"Oh," cried Mr. Sack, "somewhere else, but not to meet you. Oh," he went on after a moment in which, while the twins gazed at him, he fought with and overcame emotion, "when I heard you speaking in the hall I thought—I had a moment's hope—for a minute I believed—she had come back. So I went out. Else I couldn't have seen you. I'm not fit to see strangers—"
The things Mr. Sack said, and his fluttering, unhappy voice, were so much at variance with the stern lines of his Gibson profile that the twins viewed him with the utmost surprise. They came to no conclusion and passed no judgment because they didn't know but what if one was an American one naturally behaved like that.
"I don't think," said Anna-Felicitas gently, "that you can call us strangers. We're the Twinklers."
"Yes, yes—I know—you keep on telling me that," said Mr. Sack. "But I can't call to mind—"
"Don't you remember all Uncle Arthur's letters about us? We're the nieces he asked you to be kind to for a bit—as I'm sure," Anna-Felicitas added politely, "you're admirably adapted for being."
Mr. Sack turned his bewildered eyes on to her. "Oh, aren't you a pretty girl," he said, in the same distressed voice.
"You mustn't make her vain," said Anna-Rose, trying not to smile all over her face, while Anna-Felicitas remained as manifestly unvain as a person intent on something else would be.
"We know you got Uncle Arthur's letters about us," she continued, "because he showed us your answers back. You invited us to come and stay with you. And, as you perceive, we've done it."
"Then it must have been months ago—months ago," said Mr. Sack, "before all this—do I remember something about it? I've had such trouble since—I've been so distracted one way and another—it may have slipped away out of my memory under the stress—Mrs. Sack—" He paused and looked round the room helplessly. "Mrs. Sack—well, Mrs. Sack isn't here now."
"We're very sorry you've had trouble," said Anna-Felicitas sympathetically. "It's what everybody has, though. Man that is born of woman is full of misery. That's what the Burial Service says, and it ought to know."