negligibleness. "My
wife was--"

"I know. You told me that last time. Oh, I know all _that_" said Mr.
Twist with sudden passion. "But these are children. I tell you they're
_children_--"

"Pooh," said the lawyer a third time, a third time indicating
negligibleness.

Then he got up and held out his hand. "Well, I've told you," he said.
"You wanted to know, and I've told you. And I'll tell you one thing
more, Mr. Twist. Whichever of those girls takes you, you'll have the
sweetest, prettiest wife of any man in the world except one, and that's
the man who has the luck to get the other one. Why, sweetest and
prettiest are poor words. She'll be the most delectable, the most--"

Mr. Twist rose from his chair in such haste that he pushed the table
crooked. His ears flamed.

"See here," he said very loud. "I won't have you talk familiarly like
that about my wife."

CHAPTER XXXVI

Wife. The word had a remarkable effect on him. It churned him all up.
His thoughts were a chaotic jumble, and his driving on the way home
matched them. He had at least three narrow shaves at cross streets
before he got out of the town and for an entire mile afterwards he was
on the wrong side of the road. During this period, deep as he was in
confused thought, he couldn't but vaguely notice the anger on the faces
of the other drivers and the variety and fury of their gesticulations,
and it roused a dim wonder in him.

Wife. How arid existence had been for him up to then in regard to the
affections, how knobbly the sort of kisses he had received in Clark.
They weren't kisses; they were disapproving pecks. Always disapproving.
Always as if he hadn't done enough, or been enough, or was suspected of
not going to do or be enough.

His wife. Mr. Twist dreadfully longed to kiss somebody,--somebody kind
and soft, who would let herself be adored. She needn't even love
him,--he knew he wasn't the sort of man to set passion alight; she need
only be kind, and a little fond of him, and let him love her, and be his
very own.

His own little wife. How sweet. How almost painfully sweet. Yes. But the
Annas....

When he thought of the Annas, Mr. Twist went damp. He might
propose--indeed, everything pointed to his simply having got to--but
wouldn't they very quickly dispose? And then what? That lawyer seemed to
think all he had to do was to marry them right away; not them, of
course,--one; but they were so very plural in his mind. Funny man,
thoug