“Who is it, Edward?” again called the voice inside, louder and more insistently.

Mr. Twist didn’t answer.  He was quickly turning over the situation in his mind.

He had not mentioned the twins to his mother, which would have been natural, seeing how very few hours he had of reunion with her, if she hadn’t happened to have questioned him particularly as to his fellow-passengers on the boat.  Her questions had been confined to the first-class passengers, and he had said, truthfully, that he had hardly spoken to one of them, and not at all to any of the women.

Mrs. Twist had been relieved, for she lived in dread of Edward’s becoming, as she put it to herself, entangled with ladies.  Sin would be bad enough—­for Mrs. Twist was obliged reluctantly to know that even with ladies it is possible to sin—­but marriage for Edward would be even worse, because it lasted longer.  Sin, terrible though it was, had at least this to be said for it, that it could be repented of and done with, and repentance after all was a creditable activity; but there was no repenting of marriage with any credit.  It was a holy thing, and you don’t repent of holy things,—­at least, you oughtn’t to.  If, as ill-advised young men so often would, Edward wanted as years went on to marry in spite of his already having an affectionate and sympathetic home with feminine society in it, then it seemed to Mrs. Twist most important, most vital to the future comfort of the family, that it should be someone she had chosen herself.  She had observed him from infancy, and knew much better than he what was needed for his happiness; and she also knew, if there must be a wife, what was needed for the happiness of his mother and sister.  She had not thought to inquire about the second-class passengers, for it never occurred to her that a son of hers could drift out of his natural first-class sphere into the slums of a ship, and Mr. Twist had seen no reason for hurrying the Twinklers into her mental range.  Not during those first hours, anyhow.  There would be plenty of hours, and he felt that sufficient unto the day would be the Twinklers thereof.

But the part that was really making his ears red was that he had said nothing about the evening with the twins in New York.  When his mother asked with the fondness of the occasion what had detained him, he said as many another honest man, pressed by the searching affection of relations, has said before him, that it was business.  Now it appeared that he would have to go into the dining-room and say, “No.  It wasn’t business.  It was these.”

His ears glowed just to think of it.  He hated to lie.  Specially he hated to have lied,—­at the moment, one plunged in spurred by sudden necessity, and then was left sorrowfully contemplating one’s degradation.  His own desire was always to be candid; but his mother, he well knew, could not bear the pains candour gave her.  She had been so terribly hurt, so grievously wounded when, fresh from praying,—­for before he went to Harvard he used to pray—­he had on one or two occasions for a few minutes endeavoured not to lie to her that sheer fright at the effect of his unfiliality made him apologize and beg her to forget it and forgive him.  Now she was going to be still more wounded by his having lied.