Christopher and Columbus Part 19

"Oh thank you--it's good of you, it's good of you. The effect, you see, is that I can't think very clearly. But do tell me--why luggage?

Luggage--luggage. You mean, I suppose, baggage."

"Why luggage?" asked Anna-Rose nervously. "Isn't there--isn't there always luggage in America too when people come to stay with one?"

"You've come to stay with me," said Mr. Sack, putting his hand to his forehead again.

"You see," said Anna-Felicitas, "we're the Twinklers."

"Yes, yes--I know. You've told me that."

"So naturally we've come."

"But _is_ it natural?" asked Mr. Sack, looking at them distractedly.

"We sent you a telegram," said Anna-Rose, "or rather one to Mrs. Sack, which is the same thing--"

"It isn't, it isn't," said the distressed Mr. Sack. "I wish it were. It ought to be. Mrs. Sack isn't here--"

"Yes--we're very sorry to have missed her. Did she go to meet us in New York, or where?"

"Mrs. Sack didn't go to meet you. She's--gone."

"Gone where?"

"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 pa.s.sed 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."

Mr. Sack again turned bewildered eyes on to her. "Oh, aren't you a pretty--" he again began.

"When do you think Mrs. Sack will be back?" interrupted Anna-Rose.

"I wish I knew--I wish I could hope--but she's gone for a long while, I'm afraid--"

"Gone not to come back at all, do you mean?" asked Anna-Felicitas.

Mr. Sack gulped. "I'm afraid that is her intention," he said miserably.

There was a silence, in which they all stood looking at each other.

"Didn't she like you?" then inquired Anna-Felicitas.

Anna-Rose, sure that this wasn't tactful, gave her sleeve a little pull.

"Were you unkind to her?" asked Anna-Felicitas, disregarding the warning.

Mr. Sack, his fingers clasping and unclasping themselves behind his back, started walking up and down the room. Anna-Felicitas, forgetful of what Aunt Alice would have said, sat down on the edge of the table and began to be interested in Mrs. Sack.

"The wives I've seen," she remarked, watching Mr. Sack with friendly and interested eyes, "who were chiefly Aunt Alice--that's Uncle Arthur's wife, the one we're the nieces of--seemed to put up with the utmost contumely from their husbands and yet didn't budge. You must have been something awful to yours."

"I wors.h.i.+pped Mrs. Sack," burst out Mr. Sack. "I wors.h.i.+pped her. I do wors.h.i.+p her. She was the handsomest, brightest woman in Boston. I was as proud of her as any man has ever been of his wife."

"Then why did she go?" asked Anna-Felicitas.

"I don't think that's the sort of thing you should ask," rebuked Anna-Rose.

"But if I don't ask I won't be told," said Ann Felicitas, "and I'm interested."

"Mrs. Sack went because I was able--I was so constructed--that I could be fond of other people as well as of her," said Mr. Sack.

"Well, _that's_ nothing unusual," said Anna-Felicitas.

"No," said Anna-Rose, "I don't see anything in that."

"I think it shows a humane and friendly spirit," said Anna-Felicitas.

"Besides, it's enjoined in the Bible," said Anna-Rose.

"I'm sure when we meet Mrs. Sack," said Anna-Felicitas very politely indeed, "much as we expect to like her we shall nevertheless continue to like other people as well. You, for instance. Will she mind that?"

"It wasn't so much that I liked other people," said Mr. Sack, walking about and thinking tumultuously aloud rather than addressing anybody, "but that I liked other people so _much_."

"I see," said Anna-Felicitas, nodding. "You overdid it. Like over-eating whipped cream. Only it wasn't you but Mrs. Sack who got the resulting ache."

"And aren't I aching? Aren't I suffering?"

"Yes, but you did the over-eating," said Anna-Felicitas.

"The world," said the unhappy Mr. Sack, quickening his pace, "is so full of charming and delightful people. Is one to shut one's eyes to them?"

"Of course not," said Anna-Felicitas. "One must love them."