No, Mr. Twist didn't mind ninny, or any other word the lawyer might choose, he was in such a condition of mental groping about. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the beads on his forehead and round his mouth. "I'm thirty-five," he said, looking terribly worried. Propose to an Anna? The lawyer may have seen them, but he hadn't heard them; and the probable nature of their comments if Mr. Twist proposed to them--to one, he meant of course, but both would comment, the one he proposed to and the one he didn't--caused his imagination to reel. He hadn't much imagination; he knew that now, after his conduct of this whole affair, but all there was of it reeled. "I'm thirty-five," he said helplessly. "Pooh," said the lawyer, indicating the negligibleness of this by a movement of his shoulder. "They're seventeen," said Mr. Twist. "Pooh," said the lawyer again, again indicating 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....