And she didn’t come back.  He waited and waited, and drank and drank.  When the teapot was empty he started on the hot water.  Also he ate all the cakes, more and more deliberately, eking them out at last with slowly smoked cigarettes.  He heard all about France and Mr. Twist’s activities there; he had time to listen to the whole story of the ambulance from start to finish; and still she didn’t come back.  In vain he tried at least to get Mr. Twist off those distant fields, nearer home—­to the point, in fact, where the Twinklers were.  Mr. Twist wouldn’t budge.  He stuck firmly.  And the swing doors remained shut.  And the cakes were all eaten.  And there was nothing for it at last but to go.

So after half-an-hour of solid sitting he began slowly to get up, still spreading out the moments, with one eye on the swing doors.  It was both late and cold.  The Germans had departed, and Li Koo had lit the usual evening wood fire in the big fireplace.  It blazed most beautifully, and the young man looked at it through the window and hesitated.

“How jolly,” he said.

“Firelight is very pleasant,” agreed Mr. Twist, who had got up too.

“I oughtn’t to have stayed so long out here,” said the young man with a little shiver.

“I was thinking it was unwise,” said Mr. Twist.

“Perhaps I’d better go in and warm myself a bit before leaving.”

“I should say your best plan is to get back quickly to your sister and have a hot bath before dinner,” said Mr. Twist.

“Yes.  But I think I might just go in there and have a cup of hot coffee first.”

“There is no hot coffee at this hour,” said Mr. Twist, looking at his watch.  “We close at half-past six, and it is now ten minutes after.”

“Then there seems nothing for it but to pay my bill and go,” said the young man, with an air of cheerful adaptation to what couldn’t be helped.  “I’ll just nip in there and do that.”

“Luckily there’s no need for you to nip anywhere,” said Mr. Twist, “for surely that’s a type of movement unsuited to your sick leg.  You can pay me right here.”

And he took the young man’s five dollars, and went with him as far as the green gate, and would have helped him into the waiting car, seeing his leg wasn’t as other legs and Mr. Twist was, after all, humane, but the chauffeur was there to do that; so he just watched from the gate till the car had actually started, and then went back to the house.

He went back slowly, perturbed and anxious, his eyes on the ground.  This second day had been worse than the first.  And besides the continued and remarkable absence of Americans and the continued and remarkable presence of Germans, there was a slipperiness suddenly developed in the Annas.  He felt insecure; as though he didn’t understand, and hadn’t got hold.  They seemed to him very like eels.  And this Elliott—­what did he think he was after, anyway?