Chapter 34 - Page 2

called out Mr. Twist, putting on the brakes so hard that the Ford skidded sideways along the road towards them.

"Hello," said the young man cheerfully, waving his stick.

"Hello," said Anna-Felicitas mildly, watching his sidelong approach with complacent interest.

She had no hat on, and had evidently escaped from Mrs. Bilton just as she was. Escaped, however, was far too violent a word Mr. Twist felt; sauntered from Mrs. Bilton better described her effect of natural and comfortable arrival at the place where she was.

"I didn't know you were here," said Mr. Twist addressing her when the car had stopped. He felt it was a lame remark. He had torrents of things he wanted to say, and this was all that came out.

Anna-Felicitas considered it placidly for a moment, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth answering, so she didn't.

"Going into the town?" inquired Elliott pleasantly.

"Yes. I'll give you a lift."

"No thanks. I've just come from there."

"I see. Then you'd better come with me," said Mr. Twist to Anna-Felicitas.

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm rather busy this morning."

"Really," said Mr. Twist, in a voice of concentrated sarcasm. But it had no effect on Anna-Felicitas. She continued to contemplate him with perfect goodwill.

He hesitated a moment. What could he do? Nothing, that he could see, before the young man; nothing that wouldn't make him ridiculous. He felt a fool already. He oughtn't to have pulled up. He ought to have just waved to them and gone on his way, and afterwards in the seclusion of his office issued very plain directions to Anna-Felicitas as to her future conduct. Sitting by the roadside like that! Openly; before everybody; with a young man she had never seen twenty-four hours ago.

He jammed in the gear and let the clutch out with such a jerk that the car leaped forward. Elliott waved his stick again. Mr. Twist responded by the briefest touch of his cap, and whirred down the road out of sight.

"Does he mind your sitting here?" asked Elliott.

"It would be very unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas gently. "One has to sit somewhere."

And he laughed with delight at this answer as he laughed with delight at everything she said, and he told her for the twentieth time that she was the most wonderful person he had ever met, and she settled down to listen again, after the interruption caused by Mr. Twist, with a ready ear and the utmost complacency to these agreeable statements, and began to wonder whether perhaps after all she mightn't at last be about to fall in love.

In the new interest of this possibility she turned her head to look at him, and he told her tumultuously--for being a sailor-man he went straight ahead on great waves