Christopher and Columbus - Elizabeth von Arnim

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And my sister has been becoming less so longer than you have. I assure you that's all I meant. She's less so even than I am."

      "Then," said Anna-Rose, glancing at that part of Mr. Twist's head where it appeared to be coming through his hair, "she must have got to the stage when one is called a maiden lady."

      "And if she were a German," said Anna-Felicitas suddenly, who hadn't till then said anything to Mr. Twist but only smiled widely at him whenever he happened to look her way, "she wouldn't be either a lady or a maiden, but just an It. It's very rude of Germans, I think," went on Anna-Felicitas, abstractedly smiling at the cake Mr. Twist was offering her, "never to let us be anything but Its till we've taken on some men."

      Mr. Twist expressed surprise at this way of describing marriage, and inquired of Anna-Felicitas what she knew about Germans.

      "The moment you leave off being sea-sick, Anna-F.," said Anna-Rose, turning to her severely, "you start being indiscreet. Well, I suppose," she added with a sigh to Mr. Twist, "you'd have had to know sooner or later. Our name is Twinkler."

      She watched him to see the effect of this, and Mr. Twist, perceiving he was expected to say something, said that he didn't mind that anyhow, and that he could bear something worse in the way of revelations.

      "Does it convey nothing to you?" asked Anna-Rose, astonished, for in Germany the name of Twinkler was a mighty name, and even in England it was well known.

      Mr. Twist shook his head. "Only that it sounds cheerful," he said.

      Anna-Rose watched his face. "It isn't only Twinkler," she said, speaking very distinctly. "It's von Twinkler."

      "That's German," said Mr. Twist; but his face remained serene.

      "Yes. And so are we. That is, we would be if it didn't happen that we weren't."

      "I don't think I quite follow," said Mr. Twist.

      "It is very difficult," agreed Anna-Rose. "You see, we used to have a German father."

      "But only because our mother married him," explained Anna-Felicitas. "Else we wouldn't have."

      "And though she only did it once," said Anna-Rose, "ages ago, it has dogged our footsteps ever since."

      "It's very surprising," mused Anna-Felicitas, "what marrying anybody does. You go into a church, and before you know where you are, you're all tangled up with posterity."

      "And much worse than that," said Anna-Rose, staring wide-eyed at her own past experiences, "posterity's all tangled up with you. It's really simply awful sometimes for posterity. Look at us."

      "If there hadn't been a war we'd have been all right," said Anna-Felicitas. "But directly there's a war, whoever it is you've married, if it isn't one of your own countrymen, rises up against you, just as if he were too many meringues you'd had for dinner."

      "Living or dead," said Anna-Rose, nodding, "he rises up against you."

      "Till the war we never thought at all about it," said Anna-Felicitas.

      "Either one way or the other," said Anna-Rose.

      "We never used to bother about what we were," said Anna-Felicitas. "We were just human beings, and so was everybody else just human beings."

      "We didn't mind a bit about being Germans, or about other people not being Germans."

      "But you mustn't think we mind now either," said Anna-Felicitas, "because, you see, we're not."

      Mr. Twist looked at them in turn. His ears were a little prominent and pointed, and they gave him rather the air, when he put his head on one side and looked at them, of an attentive fox-terrier. "I don't think I quite follow," he said again.

      "It is very difficult," agreed Anna-Rose.

      "It's because you've got into your head that we're German because of our father," said Anna-Felicitas. "But what's a father, when all's said and done?"

      "Well," said Mr. Twist, "one has to have him."

      "But having got him he isn't anything like as important as a mother," said Anna-Rose.

      "One hardly sees one's father," said Anna-Felicitas. "He's always busy. He's always thinking of something else."

      "Except when he looks at one and tells one to sit up straight," said Anna-Rose pointedly to Anna-Felicitas, whose habit of drooping still persisted in spite of her father's admonishments.

      "Of course he's very kind and benevolent when he happens to remember that one is there," said Anna-Felicitas, sitting up beautifully for a moment, "but that's about everything."

      "And of course," said Anna-Rose, "one's father's intentions are perfectly sound and good, but his attention seems to wander. Whereas one's mother—"

      "Yes," said Anna-Felicitas, "one's mother—"

      They broke off and looked straight in front of them. It didn't bear speaking of. It didn't bear thinking of.

      Suddenly Anna-Felicitas, weak from excessive sea-sickness, began to cry. The tears just slopped over as though no resistance of any sort were possible.

      Anna-Rose stared at her a moment horror-struck. "Look here, Anna-F.," she exclaimed, wrath in her voice, "I won't have you be sentimental—I won't have you be sentimental. … "

      And then she too began to cry.

      Well, once having hopelessly disgraced and exposed themselves, there was nothing for it but to take Mr. Twist into their uttermost confidence. It was dreadful. It was awful. Before that strange man. A person they hardly knew. Other strangers passing. Exposing their feelings. Showing their innermost miserable places.

      They writhed and struggled in their efforts to stop, to pretend they weren't crying, that it was really nothing but just tears—odd ones left over from last time, which was years and years ago—"But really years and years ago," sobbed Anna-Rose, anxiously explaining—"the years one falls down on garden paths in, and cuts one's knees, and one's mother—one's mother—c-c-c-comforts one—"

      "See here," said Mr. Twist, interrupting these incoherences, and pulling out a beautiful clean pocket-handkerchief which hadn't even been unfolded yet, "you've got to tell me all about it right away."

      And he shook out the handkerchief, and with the first-aid promptness his Red Cross experience had taught him, started competently wiping up their faces.

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      There was that about Mr. Twist which, once one had begun them, encouraged confidences; something kind about his eyes, something not too determined about his chin. He bore no resemblance to those pictures of efficient Americans in advertisements with which Europe is familiar—eagle-faced gentlemen with intimidatingly firm mouths and chins, wiry creatures, physically and mentally perfect, offering in capital letters to make you Just Like Them. Mr. Twist was the reverse of eagle-faced. He was also the reverse of good-looking; that is, he would have been very handsome indeed, as Anna-Rose remarked several days later to Anna-Felicitas, when the friendship had become a settled thing—which indeed it did as soon as Mr. Twist had finished wiping their eyes and noses that first afternoon, it being impossible, they discovered, to have one's eyes and noses wiped by somebody without being friends afterwards (for such an activity, said Anna-Felicitas, belonged to the same order of events as rescue from fire, lions, or drowning, after which in books you married him; but this having only been wiping, said Anna-Rose, the case was adequately met by friendship)—he would have been very handsome indeed if he hadn't had a face.

      "But you have to have a face," said Anna-Felicitas, who didn't think it much mattered what sort it was so long as you could eat with it and see out of it.

      "And as long as one

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