thing for him to ask for,—"You're not sick?"
"With my coffee," murmured Mr. Twist, his mouth very slack, his head drooping. "It's nice...."
"I'll go and see," said Mrs. Bilton, getting up briskly and going away rattling a bunch of keys.
At once he looked down the garden. Anna-Felicitas was in the act of putting her arm round Anna-Rose's shoulder, and Anna-Rose was passionately disengaging herself. Yes. There was trouble there. He knew there would be.
He gulped down more water.
Anna-Felicitas couldn't expect to go off like that for a whole morning and give Anna-Rose a horrible fright without hearing about it. Besides, the expression on her face wanted explaining,—a lot of explaining. Mr. Twist didn't like to think so, but Anna-Felicitas's recent conduct seemed to him almost artful. It seemed to him older than her years. It seemed to justify the lawyer's scepticism when he described the twins to him as children. That young man Elliott—
But here Mr. Twist started and lost his thread of thought, for looking once more down the garden he saw that Anna-Felicitas was coming towards the verandah, and that she was alone. Anna-Rose had vanished. Why had he bothered about brandy, and let Mrs. Bilton go? He had counted, somehow, on beginning with Anna-Rose....
He seized a cigarette and lit it. He tried vainly to keep his hand steady. Before the cigarette was fairly plight there was Anna-Felicitas, walking in beneath the awning.
"I'm glad you're alone," she said, "for I want to speak to you."
And Mr. Twist felt that his hour had come.