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
bus