ly unreasonable, but then he was
very much taken aback and annoyed. What was he to do with the Annas? He
was obviously not a relation of theirs--and indeed no profiles could
have been less alike--and he didn't suppose Acapulco was behind other
parts of America in curiosity and gossip. If he stayed on at the
Cosmopolitan with the twins till Mrs. Dellogg was approachable again,
whenever that might be, every sort of question would be being asked in
whispers about who they were and what was their relationship, and
presently whenever they sat down anywhere the chairs all round them
would empty. Mr. Twist had seen the kind of thing happening in hotels
before to other people,--never to himself; never had he been in any
situation till now that was not luminously regular. And quite soon after
this with the chairs had begun to happen, the people who created these
vacancies were told by the manager--firmly in America, politely in
England, and sympathetically in France--that their rooms had been
engaged a long time ago for the very next day, and no others were
available.

The Cosmopolitan was clearly an hotel frequented by the virtuous rich.
Mr. Twist felt that he and the Annas wouldn't, in their eyes, come under
this heading, not, that is, when the other guests became aware of the
entire absence of any relationship between him and the twins. Well, for
a day or two nothing could happen; for a day or two, before his party
had had time to sink into the hotel consciousness and the manager
appeared to tell him the rooms were engaged, he could think things out
and talk them over with his companions. Perhaps he might even see Mrs.
Dellogg. The funeral, he had heard on inquiring of the hall porter was
next day. It was to be a brilliant affair, said the porter. Mr. Dellogg
had been a prominent inhabitant, free with his money, a supporter of
anything there was to support. The porter talked of him as the
taxi-driver had done, regretfully and respectfully; and Mr. Twist went
to bed angrier than ever with a man who, being so valuable and so
necessary, should have neglected at such a moment to go on living.

Mr. Twist didn't sleep very well that night. He lay in his rosy room,
under a pink silk quilt, and most of the time stared out through the
open French windows with their pink brocade curtains at the great starry
night, thinking.

In that soft bed, so rosy and so silken as to have been worthy of the
relaxations of, at least, a prima donna