THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

By Booth Tarkington

Chapter I

Major Amberson had "made a fortune" in 1873, when other people werelosing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as evenMagnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt NewYork in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midlandtown spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during theperiod when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundlanddog. 

In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knewall the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a newpurchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by. Trotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs onNational Avenue and Tennessee Street; everybody recognized boththe trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summerevenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-timerivalry. For that matter, everybody knew everybody else's familyhorse-and-carriage, could identify such a silhouette half a mile downthe street, and thereby was sure who was going to market, or to areception, or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or eveningsupper. 

During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearancewas believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon theirshaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or soold; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. Old men andgovernors wore broadcloth; "full dress" was broadcloth with "doeskin"trousers; and there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant onlythat rigid, tall silk thing known to impudence as a "stove-pipe. "In town and country these men would wear no other hat, and, withoutself-consciousness, they went rowing in such hats. 

Shifting fashions of shape replaced aristocracy of texture: dressmakers, shoemakers, hatmakers, and tailors, increasing in cunning and in power, found means to make new clothes old. The long contagion of the "Derby"hat arrived: one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket; thenext it would be a spoon. Every house still kept its bootjack, buthigh-topped boots gave way to shoes and "congress gaiters"; and thesewere played through fashions that shaped them now with toes likebox-ends and now with toes like the prows of racing shells. 

Trousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the crease proved thatthe garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was "ready-made"; thesebetraying trousers were called "hand-me-downs, " in allusion to theshelf. In the early 'eighties, while bangs and bustles were havingtheir way with women, that variation of dandy known as the "dude" wasinvented: he wore trousers as tight as stockings, dagger-pointed shoes, a spoon "Derby, " a single-breasted coat called a "Chesterfield, " withshort flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar, laundered to apolish and three inches high, while his other neckgear might be a heavy, puffed cravat or a tiny bow fit for a doll's braids. With evening dresshe wore a tan overcoat so short that his black coat-tails hung visible, five inches below the over-coat; but after a season or two he lengthenedhis overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tighttrousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently, he was seenno more, though the word that had been coined for him remained in thevocabularies of the impertinent. 

It was a hairier day than this. Beards were to the wearers' fancy, and things as strange as the Kaiserliche boar-tusk moustache werecommonplace. "Side-burns" found nourishment upon childlike profiles;great Dundreary whiskers blew like tippets over young shoulders;moustaches were trained as lambrequins over forgotten mouths; and itwas possible for a Senator of the United States to wear a mist of whitewhisker upon his throat only, not a newspaper in the land finding theornament distinguished enough to warrant a lampoon. Surely no more isneeded to prove that so short a time ago we were living in another age!

At the beginning of the Ambersons' great period most of the houses ofthe Midland town were of a pleasant architecture. They lacked style, butalso lacked pretentiousness, and whatever does not pretend at all hasstyle enough. They stood in commodious yards, well shaded by leftoverforest trees, elm and walnut and beech, with here and there a line oftall sycamores where the land had been made by filling bayous from thecreek. The house of a "prominent resident, " facing Military Square, orNational Avenue, or Tennessee Street, was built of brick upon a stonefoundation, or of wood upon a brick foundation. Usually it had a "frontporch" and a "back porch"; often a "side porch, " too. There was a "fronthall"; there was a "side hall"; and sometimes a "back hall. " From the"front hall" opened three rooms, the "parlour, " the "sitting room, " andthe "library"; and the library could show warrant to its title--for somereason these people bought books. Commonly, the family sat more inthe library than in the "sitting room, " while callers, when they cameformally, were kept to the "parlour, " a place of formidable polish anddiscomfort. The upholstery of the library furniture was a little shabby;but the hostile chairs and sofa of the "parlour" always looked new. Forall the wear and tear they got they should have lasted a thousand years. 

Upstairs were the bedrooms; "mother-and-father's room" the largest; asmaller room for one or two sons another for one or two daughters; eachof these rooms containing a double bed, a "washstand, " a "bureau, " awardrobe, a little table, a rocking-chair, and often a chair or two thathad been slightly damaged downstairs, but not enough to justify eitherthe expense of repair or decisive abandonment in the attic. And therewas always a "spare-room, " for visitors (where the sewing-machineusually was kept), and during the 'seventies there developed anappreciation of the necessity for a bathroom. Therefore the architectsplaced bathrooms in the new houses, and the older houses tore out acupboard or two, set up a boiler beside the kitchen stove, and soughta new godliness, each with its own bathroom. The great American plumberjoke, that many-branched evergreen, was planted at this time. 

At the rear of the house, upstairs was a bleak little chamber, called"the girl's room, " and in the stable there was another bedroom, adjoining the hayloft, and called "the hired man's room. " House andstable cost seven or eight thousand dollars to build, and people withthat much money to invest in such comforts were classified as the Rich. They paid the inhabitant of "the girl's room" two dollars a week, and, in the latter part of this period, two dollars and a half, and finallythree dollars a week. She was Irish, ordinarily, or German or it mightbe Scandinavian, but never native to the land unless she happened to bea person of colour. The man or youth who lived in the stable had likewages, and sometimes he, too, was lately a steerage voyager, but muchoftener he was coloured. 

After sunrise, on pleasant mornings, the alleys behind the stables weregay; laughter and shouting went up and down their dusty lengths, witha lively accompaniment of curry-combs knocking against back fences andstable walls, for the darkies loved to curry their horses in the alley. Darkies always prefer to gossip in shouts instead of whispers; andthey feel that profanity, unless it be vociferous, is almost worthless. Horrible phrases were caught by early rising children and carried toolder people for definition, sometimes at inopportune moments; whileless investigative children would often merely repeat the phrases insome subsequent flurry of agitation, and yet bring about consequences soemphatic as to be recalled with ease in middle life. 

They have passed, those darky hired-men of the Midland town; and theintrospective horses they curried and brushed and whacked and amiablycursed--those good old horses switch their tails at flies no more. Forall their seeming permanence they might as well have been buffaloes--orthe buffalo laprobes that grew bald in patches and used to slide fromthe careless drivers' knees and hang unconcerned, half way to theground. The stables have been transformed into other likenesses, orswept away, like the woodsheds where were kept the stove-wood andkindling that the "girl" and the "hired-man" always quarrelled over: whoshould fetch it. Horse and stable and woodshed, and the whole tribe ofthe "hired-man, " all are gone. They went quickly, yet so silently thatwe whom they served have not yet really noticed that they are vanished. 

So with other vanishings. There were the little bunty street-cars on thelong, single track that went its troubled way among the cobblestones. At the rear door of the car there was no platform, but a step wherepassengers clung in wet clumps when the weather was bad and the carcrowded. The patrons--if not too absent-minded--put their fares into aslot; and no conductor paced the heaving floor, but the driver would rapremindingly with his elbow upon the glass of the door to his little openplatform if the nickels and the passengers did not appear to coincide innumber. A lone mule drew the car, and sometimes drew it off the track, when the passengers would get out and push it on again. They really owedit courtesies like this, for the car was genially accommodating: a ladycould whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would haltat once and wait for her while she shut the window, put on her hat andcloak, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the "girl" what to havefor dinner, and came forth from the house. 

The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry on thepart of the car: they were wont to expect as much for themselves on likeoccasion. In good weather the mule pulled the car a mile in a littleless than twenty minutes, unless the stops were too long; but when thetrolley-car came, doing its mile in five minutes and better, it wouldwait for nobody. Nor could its passengers have endured such a thing, because the faster they were carried the less time they had to spare! Inthe days before deathly contrivances hustled them through their lives, and when they had no telephones--another ancient vacancy profoundlyresponsible for leisure--they had time for everything: time to think, totalk, time to read, time to wait for a lady!

They even had time to dance "square dances, " quadrilles, and "lancers";they also danced the "racquette, " and schottisches and polkas, andsuch whims as the "Portland Fancy. " They pushed back the sliding doorsbetween the "parlour" and the "sitting room, " tacked down crash overthe carpets, hired a few palms in green tubs, stationed three or fourItalian musicians under the stairway in the "front hall"--and had greatnights!

But these people were gayest on New Year's Day; they made it a truefestival--something no longer known. The women gathered to "assist" thehostesses who kept "Open House"; and the carefree men, dandified andperfumed, went about in sleighs, or in carriages and ponderous "hacks, "going from Open House to Open House, leaving fantastic cards in fancybaskets as they entered each doorway, and emerging a little later, morecarefree than ever, if the punch had been to their liking. It alwayswas, and, as the afternoon wore on, pedestrians saw great gesturing andwaving of skin-tight lemon gloves, while ruinous fragments of song weredropped behind as the carriages rolled up and down the streets. 

"Keeping Open House" was a merry custom; it has gone, like the all-daypicnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all vanished customs, the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not longgo unserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse aserenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra undera pretty girl's window--or, it might be, her father's, or that of anailing maiden aunt--and flute, harp, fiddle, 'cello, cornet, and bassviol would presently release to the dulcet stars such melodies as singthrough "You'll Remember Me, " "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls, ""Silver Threads Among the Gold, " "Kathleen Mavourneen, " or "TheSoldier's Farewell. "

They had other music to offer, too, for these were the happy daysof "Olivette" and "The Macotte" and "The Chimes of Normandy" and"Girofle-Girofla" and "Fra Diavola. " Better than that, these were thedays of "Pinafore" and "The Pirates of Penzance" and of "Patience. " Thislast was needed in the Midland town, as elsewhere, for the "aestheticmovement" had reached thus far from London, and terrible things werebeing done to honest old furniture. Maidens sawed what-nots in two, andgilded the remains. They took the rockers from rocking-chairs and gildedthe inadequate legs; they gilded the easels that supported the crayonportraits of their deceased uncles. In the new spirit of art theysold old clocks for new, and threw wax flowers and wax fruit, and theprotecting glass domes, out upon the trash-heap. They filled vases withpeacock feathers, or cattails, or sumac, or sunflowers, and set thevases upon mantelpieces and marble-topped tables. They embroidereddaisies (which they called "marguerites") and sunflowers and sumac andcat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon plush screens and uponheavy cushions, then strewed these cushions upon floors where fathersfell over them in the dark. In the teeth of sinful oratory, thedaughters went on embroidering: they embroidered daisies and sunflowersand sumac and cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon "throws"which they had the courage to drape upon horsehair sofas; they paintedowls and daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and peacockfeathers upon tambourines. They hung Chinese umbrellas of paper tothe chandeliers; they nailed paper fans to the walls. They "studied"painting on china, these girls; they sang Tosti's new songs; theysometimes still practiced the old, genteel habit of lady-fainting, andwere most charming of all when they drove forth, three or four in abasket phaeton, on a spring morning. 

Croquet and the mildest archery ever known were the sports of peoplestill young and active enough for so much exertion; middle-age playedeuchre. There was a theatre, next door to the Amberson Hotel, and whenEdwin Booth came for a night, everybody who could afford to buy a ticketwas there, and all the "hacks" in town were hired. "The Black Crook"also filled the theatre, but the audience then was almost entirely ofmen who looked uneasy as they left for home when the final curtain fellupon the shocking girls dressed as fairies. But the theatre did notoften do so well; the people of the town were still too thrifty. 

They were thrifty because they were the sons or grandsons of the "earlysettlers, " who had opened the wilderness and had reached it from theEast and the South with wagons and axes and guns, but with no money atall. The pioneers were thrifty or they would have perished: they hadto store away food for the winter, or goods to trade for food, and theyoften feared they had not stored enough--they left traces of that fearin their sons and grandsons. In the minds of most of these, indeed, their thrift was next to their religion: to save, even for the sakeof saving, was their earliest lesson and discipline. No matter howprosperous they were, they could not spend money either upon "art, " orupon mere luxury and entertainment, without a sense of sin. 

Against so homespun a background the magnificence of the Ambersons wasas conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major Amberson bought twohundred acres of land at the end of National Avenue; and through thistract he built broad streets and cross-streets; paved them with cedarblock, and curbed them with stone. He set up fountains, here and there, where the streets intersected, and at symmetrical intervals placedcast-iron statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon thepedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, EmperorAugustus, Fisher Boy, Stag-hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn, Antelope, Wounded Doe, and Wounded Lion. Most of the forest trees had been left toflourish still, and, at some distance, or by moonlight, the place wasin truth beautiful; but the ardent citizen, loving to see his city grow, wanted neither distance nor moonlight. He had not seen Versailles, but, standing before the Fountain of Neptune in Amberson Addition, at brightnoon, and quoting the favourite comparison of the local newspapers, he declared Versailles outdone. All this Art showed a profit from thestart, for the lots sold well and there was something like a rushto build in the new Addition. Its main thoroughfare, an obliquecontinuation of National Avenue, was called Amberson Boulevard, andhere, at the juncture of the new Boulevard and the Avenue, MajorAmberson reserved four acres for himself, and built his new house--theAmberson Mansion, of course. 

This house was the pride of the town. Faced with stone as far backas the dining-room windows, it was a house of arches and turrets andgirdling stone porches: it had the first porte-cochere seen in thattown. There was a central "front hall" with a great black walnutstairway, and open to a green glass skylight called the "dome, " threestories above the ground floor. A ballroom occupied most of thethird story; and at one end of it was a carved walnut gallery for themusicians. Citizens told strangers that the cost of all this blackwalnut and wood-carving was sixty thousand dollars. "Sixty thousanddollars for the wood-work alone! Yes, sir, and hardwood floors all overthe house! Turkish rugs and no carpets at all, except a Brussels carpetin the front parlour--I hear they call it the 'reception-room. ' Hot andcold water upstairs and down, and stationary washstands in every lastbedroom in the place! Their sideboard's built right into the house andgoes all the way across one end of the dining room. It isn't walnut, it's solid mahogany! Not veneering--solid mahogany! Well, sir, I presumethe President of the United States would be tickled to swap theWhite House for the new Amberson Mansion, if the Major'd give him thechance--but by the Almighty Dollar, you bet your sweet life the Majorwouldn't!"

The visitor to the town was certain to receive further enlightenment, for there was one form of entertainment never omitted: he was alwayspatriotically taken for "a little drive around our city, " even if hishost had to hire a hack, and the climax of the display was the AmbersonMansion. "Look at that greenhouse they've put up there in the sideyard, " the escort would continue. "And look at that brick stable! Mostfolks would think that stable plenty big enough and good enough to livein; it's got running water and four rooms upstairs for two hired men andone of 'em's family to live in. They keep one hired man loafin' in thehouse, and they got a married hired man out in the stable, and his wifedoes the washing. They got box-stalls for four horses, and they keepa coupay, and some new kinds of fancy rigs you never saw the beat of!'Carts' they call two of 'em--'way up in the air they are--too high forme! I guess they got every new kind of fancy rig in there that's beeninvented. And harness--well, everybody in town can tell when Ambersonsare out driving after dark, by the jingle. This town never did see somuch style as Ambersons are putting on, these days; and I guess it'sgoing to be expensive, because a lot of other folks'll try to keep upwith 'em. The Major's wife and the daughter's been to Europe, and mywife tells me since they got back they make tea there every afternoonabout five o'clock, and drink it. Seems to me it would go against aperson's stomach, just before supper like that, and anyway tea isn't fitfor much--not unless you're sick or something. My wife says Ambersonsdon't make lettuce salad the way other people do; they don't chop itup with sugar and vinegar at all. They pour olive oil on it with theirvinegar, and they have it separate--not along with the rest of the meal. And they eat these olives, too: green things they are, something like ahard plum, but a friend of mine told me they tasted a good deal like abad hickory-nut. My wife says she's going to buy some; you got to eatnine and then you get to like 'em, she says. Well, I wouldn't eat ninebad hickory-nuts to get to like them, and I'm going to let these olivesalone. Kind of a woman's dish, anyway, I suspect, but most everybody'llbe makin' a stagger to worm through nine of 'em, now Ambersons brought'em to town. Yes, sir, the rest'll eat 'em, whether they get sick ornot! Looks to me like some people in this city'd be willing to go crazyif they thought that would help 'em to be as high-toned as Ambersons. Old Aleck Minafer--he's about the closest old codger we got--he comein my office the other day, and he pretty near had a stroke tellin' meabout his daughter Fanny. Seems Miss Isabel Amberson's got some kind ofa dog--they call it a Saint Bernard--and Fanny was bound to have one, too. Well, old Aleck told her he didn't like dogs except rat-terriers, because a rat-terrier cleans up the mice, but she kept on at him, andfinally he said all right she could have one. Then, by George! she saysAmbersons bought their dog, and you can't get one without paying for it:they cost from fifty to a hundred dollars up! Old Aleck wanted to knowif I ever heard of anybody buyin' a dog before, because, of course, evena Newfoundland or a setter you can usually get somebody to give you one. He says he saw some sense in payin' a nigger a dime, or even aquarter, to drown a dog for you, but to pay out fifty dollars and maybemore--well, sir, he like to choked himself to death, right there inmy office! Of course everybody realizes that Major Amberson is a finebusiness man, but what with throwin' money around for dogs, and everywhich and what, some think all this style's bound to break him up, ifhis family don't quit!"

One citizen, having thus discoursed to a visitor, came to a thoughtfulpause, and then added, "Does seem pretty much like squandering, yet whenyou see that dog out walking with this Miss Isabel, he seems worth themoney. "

"What's she look like?"

"Well, sir, " said the citizen, "she's not more than just about eighteenor maybe nineteen years old, and I don't know as I know just how to putit--but she's kind of a delightful lookin' young lady!"

Chapter II

Another citizen said an eloquent thing about Miss Isabel Amberson'slooks. This was Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster, the foremost literaryauthority and intellectual leader of the community---for both the dailynewspapers thus described Mrs. Foster when she founded the Women'sTennyson Club; and her word upon art, letters, and the drama wasaccepted more as law than as opinion. Naturally, when "Hazel Kirke"finally reached the town, after its long triumph in larger places, manypeople waited to hear what Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster thought of itbefore they felt warranted in expressing any estimate of the play. Infact, some of them waited in the lobby of the theatre, as they came out, and formed an inquiring group about her. 

"I didn't see the play, " she informed them. 

"What! Why, we saw you, right in the middle of the fourth row!"

"Yes, " she said, smiling, "but I was sitting just behind IsabelleAmberson. I couldn't look at anything except her wavy brown hair and thewonderful back of her neck. "

The ineligible young men of the town (they were all ineligible) wereunable to content themselves with the view that had so charmed Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster: they spent their time struggling to keep MissAmberson's face turned toward them. She turned it most often, observerssaid, toward two: one excelling in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. Thesparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her withhis bouquets--sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason whyhe was always in debt. No one doubted that he would be able to persuadeIsabel, but he unfortunately joined too merry a party one night, and, during a moonlight serenade upon the lawn before the Amberson Mansion, was easily identified from the windows as the person who stepped throughthe bass viol and had to be assisted to a waiting carriage. One of MissAmberson's brothers was among the serenaders, and, when the partyhad dispersed, remained propped against the front door in a stateof helpless liveliness; the Major going down in a dressing-gown andslippers to bring him in, and scolding mildly, while imperfectlyconcealing strong impulses to laughter. Miss Amberson also laughedat this brother, the next day, but for the suitor it was a differentmatter: she refused to see him when he called to apologize. "You seem tocare a great deal about bass viols!" he wrote her. "I promise neverto break another. " She made no response to the note, unless it was ananswer, two weeks later, when her engagement was announced. She took thepersistent one, Wilbur Minafer, no breaker of bass viols or of hearts, no serenader at all. 

A few people, who always foresaw everything, claimed that they were notsurprised, because though Wilbur Minafer "might not be an Apollo, as itwere, " he was "a steady young business man, and a good church-goer, " andIsabel Amberson was "pretty sensible--for such a showy girl. " But theengagement astounded the young people, and most of their fathers andmothers, too; and as a topic it supplanted literature at the nextmeeting of the "Women's Tennyson Club. "

"Wilbur Minafer!" a member cried, her inflection seeming to imply thatWilbur's crime was explained by his surname. "Wilbur Minafer! It's thequeerest thing I ever heard! To think of her taking Wilbur Minafer, justbecause a man any woman would like a thousand times better was a littlewild one night at a serenade!"

"No, " said Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster. "It isn't that. It isn't evenbecause she's afraid he'd be a dissipated husband and she wants to besafe. It isn't because she's religious or hates wildness; it isn't evenbecause she hates wildness in him. "

"Well, but look how she's thrown him over for it. "

"No, that wasn't her reason, " said the wise Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster. "If men only knew it--and it's a good thing they don't--a woman doesn'treally care much about whether a man's wild or not, if it doesn't affectherself, and Isabel Amberson doesn't care a thing!"

"Mrs. Foster!"

"No, she doesn't. What she minds is his making a clown of himself inher front yard! It made her think he didn't care much about her. She'sprobably mistaken, but that's what she thinks, and it's too late forher to think anything else now, because she's going to be marriedright away--the invitations will be out next week. It'll be a bigAmberson-style thing, raw oysters floating in scooped-out blocks ofice and a band from out-of-town--champagne, showy presents; a colossalpresent from the Major. Then Wilbur will take Isabel on the carefulestlittle wedding trip he can manage, and she'll be a good wife to him, butthey'll have the worst spoiled lot of children this town will ever see. "

"How on earth do you make that out, Mrs. Foster?"

"She couldn't love Wilbur, could she?" Mrs. Foster demanded, with nochallengers. "Well, it will all go to her children, and she'll ruin'em!"

The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely: exceptfor that, her foresight was accurate. The wedding was of Ambersonianmagnificence, even to the floating oysters; and the Major's colossalpresent was a set of architect's designs for a house almost as elaborateand impressive as the Mansion, the house to be built in AmbersonAddition by the Major. The orchestra was certainly not that localone which had suffered the loss of a bass viol; the musicians came, according to the prophecy and next morning's paper, from afar; and atmidnight the bride was still being toasted in champagne, though she haddeparted upon her wedding journey at ten. Four days later the pair hadreturned to town, which promptness seemed fairly to demonstrate thatWilbur had indeed taken Isabel upon the carefulest little trip he couldmanage. According to every report, she was from the start "a good wifeto him, " but here in a final detail the prophecy proved inaccurate. Wilbur and Isabel did not have children; they had only one. 

"Only one, " Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster admitted. "But I'd like to knowif he isn't spoiled enough for a whole carload!"

Again she found none to challenge her. 

At the age of nine, George Amberson Minafer, the Major's one grandchild, was a princely terror, dreaded not only in Amberson Addition but in manyother quarters through which he galloped on his white pony. "By golly, I guess you think you own this town!" an embittered labourer complained, one day, as Georgie rode the pony straight through a pile of sand theman was sieving. "I will when I grow up, " the undisturbed child replied. "I guess my grandpa owns it now, you bet!" And the baffled workman, having no means to controvert what seemed a mere exaggeration of thefacts could only mutter "Oh, pull down your vest!"

"Don't haf to! Doctor says it ain't healthy!" the boy returned promptly. "But I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll pull down my vest if you'll wipeoff your chin!"

This was stock and stencil: the accustomed argot of street badinage ofthe period; and in such matters Georgie was an expert. He had no vestto pull down; the incongruous fact was that a fringed sash girdled thejuncture of his velvet blouse and breeches, for the Fauntleroy periodhad set in, and Georgie's mother had so poor an eye for appropriatethings, where Georgie was concerned, that she dressed him according tothe doctrine of that school in boy decoration. Not only did he wear asilk sash, and silk stockings, and a broad lace collar, with his littleblack velvet suit: he had long brown curls, and often came home withburrs in them. 

Except upon the surface (which was not his own work, but his mother's)Georgie bore no vivid resemblance to the fabulous little Cedric. The storied boy's famous "Lean on me, grandfather, " would have beendifficult to imagine upon the lips of Georgie. A month after his ninthbirthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had alreadybecome acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant parts ofthe town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich little boywith long curls might be considered in many respects superior to theirown. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at a certain point in afight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for rocks, uttering wailedthreats of murder and attempting to fulfil them. Fights often led tointimacies, and he acquired the art of saying things more exciting than"Don't haf to!" and "Doctor says it ain't healthy!" Thus, on a summerafternoon, a strange boy, sitting bored upon the gate-post of theReverend Malloch Smith, beheld George Amberson Minafer rapidlyapproaching on his white pony, and was impelled by bitterness to shout:"Shoot the ole jackass! Look at the girly curls! Say, bub, where'd yousteal your mother's ole sash!"

"Your sister stole it for me!" Georgie instantly replied, checking thepony. "She stole it off our clo'es-line an' gave it to me. "

"You go get your hair cut!" said the stranger hotly. "Yah! I haven't gotany sister!"

"I know you haven't at home, " Georgie responded. "I mean the one that'sin jail. "

"I dare you to get down off that pony!"

Georgie jumped to the ground, and the other boy descended from theReverend Mr. Smith's gatepost--but he descended inside the gate. "I dareyou outside that gate, " said Georgie. 

"Yah! I dare you half way here. I dare you--"

But these were luckless challenges, for Georgie immediately vaultedthe fence--and four minutes later Mrs. Malloch Smith, hearing strangenoises, looked forth from a window; then screamed, and dashed for thepastor's study. Mr. Malloch Smith, that grim-bearded Methodist, came tothe front yard and found his visiting nephew being rapidly prepared byMaster Minafer to serve as a principal figure in a pageant of massacre. It was with great physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to givehis nephew a chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard andquick, and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, aftera grotesque tussle, got him separated from his opponent, and shook him. 

"You stop that, you!" Georgie cried fiercely; and wrenched himself away. "I guess you don't know who I am!"

"Yes, I do know!" the angered Mr. Smith retorted. "I know who you are, and you're a disgrace to your mother! Your mother ought to be ashamed ofherself to allow--"

"Shut up about my mother bein' ashamed of herself!"

Mr. Smith, exasperated, was unable to close the dialogue with dignity. "She ought to be ashamed, " he repeated. "A woman that lets a bad boylike you--"

But Georgie had reached his pony and mounted. Before setting off at hisaccustomed gallop, he paused to interrupt the Reverend Malloch Smithagain. "You pull down your vest, you ole Billygoat, you!" he shouted, distinctly. "Pull down your vest, wipe off your chin--an' go to hell!"

Such precocity is less unusual, even in children of the Rich, than mostgrown people imagine. However, it was a new experience for the ReverendMalloch Smith, and left him in a state of excitement. He at once wrote anote to Georgie's mother, describing the crime according to his nephew'stestimony; and the note reached Mrs. Minafer before Georgie did. When hegot home she read it to him sorrowfully. 

Dear Madam: Your son has caused a painful distress in my household. Hemade an unprovoked attack upon a little nephew of mine who is visitingin my household, insulted him by calling him vicious names andfalsehoods, stating that ladies of his family were in jail. He thentried to make his pony kick him, and when the child, who is only elevenyears old, while your son is much older and stronger, endeavoured toavoid his indignities and withdraw quietly, he pursued him into theenclosure of my property and brutally assaulted him. When I appearedupon this scene he deliberately called insulting words to me, concludingwith profanity, such as "go to hell, " which was heard not only by myselfbut by my wife and the lady who lives next door. I trust such a state ofundisciplined behaviour may be remedied for the sake of the reputationfor propriety, if nothing higher, of the family to which this unrulychild belongs. 

Georgie had muttered various interruptions, and as she concluded thereading he said: "He's an ole liar!"

"Georgie, you mustn't say 'liar. ' Isn't this letter the truth?"

"Well, " said Georgie, "how old am I?"

"Ten. "

"Well, look how he says I'm older than a boy eleven years old. "

"That's true, " said Isabel. "He does. But isn't some of it true, Georgie?"

Georgie felt himself to be in a difficulty here, and he was silent. 

"Georgie, did you say what he says you did?"

"Which one?"

"Did you tell him to--to--Did you say, 'Go to hell?"

Georgie looked worried for a moment longer; then he brightened. "Listenhere, mamma; grandpa wouldn't wipe his shoe on that ole story-teller, would he?"

"Georgie, you mustn't--"

"I mean: none of the Ambersons wouldn't have anything to do with him, would they? He doesn't even know you, does he, mamma?"

"That hasn't anything to do with it. "

"Yes, it has! I mean: none of the Amberson family go to see him, andthey never have him come in their house; they wouldn't ask him to, andthey prob'ly wouldn't even let him. "

"That isn't what we're talking about. "

"I bet, " said Georgie emphatically, "I bet if he wanted to see any of'em, he'd haf to go around to the side door!"

"No, dear, they--"

"Yes, they would, mamma! So what does it matter if I did say somep'm' tohim he didn't like? That kind o' people, I don't see why you can't sayanything you want to, to 'em!"

"No, Georgie. And you haven't answered me whether you said that dreadfulthing he says you did. "

"Well--" said Georgie. "Anyway, he said somep'm' to me that made memad. " And upon this point he offered no further details; he would notexplain to his mother that what had made him "mad" was Mr. Smith's hastycondemnation of herself: "Your mother ought to be ashamed, " and, "Awoman that lets a bad boy like you--" Georgie did not even considerexcusing himself by quoting these insolences. 

Isabel stroked his head. "They were terrible words for you to use, dear. From his letter he doesn't seem a very tactful person, but--"

"He's just riffraff, " said Georgie. 

"You mustn't say so, " his mother gently agreed "Where did you learnthose bad words he speaks of? Where did you hear any one use them?"

"Well, I've heard 'em several places. I guess Uncle George Amberson wasthe first I ever heard say 'em. Uncle George Amberson said 'em to papaonce. Papa didn't like it, but Uncle George was just laughin' at papa, an' then he said 'em while he was laughin'. "

"That was wrong of him, " she said, but almost instinctively he detectedthe lack of conviction in her tone. It was Isabel's great failing thatwhatever an Amberson did seemed right to her, especially if the Ambersonwas either her brother George, or her son George. She knew that sheshould be more severe with the latter now, but severity with him wasbeyond her power; and the Reverend Malloch Smith had succeeded onlyin rousing her resentment against himself. Georgie's symmetricalface--altogether an Amberson face--had looked never more beautiful toher. It always looked unusually beautiful when she tried to be severewith him. "You must promise me, " she said feebly, "never to use thosebad words again. "

"I promise not to, " he said promptly--and he whispered an immediatecodicil under his breath: "Unless I get mad at somebody!" This satisfieda code according to which, in his own sincere belief, he never toldlies. 

"That's a good boy, " she said, and he ran out to the yard, hispunishment over. Some admiring friends were gathered there; they hadheard of his adventure, knew of the note, and were waiting to see whatwas going to "happen" to him. They hoped for an account of things, andalso that he would allow them to "take turns" riding his pony to the endof the alley and back. 

They were really his henchmen: Georgie was a lord among boys. In fact, he was a personage among certain sorts of grown people, and was oftenfawned upon; the alley negroes delighted in him, chuckled over him, flattered him slavishly. For that matter, he often heard well-dressedpeople speaking of him admiringly: a group of ladies once gatheredabout him on the pavement where he was spinning a top. "I know thisis Georgie!" one exclaimed, and turned to the others with theimpressiveness of a showman. "Major Amberson's only grandchild!" Theothers said, "It is?" and made clicking sounds with their mouths; two ofthem loudly whispering, "So handsome!"

Georgie, annoyed because they kept standing upon the circle he hadchalked for his top, looked at them coldly and offered a suggestion:

"Oh, go hire a hall!"

As an Amberson, he was already a public character, and the story ofhis adventure in the Reverend Malloch Smith's front yard became a towntopic. Many people glanced at him with great distaste, thereafter, whenthey chanced to encounter him, which meant nothing to Georgie, becausehe innocently believed most grown people to be necessarily cross-lookingas a normal phenomenon resulting from the adult state; and he failed tocomprehend that the distasteful glances had any personal bearing uponhimself. If he had perceived such a bearing, he would have been affectedonly so far, probably, as to mutter, "Riffraff!" Possibly he would haveshouted it; and, certainly, most people believed a story that went roundthe town just after Mrs. Amberson's funeral, when Georgie was eleven. Georgie was reported to have differed with the undertaker about theseating of the family; his indignant voice had become audible: "Well, who is the most important person at my own grandmother's funeral?"And later he had projected his head from the window of the foremostmourners' carriage, as the undertaker happened to pass. 

"Riffraff!"

There were people--grown people they were--who expressed themselveslongingly: they did hope to live to see the day, they said, when thatboy would get his come-upance! (They used that honest word, so muchbetter than "deserts, " and not until many years later to be moreclumsily rendered as "what is coming to him. ") Something was bound totake him down, some day, and they only wanted to be there! But Georgieheard nothing of this, and the yearners for his taking down wentunsatisfied, while their yearning grew the greater as the happy dayof fulfilment was longer and longer postponed. His grandeur was notdiminished by the Malloch Smith story; the rather it was increased, andamong other children (especially among little girls) there was added tothe prestige of his gilded position that diabolical glamour which mustinevitably attend a boy who has told a minister to go to hell. 

Chapter III

Until he reached the age of twelve, Georgie's education was a domesticprocess; tutors came to the house; and those citizens who yearned forhis taking down often said: "Just wait till he has to go to publicschool; then he'll get it!" But at twelve Georgie was sent to a privateschool in the town, and there came from this small and dependentinstitution no report, or even rumour, of Georgie's getting anythingthat he was thought to deserve; therefore the yearning still persisted, though growing gaunt with feeding upon itself. For, although Georgie'spomposities and impudence in the little school were often almostunbearable, the teachers were fascinated by him. They did not likehim--he was too arrogant for that--but he kept them in such a state ofemotion that they thought more about him than they did about all of theother ten pupils. The emotion he kept them in was usually one resultingfrom injured self-respect, but sometimes it was dazzled admiration. Sofar as their conscientious observation went, he "studied" his lessonssparingly; but sometimes, in class, he flashed an admirable answer, witha comprehension not often shown by the pupils they taught; and he passedhis examinations easily. In all, without discernible effort, he acquiredat this school some rudiments of a liberal education and learned nothingwhatever about himself. 

The yearners were still yearning when Georgie, at sixteen, was sentaway to a great "Prep School. " "Now, " they said brightly, "he'll get it!He'll find himself among boys just as important in their home towns ashe is, and they'll knock the stuffing out of him when he puts on hisairs with them! Oh, but that would be worth something to see!" They weremistaken, it appeared, for when Georgie returned, a few months later, he still seemed to have the same stuffing. He had been deported by theauthorities, the offense being stated as "insolence and profanity";in fact, he had given the principal of the school instructions almostidentical with those formerly objected to by the Reverend Malloch Smith. 

But he had not got his come-upance, and those who counted upon itwere embittered by his appearance upon the down-town streets drivinga dog-cart at criminal speed, making pedestrians retreat from thecrossings, and behaving generally as if he "owned the earth. " Adisgusted hardware dealer of middle age, one of those who hungered forGeorgie's downfall, was thus driven back upon the sidewalk to avoidbeing run over, and so far forgot himself as to make use of the petstreet insult of the year: "Got 'ny sense! See here, bub, does yourmother know you're out?"

Georgie, without even seeming to look at him, flicked the long lash ofhis whip dexterously, and a little spurt of dust came from the hardwareman's trousers, not far below the waist. He was not made of hardware:he raved, looking for a missile; then, finding none, commanded himselfsufficiently to shout after the rapid dog-cart: "Turn down your pants, you would-be dude! Raining in dear ole Lunnon! Git off the earth!"

Georgie gave him no encouragement to think that he was heard. Thedog-cart turned the next corner, causing indignation there, likewise, and, having proceeded some distance farther, halted in front of the"Amberson Block"--an old-fashioned four-story brick warren of lawyersoffices, insurance and realestate offices, with a "drygoods store"occupying the ground floor. Georgie tied his lathered trotter toa telegraph pole, and stood for a moment looking at the buildingcritically: it seemed shabby, and he thought his grandfather ought toreplace it with a fourteen-story skyscraper, or even a higher one, suchas he had lately seen in New York--when he stopped there for a few daysof recreation and rest on his way home from the bereaved school. Aboutthe entryway to the stairs were various tin signs, announcing theoccupation and location of upper-floor tenants, and Georgie decided totake some of these with him if he should ever go to college. However, he did not stop to collect them at this time, but climbed the wornstairs--there was no elevator--to the fourth floor, went down a darkcorridor, and rapped three times upon a door. It was a mysterious door, its upper half, of opaque glass, bearing no sign to state the businessor profession of the occupants within; but overhead, upon the lintel, four letters had been smearingly inscribed, partly with purple ink andpartly with a soft lead pencil, "F. O. T. A. " and upon the plaster wall, above the lintel, there was a drawing dear to male adolescence: a skulland crossbones. 

Three raps, similar to Georgie's, sounded from within the room. Georgiethen rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped twice, andGeorgie rapped seven times. This ended precautionary measures; and awell-dressed boy of sixteen opened the door; whereupon Georgie enteredquickly, and the door was closed behind him. Seven boys of congenialage were seated in a semicircular row of damaged office chairs, facing aplatform whereon stood a solemn, red-haired young personage with a tablebefore him. At one end of the room there was a battered sideboard, andupon it were some empty beer bottles, a tobacco can about two-thirdsfull, with a web of mold over the surface of the tobacco, a dustycabinet photograph (not inscribed) of Miss Lillian Russell, severalwithered old pickles, a caseknife, and a half-petrified section oficing-cake on a sooty plate. At the other end of the room were tworickety card-tables and a stand of bookshelves where were displayedunder dust four or five small volumes of M. Guy de Maupassant's stories, "Robinson Crusoe, " "Sappho, " "Mr. Barnes of New York, " a work byGiovanni Boccaccio, a Bible, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, ""Studies of the Human Form Divine, " "The Little Minister, " and a clutterof monthly magazines and illustrated weeklies of about that crispnessone finds in such articles upon a doctor's ante-room table. Upon thewall, above the sideboard, was an old framed lithograph of Miss DellaFox in "Wang"; over the bookshelves there was another lithographpurporting to represent Mr. John L. Sullivan in a boxing costume, andbeside it a halftone reproduction of "A Reading From Horner. " The finaldecoration consisted of damaged papiermache--a round shield with twobattle-axes and two cross-hilted swords, upon the wall over the littleplatform where stood the red-haired presiding officer. He addressedGeorgie in a serious voice:

"Welcome, Friend of the Ace. "

"Welcome, Friend of the Ace, " Georgie responded, and all of the otherboys repeated the words, "Welcome, Friend of the Ace. "

"Take your seat in the secret semicircle, " said the presiding officer. "We will now proceed to--"

But Georgie was disposed to be informal. He interrupted, turning tothe boy who had admitted him: "Look here, Charlie Johnson, what's FredKinney doing in the president's chair? That's my place, isn't it?What you men been up to here, anyhow? Didn't you all agree I was to bepresident just the same, even if I was away at school?"

"Well--" said Charlie Johnson uneasily. "Listen! I didn't have much todo with it. Some of the other members thought that long as you weren'tin town or anything, and Fred gave the sideboard, why--"

Mr. Kinney, presiding, held in his hand, in lieu of a gavel, andconsidered much more impressive, a Civil War relic known as a"horse-pistol. " He rapped loudly for order. "All Friends of the Ace willtake their seats!" he said sharply. "I'm president of the F. O. T. A. Now, George Minafer, and don't you forget it! You and Charlie Johnsonsit down, because I was elected perfectly fair, and we're goin' to holda meeting here. "

"Oh, you are, are you?" said George skeptically. 

Charlie Johnson thought to mollify him. "Well, didn't we call thismeeting just especially because you told us to? You said yourself weought to have a kind of celebration because you've got back to town, George, and that's what we're here for now, and everything. What do youcare about being president? All it amounts to is just calling the rolland--"

The president de facto hammered the table. "This meeting will nowproceed to--"

"No, it won't, " said George, and he advanced to the desk, laughingcontemptuously. "Get off that platform. "

"This meeting will come to order!" Mr. Kinney commanded fiercely. 

"You put down that gavel, " said George. "Whose is it, I'd like to know?It belongs to my grandfather, and you quit hammering it that way oryou'll break it, and I'll have to knock your head off. "

"This meeting will come to order! I was legally elected here, and I'mnot going to be bulldozed!"

"All right, " said Georgie. "You're president. Now we'll hold anotherelection. "

"We will not!" Fred Kinney shouted. "We'll have our reg'lar meeting, and then we'll play euchre & nickel a corner, what we're here for. Thismeeting will now come to ord--"

Georgie addressed the members. "I'd like to know who got up this thingin the first place, " he said. "Who's the founder of the F. O. T. A. , if youplease? Who got this room rent free? Who got the janitor to let ushave most of this furniture? You suppose you could keep this clubroom aminute if I told my grandfather I didn't want it for a literary club anymore? I'd like to say a word on how you members been acting, too! When Iwent away I said I didn't care if you had a vice-president or somethingwhile I was gone, but here I hardly turned my back and you had to go andelect Fred Kinney president! Well, if that's what you want, you can haveit. I was going to have a little celebration down here some night prettysoon, and bring some port wine, like we drink at school in our crowdthere, and I was going to get my grandfather to give the club an extraroom across the hall, and prob'ly I could get my Uncle George to give ushis old billiard table, because he's got a new one, and the club couldput it in the other room. Well, you got a new president now!" HereGeorgie moved toward the door and his tone became plaintive, thoughundeniably there was disdain beneath his sorrow. "I guess all I betterdo is--resign!"

And he opened the door, apparently intending to withdraw. 

"All in favour of having a new election, " Charlie Johnson shoutedhastily, "say, 'Aye'!"

"Aye" was said by everyone present except Mr. Kinney, who began a hotprotest, but it was immediately smothered. 

"All in favour of me being president instead of Fred Kinney, " shoutedGeorgie, "say 'Aye. ' The 'Ayes' have it!"

 "I resign, " said the red-headed boy, gulping as he descended from theplatform. "I resign from the club!"

Hot-eyed, he found his hat and departed, jeers echoing after him as heplunged down the corridor. Georgie stepped upon the platform, and tookup the emblem of office. 

"Ole red-head Fred'll be around next week, " said the new chairman. "He'll be around boot-lickin' to get us to take him back in again, but Iguess we don't want him: that fellow always was a trouble-maker. We willnow proceed with our meeting. Well, fellows, I suppose you want to hearfrom your president. I don't know that I have much to say, as I havealready seen most of you a few times since I got back. I had a good timeat the old school, back East, but had a little trouble with the facultyand came on home. My family stood by me as well as I could ask, and Iexpect to stay right here in the old town until whenever I decide toenter college. Now, I don't suppose there's any more business before themeeting. I guess we might as well play cards. Anybody that's game for alittle quarter-limit poker or any limit they say, why I'd like to have'em sit at the president's card-table. "

When the diversions of the Friends of the Ace were concluded for thatafternoon, Georgie invited his chief supporter, Mr. Charlie Johnson, todrive home with him to dinner, and as they jingled up National Avenue inthe dog-cart, Charlie asked:

"What sort of men did you run up against at that school, George?"

"Best crowd there: finest set of men I ever met. "

"How'd you get in with 'em?"

Georgie laughed. "I let them get in with me, Charlie, " he said in a toneof gentle explanation. "It's vulgar to do any other way. Did I tell youthe nickname they gave me--'King'? That was what they called me at thatschool, 'King Minafer. "

"How'd they happen to do that?" his friend asked innocently. 

"Oh, different things, " George answered lightly. "Of course, any of'em that came from anywhere out in this part the country knew aboutthe family and all that, and so I suppose it was a good deal on accountof--oh, on account of the family and the way I do things, most likely. "

Chapter IV

When Mr. George Amberson Minafer came home for the holidays atChristmastide, in his sophomore year, probably no great change had takenplace inside him, but his exterior was visibly altered. Nothing abouthim encouraged any hope that he had received his come-upance; on thecontrary, the yearners for that stroke of justice must yearn evenmore itchingly: the gilded youth's manner had become polite, but hispoliteness was of a kind which democratic people found hard to bear. Ina word, M. Le Due had returned from the gay life of the capital toshow himself for a week among the loyal peasants belonging to theold chateau, and their quaint habits and costumes afforded him a mildamusement. 

Cards were out for a ball in his honour, and this pageant of thetenantry was held in the ballroom of the Amberson Mansion the nightafter his arrival. It was, as Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster said ofIsabel's wedding, "a big Amberson-style thing, " though that wise Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster had long ago gone the way of all wisdom, havingstepped out of the Midland town, unquestionably into heaven--a longstep, but not beyond her powers. She had successors, but no successor;the town having grown too large to confess that it was intellectuallyled and literarily authoritated by one person; and some of thesesuccessors were not invited to the ball, for dimensions were now sometropolitan that intellectual leaders and literary authorities loomedin outlying regions unfamiliar to the Ambersons. However, all "oldcitizens" recognizable as gentry received cards, and of course so didtheir dancing descendants. 

The orchestra and the caterer were brought from away, in the Ambersonmanner, though this was really a gesture--perhaps one more of habitthan of ostentation--for servitors of gaiety as proficient as theseimportations were nowadays to be found in the town. Even flowers andplants and roped vines were brought from afar--not, however, untilthe stock of the local florists proved insufficient to obliterate theinterior structure of the big house, in the Amberson way. It wasthe last of the great, long remembered dances that "everybody talkedabout"--there were getting to be so many people in town that no laterthan the next year there were too many for "everybody" to hear of evensuch a ball as the Ambersons'. 

George, white-gloved, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, stood with hismother and the Major, embowered in the big red and gold drawing roomdownstairs, to "receive" the guests; and, standing thus together, thetrio offered a picturesque example of good looks persistent throughthree generations. The Major, his daughter, and his grandson were of atype all Amberson: tall, straight, and regular, with dark eyes, shortnoses, good chins; and the grandfather's expression, no less thanthe grandson's, was one of faintly amused condescension. There was adifference, however. The grandson's unlined young face had nothing tooffer except this condescension; the grandfather's had other things tosay. It was a handsome, worldly old face, conscious of its importance, but persuasive rather than arrogant, and not without tokens ofsufferings withstood. The Major's short white hair was parted in themiddle, like his grandson's, and in all he stood as briskly equipped tothe fashion as exquisite young George. 

Isabel, standing between her father and her son caused a vague amazementin the mind of the latter. Her age, just under forty, was for Georgea thought of something as remote as the moons of Jupiter: he could notpossibly have conceived such an age ever coming to be his own: fiveyears was the limit of his thinking in time. Five years ago he had beena child not yet fourteen; and those five years were an abyss. Five yearshence he would be almost twenty-four; what the girls he knew called "oneof the older men. " He could imagine himself at twenty-four, but beyondthat, his powers staggered and refused the task. He saw little essentialdifference between thirty-eight and eighty-eight, and his mother was tohim not a woman but wholly a mother. He had no perception of her otherthan as an adjunct to himself, his mother; nor could he imagine herthinking or doing anything--falling in love, walking with a friend, orreading a book--as a woman, and not as his mother. The woman, Isabel, was a stranger to her son; as completely a stranger as if he had neverin his life seen her or heard her voice. And it was to-night, while hestood with her, "receiving, " that he caught a disquieting glimpse ofthis stranger whom he thus fleetingly encountered for the first time. 

Youth cannot imagine romance apart from youth. That is why the roles ofthe heroes and heroines of plays are given by the managers to the mostyouthful actors they can find among the competent. Both middle-agedpeople and young people enjoy a play about young lovers; but onlymiddle-aged people will tolerate a play about middle-aged lovers; youngpeople will not come to see such a play, because, for them, middle-agedlovers are a joke--not a very funny one. Therefore, to bring both themiddle-aged people and the young people into his house, the managermakes his romance as young as he can. Youth will indeed be served, andits profound instinct is to be not only scornfully amused but vaguelyangered by middle-age romance. So, standing beside his mother, Georgewas disturbed by a sudden impression, coming upon him out of nowhere, so far as he could detect, that her eyes were brilliant, that she wasgraceful and youthful--in a word, that she was romantically lovely. 

He had one of those curious moments that seem to have neither acause nor any connection with actual things. While it lasted, he wasdisquieted not by thoughts--for he had no definite thoughts--but by aslight emotion like that caused in a dream by the presence of somethinginvisible soundless, and yet fantastic. There was nothing different ornew about his mother, except her new black and silver dress: she wasstanding there beside him, bending her head a little in her greetings, smiling the same smile she had worn for the half-hour that people hadbeen passing the "receiving" group. Her face was flushed, but the roomwas warm; and shaking hands with so many people easily accounted for thepretty glow that was upon her. At any time she could have "passed" fortwenty-five or twenty-six--a man of fifty would have honestly guessedher to be about thirty but possibly two or three years younger--andthough extraordinary in this, she had been extraordinary in it foryears. There was nothing in either her looks or her manner to explainGeorge's uncomfortable feeling; and yet it increased, becoming suddenlya vague resentment, as if she had done something unmotherly to him. 

The fantastic moment passed; and even while it lasted, he was doing hisduty, greeting two pretty girls with whom he had grown up, as peoplesay, and warmly assuring them that he remembered them very well--anassurance which might have surprised them "in anybody but GeorgieMinafer!" It seemed unnecessary, since he had spent many hours withthem no longer ago than the preceding August, They had with them theirparents and an uncle from out of town; and George negligently gave theparents the same assurance he had given the daughters, but murmuredanother form of greeting to the out-of-town uncle, whom he hadnever seen before. This person George absently took note of as a"queer-looking duck. " Undergraduates had not yet adopted "bird. " It wasa period previous to that in which a sophomore would have thought of theSharon girls' uncle as a "queer-looking bird, " or, perhaps a "funny-facebird. " In George's time, every human male was to be defined, atpleasure, as a "duck"; but "duck" was not spoken with admiringaffection, as in its former feminine use to signify a "dear"--on thecontrary, "duck" implied the speaker's personal detachment and humoroussuperiority. An indifferent amusement was what George felt whenhis mother, with a gentle emphasis, interrupted his interchange ofcourtesies with the nieces to present him to the queer-looking ducktheir uncle. This emphasis of Isabel's, though slight, enabled Georgeto perceive that she considered the queer-looking duck a person of someimportance; but it was far from enabling him to understand why. Theduck parted his thick and longish black hair on the side; his tie wasa forgetful looking thing, and his coat, though it fitted a good enoughmiddle-aged figure, no product of this year, or of last year either. One of his eyebrows was noticeably higher than the other; and there werewhimsical lines between them, which gave him an apprehensive expression;but his apprehensions were evidently more humorous than profound, forhis prevailing look was that of a genial man of affairs, not much afraidof anything whatever Nevertheless, observing only his unfashionablehair, his eyebrows, his preoccupied tie and his old coat, the olympicGeorge set him down as a queer-looking duck, and having thus completedhis portrait, took no interest in him. 

The Sharon girls passed on, taking the queer-looking duck with them, andGeorge became pink with mortification as his mother called his attentionto a white-bearded guest waiting to shake his hand. This was George'sgreat-uncle, old John Minafer: it was old John's boast that in spiteof his connection by marriage with the Ambersons, he never had worn andnever would wear a swaller-tail coat. Members of his family had exertedtheir influence uselessly--at eighty-nine conservative people seldomform radical new habits, and old John wore his "Sunday suit" of blackbroadcloth to the Amberson ball. The coat was square, with skirts to theknees; old John called it a "Prince Albert" and was well enough pleasedwith it, but his great-nephew considered it the next thing to an insult. George's purpose had been to ignore the man, but he had to take hishand for a moment; whereupon old John began to tell George that he waslooking well, though there had been a time, during his fourth month, when he was so puny that nobody thought he would live. The great-nephew, in a fury of blushes, dropped old John's hand with some vigour, andseized that of the next person in the line. "Member you v'ry well'ndeed!" he said fiercely. 

The large room had filled, and so had the broad hall and the roomson the other side of the hall, where there were tables for whist. Theimported orchestra waited in the ballroom on the third floor, buta local harp, 'cello, violin, and flute were playing airs from "TheFencing Master" in the hall, and people were shouting over the music. Old John Minafer's voice was louder and more penetrating than any other, because he had been troubled with deafness for twenty-five years, heardhis own voice but faintly, and liked to hear it. "Smell o' flowers likethis always puts me in mind o' funerals, " he kept telling his niece, Fanny Minafer, who was with him; and he seemed to get a great deal ofsatisfaction out of this reminder. His tremulous yet strident voicecut through the voluminous sound that filled the room, and he washeard everywhere: "Always got to think o' funerals when I smell somany flowers!" And, as the pressure of people forced Fanny and himselfagainst the white marble mantelpiece, he pursued this train of cheerythought, shouting, "Right here's where the Major's wife was laid out ather funeral. They had her in a good light from that big bow window. "He paused to chuckle mournfully. "I s'pose that's where they'll put theMajor when his time comes. "

Presently George's mortification was increased to hear this sawmilldroning harshly from the midst of the thickening crowd: "Ain't thedancin' broke out yet, Fanny? Hoopla! Le's push through and go see theyoung women-folks crack their heels! Start the circus! Hoopse-daisy!"Miss Fanny Minafer, in charge of the lively veteran, was almost asdistressed as her nephew George, but she did her duty and managed to getold John through the press and out to the broad stairway, which numbersof young people were now ascending to the ballroom. And here the sawmillvoice still rose over all others: "Solid black walnut every inch of it, balustrades and all. Sixty thousand dollars' worth o' carved woodworkin the house! Like water! Spent money like water! Always did! Still do!Like water! God knows where it all comes from!"

He continued the ascent, barking and coughing among the gleaming youngheads, white shoulders, jewels, and chiffon, like an old dog slowlyswimming up the rapids of a sparkling river; while down below, in thedrawing room, George began to recover from the degradation into whichthis relic of early settler days had dragged him. What restored himcompletely was a dark-eyed little beauty of nineteen, very knowing inlustrous blue and jet; at sight of this dashing advent in the line ofguests before him, George was fully an Amberson again. 

"Remember you very well indeed!" he said, his graciousness more earnestthan any he had heretofore displayed. Isabel heard him and laughed. 

"But you don't, George!" she said. "You don't remember her yet, thoughof course you will! Miss Morgan is from out of town, and I'm afraid thisis the first time you've ever seen her. You might take her up to thedancing; I think you've pretty well done your duty here. "

"Be d'lighted, " George responded formally, and offered his arm, not witha flourish, certainly, but with an impressiveness inspired partly by theappearance of the person to whom he offered it, partly by his being thehero of this fete, and partly by his youthfulness--for when manners arenew they are apt to be elaborate. The little beauty entrusted her glovedfingers to his coat-sleeve, and they moved away together. 

Their progress was necessarily slow, and to George's mind it did notlack stateliness. How could it? Musicians, hired especially for him, were sitting in a grove of palms in the hall and now tenderly playing"Oh, Promise Me" for his pleasuring; dozens and scores of flowers hadbeen brought to life and tended to this hour that they might sweetenthe air for him while they died; and the evanescent power that musicand floral scents hold over youth stirred his appreciation of strange, beautiful qualities within his own bosom: he seemed to himself to bemysteriously angelic, and about to do something which would overwhelmthe beautiful young stranger upon his arm. 

Elderly people and middle-aged people moved away to let him pass withhis honoured fair beside him. Worthy middle-class creatures, theyseemed, leading dull lives but appreciative of better things when theysaw them--and George's bosom was fleetingly touched with a pityingkindness. And since the primordial day when caste or heritage firstset one person, in his own esteem, above his fellow-beings, it is tobe doubted if anybody ever felt more illustrious, or more negligentlygrand, than George Amberson Minafer felt at this party. 

As he conducted Miss Morgan through the hall, toward the stairway, theypassed the open double doors of a card room, where some squadrons ofolder people were preparing for action, and, leaning gracefully uponthe mantelpiece of this room, a tall man, handsome, high-mannered, andsparklingly point-device, held laughing converse with that queer-lookingduck, the Sharon girls' uncle. The tall gentleman waved a gracioussalutation to George, and Miss Morgan's curiosity was stirred. "Who isthat?"

"I didn't catch his name when my mother presented him to me, " saidGeorge. "You mean the queer-looking duck. "

"I mean the aristocratic duck. "

"That's my Uncle George Honourable George Amberson. I thought everybodyknew him. "

"He looks as though everybody ought to know him, " she said. "It seems torun in your family. "

If she had any sly intention, it skipped over George harmlessly. "Well, of course, I suppose most everybody does, " he admitted--"out in thispart of the country especially. Besides, Uncle George is in Congress;the family like to have someone there. "

"Why?"

"Well, it's sort of a good thing in one way. For instance, my UncleSydney Amberson and his wife, Aunt Amelia, they haven't got much ofanything to do with themselves--get bored to death around here, ofcourse. Well, probably Uncle George'll have Uncle Sydney appointedminister or ambassador, or something like that, to Russia or Italy orsomewhere, and that'll make it pleasant when any of the rest of thefamily go travelling, or things like that. I expect to do a good deal oftravelling myself when I get out of college. "

On the stairway he pointed out this prospective ambassadorial couple, Sydney and Amelia. They were coming down, fronting the ascending tide, and as conspicuous over it as a king and queen in a play. Moreover, as the clear-eyed Miss Morgan remarked, the very least they looked wasambassadorial. Sydney was an Amberson exaggerated, more pompous thangracious; too portly, flushed, starched to a shine, his statelyjowl furnished with an Edward the Seventh beard. Amelia, likewisefull-bodied, showed glittering blond hair exuberantly dressed; a pink, fat face cold under a white-hot tiara; a solid, cold bosom under awhite-hot necklace; great, cold, gloved arms, and the rest of herbeautifully upholstered. Amelia was an Amberson born, herself, Sydney'ssecond-cousin: they had no children, and Sydney was without a businessor a profession; thus both found a great deal of time to think about theappropriateness of their becoming Excellencies. And as George ascendedthe broad stairway, they were precisely the aunt and uncle he was mostpleased to point out, to a girl from out of town, as his appurtenancesin the way of relatives. At sight of them the grandeur of the Ambersonfamily was instantly conspicuous as a permanent thing: it was impossibleto doubt that the Ambersons were entrenched, in their nobility andriches, behind polished and glittering barriers which were as solid asthey were brilliant, and would last. 

Chapter V

The hero of the fete, with the dark-eyed little beauty upon his arm, reached the top of the second flight of stairs; and here, beyond aspacious landing, where two proud-like darkies tended a crystallinepunch bowl, four wide archways in a rose-vine lattice framed glidingsilhouettes of waltzers, already smoothly at it to the castanets of"La Paloma. " Old John Minafer, evidently surfeited, was in the act ofleaving these delights. "D'want 'ny more o' that!" he barked. "Justslidin' around! Call that dancin'? Rather see a jig any day in theworld! They ain't very modest, some of 'em. I don't mind that, though. Not me!"

Miss Fanny Minafer was no longer in charge of him: he emerged from theballroom escorted by a middle-aged man of commonplace appearance. Theescort had a dry, lined face upon which, not ornamentally but as amatter of course, there grew a business man's short moustache; and histhin neck showed an Adam's apple, but not conspicuously, for therewas nothing conspicuous about him. Baldish, dim, quiet, he was anunnoticeable part of this festival, and although there were a dozen ormore middle-aged men present, not casually to be distinguished from himin general aspect, he was probably the last person in the big house atwhom a stranger would have glanced twice. It did not enter George's mindto mention to Miss Morgan that this was his father, or to say anythingwhatever about him. 

Mr. Minafer shook his son's hand unobtrusively in passing. 

"I'll take Uncle John home, " he said, in a low voice. "Then I guessI'll go on home myself--I'm not a great hand at parties, you know. Good-night, George. "

George murmured a friendly enough good-night without pausing. Ordinarilyhe was not ashamed of the Minafers; he seldom thought about them atall, for he belonged, as most American children do, to the mother'sfamily--but he was anxious not to linger with Miss Morgan in thevicinity of old John, whom he felt to be a disgrace. 

He pushed brusquely through the fringe of calculating youths who weregathered in the arches, watching for chances to dance only with girlswho would soon be taken off their hands, and led his stranger lady outupon the floor. They caught the time instantly, and were away in thewaltz. 

George danced well, and Miss Morgan seemed to float as part of themusic, the very dove itself of "La Paloma. " They said nothing as theydanced; her eyes were cast down all the while--the prettiest gesture fora dancer--and there was left in the universe, for each, of them, onlytheir companionship in this waltz; while the faces of the other dancers, swimming by, denoted not people but merely blurs of colour. Georgebecame conscious of strange feelings within him: an exaltation of soul, tender, but indefinite, and seemingly located in the upper part of hisdiaphragm. 

The stopping of the music came upon him like the waking to an alarmclock; for instantly six or seven of the calculating persons about theentry-ways bore down upon Miss Morgan to secure dances. George had to dowith one already established as a belle, it seemed. 

"Give me the next and the one after that, " he said hurriedly, recoveringsome presence of mind, just as the nearest applicant reached them. "Andgive me every third one the rest of the evening. "

She laughed. "Are you asking?"

"What do you mean, 'asking'?"

"It sounded as though you were just telling me to give you all thosedances. "

"Well, I want 'em!" George insisted. 

"What about all the other girls it's your duty to dance with?"

"They'll have to go without, " he said heartlessly; and then, withsurprising vehemence: "Here! I want to know: Are you going to give methose--"

"Good gracious!" she laughed. "Yes!"

The applicants flocked round her, urging contracts for what remained, but they did not dislodge George from her side, though he made itevident that they succeeded in annoying him; and presently heextricated her from an accumulating siege--she must have connived in theextrication--and bore her off to sit beside him upon the stairway thatled to the musicians' gallery, where they were sufficiently retired, yethad a view of the room. 

"How'd all those ducks get to know you so quick?" George inquired, withlittle enthusiasm. 

"Oh, I've been here a week. "

"Looks as if you'd been pretty busy!" he said. "Most of those ducks, Idon't know what my mother wanted to invite 'em here for. "

"Oh, I used to see something of a few of 'em. I was president of a clubwe had here, and some of 'em belonged to it, but I don't care much forthat sort of thing any more. I really don't see why my mother invited'em. "

"Perhaps it was on account of their parents, " Miss Morgan suggestedmildly. "Maybe she didn't want to offend their fathers and mothers. "

"Oh, hardly! I don't think my mother need worry much about offendinganybody in this old town. "

"It must be wonderful, " said Miss Morgan. "It must be wonderful, Mr. Amberson--Mr. Minafer, I mean. "

"What must be wonderful?"

"To be so important as that!"

"That isn't 'important, " George assured her. "Anybody that really isanybody ought to be able to do about as they like in their own town, Ishould think!"

She looked at him critically from under her shading lashes--but her eyesgrew gentler almost at once. In truth, they became more appreciativethan critical. George's imperious good looks were altogether manly, yetapproached actual beauty as closely as a boy's good looks should dare;and dance-music and flowers have some effect upon nineteen-year-oldgirls as well as upon eighteen-year-old boys. Miss Morgan turnedher eyes slowly from George, and pressed her face among thelilies-of-the-valley and violets of the pretty bouquet she carried, while, from the gallery above, the music of the next dance carolled outmerrily in a new two-step. The musicians made the melody gay for theChristmastime with chimes of sleighbells, and the entrance to theshadowed stairway framed the passing flushed and lively dancers, butneither George nor Miss Morgan suggested moving to join the dance. 

The stairway was draughty: the steps were narrow and uncomfortable; noolder person would have remained in such a place. Moreover, these twoyoung people were strangers to each other; neither had said anything inwhich the other had discovered the slightest intrinsic interest; therehad not arisen between them the beginnings of congeniality, or even offriendliness--but stairways near ballrooms have more to answer for thanhave moonlit lakes and mountain sunsets. Some day the laws of glamourmust be discovered, because they are so important that the world wouldbe wiser now if Sir Isaac Newton had been hit on the head, not by anapple, but by a young lady. 

Age, confused by its own long accumulation of follies, is everlastinglyinquiring, "What does she see in him?" as if young love came aboutthrough thinking--or through conduct. Age wants to know: "What on earthcan they talk about?" as if talking had anything to do with April rains!At seventy, one gets up in the morning, finds the air sweet under abright sun, feels lively; thinks, "I am hearty, today, " and plans to gofor a drive. At eighteen, one goes to a dance, sits with a stranger ona stairway, feels peculiar, thinks nothing, and becomes incapable of anyplan whatever. Miss Morgan and George stayed where they were. 

They had agreed to this in silence and without knowing it; certainlywithout exchanging glances of intelligence--they had exchanged noglances at all. Both sat staring vaguely out into the ballroom, and, fora time, they did not speak. Over their heads the music reached aclimax of vivacity: drums, cymbals, triangle, and sleighbells, beating, clashing, tinkling. Here and there were to be seen couples so carriedaway that, ceasing to move at the decorous, even glide, considered mostknowing, they pranced and whirled through the throng, from wall towall, galloping bounteously in abandon. George suffered a shock ofvague surprise when he perceived that his aunt, Fanny Minafer, was thelady-half of one of these wild couples. 

Fanny Minafer, who rouged a little, was like fruit which in someclimates dries with the bloom on. Her features had remained prettilychildlike; so had her figure, and there were times when strangers, seeing her across the street, took her to be about twenty; they wereother times when at the same distance they took her to be about sixty, instead of forty, as she was. She had old days and young days; old hoursand young hours; old minutes and young minutes; for the change mightbe that quick. An alteration in her expression, or a difference inthe attitude of her head, would cause astonishing indentations toappear--and behold, Fanny was an old lady! But she had been never morechildlike than she was tonight as she flew over the floor in the capablearms of the queer-looking duck; for this person was her partner. 

The queer-looking duck had been a real dancer in his day, it appeared;and evidently his day was not yet over. In spite of the headlong, gayrapidity with which he bore Miss Fanny about the big room, he dancedauthoritatively, avoiding without effort the lightest collision withother couples, maintaining sufficient grace throughout his wildestmoments, and all the while laughing and talking with his partner. Whatwas most remarkable to George, and a little irritating, this stranger inthe Amberson Mansion had no vestige of the air of deference proper toa stranger in such a place: he seemed thoroughly at home. He seemedoffensively so, indeed, when, passing the entrance to the gallerystairway, he disengaged his hand from Miss Fanny's for an instant, andnot pausing in the dance, waved a laughing salutation more than cordial, then capered lightly out of sight. 

George gazed stonily at this manifestation, responding neither by wordnor sign. "How's that for a bit of freshness?" he murmured. 

"What was?" Miss Morgan asked. 

"That queer-looking duck waving his hand at me like that. Except he'sthe Sharon girls' uncle I don't know him from Adam. "

"You don't need to, " she said. "He wasn't waving his hand to you: hemeant me. "

"Oh, he did?" George was not mollified by the explanation. "Everybodyseems to mean you! You certainly do seem to've been pretty busy thisweek you've been here!"

She pressed her bouquet to her face again, and laughed into it, notdispleased. She made no other comment, and for another period neitherspoke. Meanwhile the music stopped; loud applause insisted upon itsrenewal; an encore was danced; there was an interlude of voices; and thechanging of partners began. 

"Well, " said George finally, "I must say you don't seem to be much of aprattler. They say it's a great way to get a reputation for being wise, never saying much. Don't you ever talk any?"

"When people can understand, " she answered. 

He had been looking moodily out at the ballroom but he turned to herquickly, at this, saw that her eyes were sunny and content, over the topof her bouquet; and he consented to smile. 

"Girls are usually pretty fresh!" he said. "They ought to go to a man'scollege about a year: they'd get taught a few things about freshness!What you got to do after two o'clock to-morrow afternoon?"

"A whole lot of things. Every minute filled up. "

"All right, " said George. "The snow's fine for sleighing: I'll come foryou in a cutter at ten minutes after two. "

"I can't possibly go. "

"If you don't, " he said, "I'm going to sit in the cutter in front of thegate, wherever you're visiting, all afternoon, and if you try to go outwith anybody else he's got to whip me before he gets you. " And as shelaughed--though she blushed a little, too--he continued, seriously:"If you think I'm not in earnest you're at liberty to make quite a bigexperiment!"

She laughed again. "I don't think I've often had so large a complimentas that, " she said, "especially on such short notice--and yet, I don'tthink I'll go with you. 

"You be ready at ten minutes after two. "

"No, I won't. "

"Yes, you will!"

"Yes, " she said, "I will!" And her partner for the next dance arrived, breathless with searching. 

"Don't forget I've got the third from now, " George called after her. 

"I won't. "

"And every third one after that. "

"I know!" she called, over her partner's shoulder, and her voice wasamused--but meek. 

When "the third from now" came, George presented himself before herwithout any greeting, like a brother, or a mannerless old friend. Neither did she greet him, but moved away with him, concluding, as shewent, an exchange of badinage with the preceding partner: she had beentalkative enough with him, it appeared. In fact, both George and MissMorgan talked much more to every one else that evening, than toeach other; and they said nothing at all at this time. Both lookedpreoccupied, as they began to dance, and preserved a gravity, ofexpression to the end of the number. And when "the third one after that"came, they did not dance, but went back to the gallery stairway, seemingto have reached an understanding without any verbal consultation, thatthis suburb was again the place for them. 

"Well, " said George, coolly, when they were seated, "what did you sayyour name was?"

"Morgan. "

"Funny name!"

"Everybody else's name always is. "

"I didn't mean it was really funny, " George explained. "That's just oneof my crowd's bits of horsing at college. We always say 'funny name' nomatter what it is. I guess we're pretty fresh sometimes; but I knew yourname was Morgan because my mother said so downstairs. I meant: what'sthe rest of it?"

"Lucy. "

He was silent. 

"Is 'Lucy' a funny name, too?" she inquired. 

"No. Lucy's very much all right!" he said, and he went so far as tosmile. Even his Aunt Fanny admitted that when George smiled "in acertain way" he was charming. 

"Thanks about letting my name be Lucy, " she said. 

"How old are you?" George asked. 

"I don't really know, myself. "

"What do you mean: you don't really know yourself?"

"I mean I only know what they tell me. I believe them, of course, butbelieving isn't really knowing. You believe some certain day is yourbirthday--at least, I suppose you do--but you don't really know it isbecause you can't remember. "

"Look here!" said George. "Do you always talk like this?"

Miss Lucy Morgan laughed forgivingly, put her young head on one side, like a bird, and responded cheerfully: "I'm willing to learn wisdom. What are you studying in school?"

"College!"

"At the university! Yes. What are you studying there?"

George laughed. "Lot o' useless guff!"

"Then why don't you study some useful guff?"

"What do you mean: 'useful'?"

"Something you'd use later, in your business or profession?"

George waved his hand impatiently. "I don't expect to go into any'business or profession. "

"No?"

"Certainly not!" George was emphatic, being sincerely annoyed by asuggestion which showed how utterly she failed to comprehend the kind ofperson he was. 

"Why not?" she asked mildly. 

"Just look at 'em!" he said, almost with bitterness, and he made agesture presumably intended to indicate the business and professionalmen now dancing within range of vision. "That's a fine career for a man, isn't it! Lawyers, bankers, politicians! What do they get out of life, I'd like to know! What do they ever know about real things? Where dothey ever get?"

He was so earnest that she was surprised and impressed. Evidently hehad deep-seated ambitions, for he seemed to speak with actual emotionof these despised things which were so far beneath his planning for thefuture. She had a vague, momentary vision of Pitt, at twenty-one, primeminister of England; and she spoke, involuntarily in a lowered voice, with deference:

"What do you want to be?" she asked. 

George answered promptly. 

"A yachtsman, " he said. 

Chapter VI

Having thus, in a word, revealed his ambition for a career above courts, marts, and polling booths, George breathed more deeply than usual, and, turning his face from the lovely companion whom he had just made hisconfidant, gazed out at the dancers with an expression in which therewas both sternness and a contempt for the squalid lives of the unyachtedMidlanders before him. However, among them, he marked his mother; andhis sombre grandeur relaxed momentarily; a more genial light came intohis eyes. 

Isabel was dancing with the queer-looking duck; and it was to be notedthat the lively gentleman's gait was more sedate than it had been withMiss Fanny Minafer, but not less dexterous and authoritative. He wastalking to Isabel as gaily as he had talked to Miss Fanny, though withless laughter, and Isabel listened and answered eagerly: her colourwas high and her eyes had a look of delight. She saw George and thebeautiful Lucy on the stairway, and nodded to them. George waved hishand vaguely: he had a momentary return of that inexplicable uneasinessand resentment which had troubled him downstairs. 

"How lovely your mother is!" Lucy said

"I think she is, " he agreed gently. 

"She's the gracefulest woman in that ballroom. She dances like a girl ofsixteen. "

"Most girls of sixteen, " said George, "are bum dancers. Anyhow, Iwouldn't dance with one unless I had to. "

"Well, you'd better dance with your mother! I never saw anybodylovelier. How wonderfully they dance together!"

"Who?"

"Your mother and--and the queer-looking duck, " said Lucy. "I'm going todance with him pretty soon. "

"I don't care--so long as you don't give him one of the numbers thatbelong to me. "

"I'll try to remember, " she said, and thoughtfully lifted to her facethe bouquet of violets and lilies, a gesture which George noted withoutapproval. 

"Look here! Who sent you those flowers you keep makin' such a fussover?"

"He did. "

"Who's 'he'?"

"The queer-looking duck. "

George feared no such rival; he laughed loudly. "I s'pose he's some oldwidower!" he said, the object thus described seeming ignominious enoughto a person of eighteen, without additional characterization. "Some oldwidower!"

Lucy became serious at once. "Yes, he is a widower, " she said. "I oughtto have told you before; he's my father. "

George stopped laughing abruptly. "Well, that's a horse on me. If I'dknown he was your father, of course I wouldn't have made fun of him. I'msorry. "

"Nobody could make fun of him, " she said quietly. 

"Why couldn't they?"

"It wouldn't make him funny: it would only make themselves silly. "

Upon this, George had a gleam of intelligence. "Well, I'm not going tomake myself silly any more, then; I don't want to take chances like thatwith you. But I thought he was the Sharon girls' uncle. He came withthem--"

"Yes, " she said, "I'm always late to everything: I wouldn't let themwait for me. We're visiting the Sharons. "

"About time I knew that! You forget my being so fresh about your father, will you? Of course he's a distinguished looking man, in a way. "

Lucy was still serious. "In a way?'" she repeated. "You mean, not inyour way, don't you?"

George was perplexed. "How do you mean: not in my way?"

"People pretty often say 'in a way' and 'rather distinguished looking, 'or 'rather' so-and-so, or 'rather' anything, to show that they'resuperior don't they? In New York last month I overheard a climber sortof woman speaking of me as 'little Miss Morgan, ' but she didn't mean myheight; she meant that she was important. Her husband spoke of afriend of mine as 'little Mr. Pembroke' and 'little Mr. Pembroke'is six-feet-three. This husband and wife were really so terriblyunimportant that the only way they knew to pretend to be important wascalling people 'little' Miss or Mister so-and-so. It's a kind of snobslang, I think. Of course people don't always say 'rather' or 'in a way'to be superior. "

"I should say not! I use both of 'em a great deal myself, " saidGeorge. "One thing I don't see though: What's the use of a man beingsix-feet-three? Men that size can't handle themselves as well as a manabout five-feet-eleven and a half can. Those long, gangling men, they'renearly always too kind of wormy to be any good in athletics, and they'reso awkward they keep falling over chairs or--"

"Mr. Pembroke is in the army, " said Lucy primly. "He's extraordinarilygraceful. "

"In the army? Oh, I suppose he's some old friend of your father's. "

"They got on very well, " she said, "after I introduced them. "

George was a straightforward soul, at least. "See here!" he said. "Areyou engaged to anybody?"

"No. "

Not wholly mollified, he shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to know agood many people! Do you live in New York?"

"No. We don't live anywhere. "

"What you mean: you don't live anywhere?"

"We've lived all over, " she answered. "Papa used to live here in thistown, but that was before I was born. "

"What do you keep moving around so for? Is he a promoter?"

"No. He's an inventor. "

"What's he invented?"

"Just lately, " said Lucy, "he's been working on a new kind of horselesscarriage. "

"Well, I'm sorry for him, " George said, in no unkindly spirit. "Thosethings are never going to amount to anything. People aren't going tospend their lives lying on their backs in the road and letting greasedrip in their faces. Horseless carriages are pretty much a failure, andyour father better not waste his time on 'em. "

"Papa'd be so grateful, " she returned, "if he could have your advice. "

Instantly George's face became flushed. "I don't know that I've doneanything to be insulted for!" he said. "I don't see that what I said wasparticularly fresh. "

"No, indeed!"

"Then what do you--"

She laughed gaily. "I don't! And I don't mind your being such a loftyperson at all. I think it's ever so interesting--but papa's a greatman!"

"Is he?" George decided to be good-natured "Well, let us hope so. I hopeso, I'm sure. "

Looking at him keenly, she saw that the magnificent youth was incrediblysincere in this bit of graciousness. He spoke as a tolerant, elderlystatesman might speak of a promising young politician; and with hereyes still upon him, Lucy shook her head in gentle wonder. "I'm justbeginning to understand, " she said. 

"Understand what?"

"What it means to be a real Amberson in this town. Papa told mesomething about it before we came, but I see he didn't say half enough!"

George superbly took this all for tribute. "Did your father say he knewthe family before he left here?"

"Yes. I believe he was particularly a friend of your Uncle George; andhe didn't say so, but I imagine he must have known your mother verywell, too. He wasn't an inventor then; he was a young lawyer. The townwas smaller in those days, and I believe he was quite well known. "

"I dare say. I've no doubt the family are all very glad to see him back, especially if they used to have him at the house a good deal, as he toldyou. "

"I don't think he meant to boast of it, " she said: "He spoke of it quitecalmly. "

George stared at her for a moment in perplexity, then perceiving thather intention was satirical, "Girls really ought to go to a man'scollege, " he said--"just a month or two, anyhow; It'd take some of thefreshness out of 'em!"

"I can't believe it, " she retorted, as her partner for the nextdance arrived. "It would only make them a little politer on thesurface--they'd be really just as awful as ever, after you got to knowthem a few minutes. "

"What do you mean: 'after you got to know them a--'"

She was departing to the dance. "Janie and Mary Sharon told me all aboutwhat sort of a little boy you were, " she said, over her shoulder. "Youmust think it out!" She took wing away on the breeze of the waltz, andGeorge, having stared gloomily after her for a few moments, postponedfilling an engagement, and strolled round the fluctuating outskirts ofthe dance to where his uncle, George Amberson, stood smilingly watching, under one of the rose-vine arches at the entrance to the room. 

"Hello, young namesake, " said the uncle. "Why lingers the laggard heelof the dancer? Haven't you got a partner?"

"She's sitting around waiting for me somewhere, " said George. "See here:Who is this fellow Morgan that Aunt Fanny Minafer was dancing with awhile?"

Amberson laughed. "He's a man with a pretty daughter, Georgie. Meseemedyou've been spending the evening noticing something of that sort--or doI err?"

"Never mind! What sort is he?"

"I think we'll have to give him a character, Georgie. He's an oldfriend; used to practice law here--perhaps he had more debts than cases, but he paid 'em all up before he left town. Your question is purelymercenary, I take it: you want to know his true worth before proceedingfurther with the daughter. I cannot inform you, though I notice signsof considerable prosperity in that becoming dress of hers. However, younever can tell, it is an age when every sacrifice is made for the young, and how your own poor mother managed to provide those genuine pearlstuds for you out of her allowance from father, I can't--"

"Oh, dry up!" said the nephew. "I understand this Morgan--"

"Mr. Eugene Morgan, " his uncle suggested. "Politeness requires that theyoung should--"

"I guess the 'young' didn't know much about politeness in your day, "George interrupted. "I understand that Mr. Eugene Morgan used to be agreat friend of the family. "

"Oh, the Minafers?" the uncle inquired, with apparent innocence. "No, Iseem to recall that he and your father were not--"

"I mean the Ambersons, " George said impatiently. "I understand he was agood deal around the house here. "

"What is your objection to that, George?"

"What do you mean: my objection?"

"You seemed to speak with a certain crossness. "

"Well, " said George, "I meant he seems to feel awfully at home here. Theway he was dancing with Aunt Fanny--"

Amberson laughed. "I'm afraid your Aunt Fanny's heart was stirred byancient recollections, Georgie. "

"You mean she used to be silly about him?"

"She wasn't considered singular, " said the uncle "He was--he waspopular. Could you bear a question?"

"What do you mean: could I bear--"

"I only wanted to ask: Do you take this same passionate interest in theparents of every girl you dance with? Perhaps it's a new fashion we oldbachelors ought to take up. Is it the thing this year to--"

"Oh, go on!" said George, moving away. "I only wanted to know--" Heleft the sentence unfinished, and crossed the room to where a girl satwaiting for his nobility to find time to fulfil his contract with herfor this dance. 

"Pardon f' keep' wait, " he muttered, as she rose brightly to meet him;and she seemed pleased that he came at all--but George was used togirls' looking radiant when he danced with them, and she had littleeffect upon him. He danced with her perfunctorily, thinking the while ofMr. Eugene Morgan and his daughter. Strangely enough, his thoughts dweltmore upon the father than the daughter, though George could not possiblyhave given a reason--even to himself--for this disturbing preponderance. 

By a coincidence, though not an odd one, the thoughts and conversationof Mr. Eugene Morgan at this very time were concerned with GeorgeAmberson Minafer, rather casually, it is true. Mr. Morgan had retiredto a room set apart for smoking, on the second floor, and had found agrizzled gentleman lounging in solitary possession. 

"'Gene Morgan!" this person exclaimed, rising with great heartiness. "I'd heard you were in town--I don't believe you know me!"

"Yes, I do, Fred Kinney!" Mr. Morgan returned with equal friendliness. "Your real face-the one I used to know--it's just underneath the oneyou're masquerading in to-night. You ought to have changed it more ifyou wanted a disguise. "

"Twenty years!" said Mr. Kinney. "It makes some difference in faces, butmore in behaviour!"

"It does sot" his friend agreed with explosive emphasis. "My ownbehaviour began to be different about that long ago--quite suddenly. "

"I remember, " said Mr. Kinney sympathetically. "Well, life's odd enoughas we look back. "

"Probably it's going to be odder still--if we could look forward. "

"Probably. "

They sat and smoked. 

"However, " Mr. Morgan remarked presently, "I still dance like an Indian. Don't you?"

"No. I leave that to my boy Fred. He does the dancing for the family. "

"I suppose he's upstairs hard at it?"

"No, he's not here. " Mr. Kinney glanced toward the open door and loweredhis voice. "He wouldn't come. It seems that a couple of years or soago he had a row with young Georgie Minafer. Fred was president ofa literary club they had, and he said this young Georgie got himselfelected instead, in an overbearing sort of way. Fred's red-headed, youknow--I suppose you remember his mother? You were at the wedding--"

"I remember the wedding, " said Mr. Morgan. "And I remember your bachelordinner--most of it, that is. "

"Well, my boy Fred's as red-headed now, " Mr. Kinney went on, "ashis mother was then, and he's very bitter about his row with GeorgieMinafer. He says he'd rather burn his foot off than set it inside anyAmberson house or any place else where young Georgie is. Fact is, theboy seemed to have so much feeling over it I had my doubts about comingmyself, but my wife said it was all nonsense; we mustn't humour Fred ina grudge over such a little thing, and while she despised that GeorgieMinafer, herself, as much as any one else did, she wasn't going to missa big Amberson show just on account of a boys' rumpus, and so on and soon; and so we came. "

"Do people dislike young Minafer generally?"

"I don't know about 'generally. ' I guess he gets plenty of toadying;but there's certainly a lot of people that are glad to express theiropinions about him. "

"What's the matter with him?"

"Too much Amberson, I suppose, for one thing. And for another, hismother just fell down and worshipped him from the day he was born That'swhat beats me! I don't have to tell you what Isabel Amberson is, EugeneMorgan. She's got a touch of the Amberson high stuff about her, but youcan't get anybody that ever knew her to deny that she's just about thefinest woman in the world. "

"No, " said Eugene Morgan. "You can't get anybody to deny that. "

"Then I can't see how she doesn't see the truth about that boy. Hethinks he's a little tin god on wheels--and honestly, it makes somepeople weak and sick just to think about him! Yet that high-spirited, intelligent woman, Isabel Amberson, actually sits and worships him! Youcan hear it in her voice when she speaks to him or speaks of him. Youcan see it in her eyes when she looks at him. My Lord! What does she seewhen she looks at him?"

Morgan's odd expression of genial apprehension deepened whimsically, though it denoted no actual apprehension whatever, and cleared away fromhis face altogether when he smiled; he became surprisingly winningand persuasive when he smiled. He smiled now, after a moment, at thisquestion of his old friend. "She sees something that we don't see, " hesaid. 

"What does she see?"

"An angel. "

Kinney laughed aloud. "Well, if she sees an angel when she looks atGeorgie Minafer, she's a funnier woman than I thought she was!"

"Perhaps she is, " said Morgan. "But that's what she sees. "

"My Lord! It's easy to see you've only known him an hour or so. In thattime have you looked at Georgie and seen an angel?"

"No. All I saw was a remarkably good-looking fool-boy with the prideof Satan and a set of nice new drawing-room manners that he probablycouldn't use more than half an hour at a time without busting. "

"Then what--"

"Mothers are right, " said Morgan. "Do you think this young George isthe same sort of creature when he's with his mother that he is when he'sbulldozing your boy Fred? Mothers see the angel in us because the angelis there. If it's shown to the mother, the son has got an angel to show, hasn't he? When a son cuts somebody's throat the mother only sees it'spossible for a misguided angel to act like a devil--and she's entirelyright about that!"

Kinney laughed, and put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I rememberwhat a fellow you always were to argue, " he said. "You mean GeorgieMinafer is as much of an angel as any murderer is, and that Georgie'smother is always right. "

"I'm afraid she always has been, " Morgan said lightly. 

The friendly hand remained upon his shoulder. "She was wrong once, oldfellow. At least, so it seemed to me. "

"No, " said Morgan, a little awkwardly. "No--"

Kinney relieved the slight embarrassment that had come upon both ofthem: he laughed again. "Wait till you know young Georgie a littlebetter, " he said. "Something tells me you're going to change your mindabout his having an angel to show, if you see anything of him!"

"You mean beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and the angel is all inthe eye of the mother. If you were a painter, Fred, you'd paint motherswith angels' eyes holding imps in their laps. Me. I'll stick to the OldMasters and the cherubs. "

Mr. Kinney looked at him musingly. "Somebody's eyes must have beenpretty angelic, " he said, "if they've been persuading you that GeorgieMinnafer is a cherub!"

"They are, " said Morgan heartily. "They're more angelic than ever. " Andas a new flourish of music sounded overhead he threw away his cigarette, and jumped up briskly. "Good-bye, I've got this dance with her. "

"With whom?"

"With Isabel!"

The grizzled Mr. Kinney affected to rub his eyes. "It startles me, yourjumping up like that to go and dance with Isabel Amberson! Twenty yearsseem to have passed--but have they? Tell me, have you danced with poorold Fanny, too, this evening?"

"Twice!"

"My Lord!" Kinney groaned, half in earnest. "Old times starting all overagain! My Lord!"

"Old times?" Morgan laughed gaily from the doorway. "Not a bit! Therearen't any old times. When times are gone they're not old, they're dead!There aren't any times but new times!"

And he vanished in such a manner that he seemed already to have begundancing. 

Chapter VII

The appearance of Miss Lucy Morgan the next day, as she sat in George'sfast cutter, proved so charming that her escort was stricken to softwords instantly, and failed to control a poetic impulse. Her rich littlehat was trimmed with black fur; her hair was almost as dark as thefur; a great boa of black fur was about her shoulders; her hands werevanished into a black muff; and George's laprobe was black. "You looklike--" he said. "Your face looks like--it looks like a snowflake on alump of coal. I mean a--a snowflake that would be a rose-leaf, too!"

"Perhaps you'd better look at the reins, " she returned. "We almost upsetjust then. "

George declined to heed this advice. "Because there's too much pink inyour cheeks for a snowflake, " he continued. "What's that fairy storyabout snow-white and rose-red--"

"We're going pretty fast, Mr. Minafer!"

"Well, you see, I'm only here for two weeks. "

"I mean the sleigh!" she explained. "We're not the only people on thestreet, you know. "

"Oh, they'll keep out of the way. "

"That's very patrician charioteering, but it seems to me a horse likethis needs guidance. I'm sure he's going almost twenty miles an hour. "

"That's nothing, " said George; but he consented to look forward again. "He can trot under three minutes, all right. " He laughed. "I supposeyour father thinks he can build a horseless carriage to go that fast!"

"They go that fast already, sometimes. "

"Yes, " said George; "they do--for about a hundred feet! Then they give ayell and burn up. "

Evidently she decided not to defend her father's faith in horselesscarriages, for she laughed, and said nothing. The cold air waspolka-dotted with snowflakes, and trembled to the loud, continuousjingling of sleighbells. Boys and girls, all aglow and panting jets ofvapour, darted at the passing sleighs to ride on the runners, or soughtto rope their sleds to any vehicle whatever, but the fleetest no morethan just touched the flying cutter, though a hundred soggy mittensgrasped for it, then reeled and whirled till sometimes the wearersof those daring mittens plunged flat in the snow and lay a-sprawl, reflecting. For this was the holiday time, and all the boys and girls intown were out, most of them on National Avenue. 

But there came panting and chugging up that flat thoroughfare a thingwhich some day was to spoil all their sleigh-time merriment--save forthe rashest and most disobedient. It was vaguely like a toplesssurry, but cumbrous with unwholesome excrescences fore and aft, whileunderneath were spinning leather belts and something that whirred andhowled and seemed to stagger. The ride-stealers made no attempt tofasten their sleds to a contrivance so nonsensical and yet so fearsome. Instead, they gave over their sport and concentrated all their energiesin their lungs, so that up and down the street the one cry shrilledincreasingly: "Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Mister, why don'tyou git a hoss?" But the mahout in charge, sitting solitary on the frontseat, was unconcerned--he laughed, and now and then ducked a snowballwithout losing any of his good-nature. It was Mr. Eugene Morgan whoexhibited so cheerful a countenance between the forward visor of adeer-stalker cap and the collar of a fuzzy gray ulster. "Git a hoss!"the children shrieked, and gruffer voices joined them. "Git a hoss! Gita hoss! Git a hoss!"

George Minafer was correct thus far: the twelve miles an hour of such amachine would never over-take George's trotter. The cutter was alreadyscurrying between the stone pillars at the entrance to AmbersonAddition. 

"That's my grandfather's, " said George, nodding toward the AmbersonMansion. 

"I ought to know that!" Lucy exclaimed. "We stayed there late enoughlast night: papa and I were almost the last to go. He and your motherand Miss Fanny Minafer got the musicians to play another waltz wheneverybody else had gone downstairs and the fiddles were being put awayin their cases. Papa danced part of it with Miss Minafer and the restwith your mother. Miss Minafer's your aunt, isn't she?"

"Yes; she lives with us. I tease her a good deal. "

"What about?"

"Oh, anything handy--whatever's easy to tease an old maid about. "

"Doesn't she mind?"

"She usually has sort of a grouch on me, " laughed George. "Nothing much. That's our house just beyond grandfather's. " He waved a sealskin gauntlet to indicate the house Major Amberson had built for Isabel as awedding gift. "It's almost the same as grandfather's, only not as largeand hasn't got a regular ballroom. We gave the dance, last night, atgrandfather's on account of the ballroom, and because I'm the onlygrandchild, you know. Of course, some day that'll be my house, though Iexpect my mother will most likely go on living where she does now, withfather and Aunt Fanny. I suppose I'll probably build a country house, too--somewhere East, I guess. " He stopped speaking, and frowned as theypassed a closed carriage and pair. The body of this comfortable vehiclesagged slightly to one side; the paint was old and seamed with hundredsof minute cracks like little rivers on a black map; the coachman, a fatand elderly darky, seemed to drowse upon the box; but the open windowafforded the occupants of the cutter a glimpse of a tired, fine oldface, a silk hat, a pearl tie, and an astrachan collar, evidently out totake the air. 

"There's your grandfather now, " said Lucy. "Isn't it?"

George's frown was not relaxed. "Yes, it is; and he ought to givethat rat-trap away and sell those old horses. They're a disgrace, allshaggy--not even clipped. I suppose he doesn't notice it--people getawful funny when they get old; they seem to lose their self-respect, sort of. "

"He seemed a real Brummell to me, " she said. 

"Oh, he keeps up about what he wears, well enough, but--well, lookat that!" He pointed to a statue of Minerva, one of the cast-ironsculptures Major Amberson had set up in opening the Addition yearsbefore. Minerva was intact, but a blackish streak descended unpleasantlyfrom her forehead to the point of her straight nose, and a few otherstreaks were sketched in a repellent dinge upon the folds of herdrapery. 

"That must be from soot, " said Lucy. "There are so many houses aroundhere. "

"Anyhow, somebody ought to see that these statues are kept clean. Mygrandfather owns a good many of these houses, I guess, for renting. Of course, he sold most of the lots--there aren't any vacant ones, andthere used to be heaps of 'em when I was a boy. Another thing I don'tthink he ought to allow a good many of these people bought big lotsand they built houses on 'em; then the price of the land kept gettinghigher, and they'd sell part of their yards and let the people thatbought it build houses on it to live in, till they haven't hardly anyof 'em got big, open yards any more, and it's getting all too much builtup. The way it used to be, it was like a gentleman's country estate, and that's the way my grandfather ought to keep it. He lets these peopletake too many liberties: they do anything they want to. "

"But how could he stop them?" Lucy asked, surely with reason. "If hesold them the land, it's theirs, isn't it?"

George remained serene in the face of this apparently difficultquestion. "He ought to have all the trades-people boycott the familiesthat sell part of their yards that way. All he'd have to do would be totell the trades-people they wouldn't get any more orders from the familyif they didn't do it. "

"From 'the family'? What family?"

"Our family, " said George, unperturbed. "The Ambersons. "

"I see!" she murmured, and evidently she did see something that he didnot, for, as she lifted her muff to her face, he asked:

"What are you laughing at now?"

"Why?"

"You always seem to have some little secret of your own to get happyover!"

"Always!" she exclaimed. "What a big word when we only met last night!"

"That's another case of it, " he said, with obvious sincerity. "One ofthe reasons I don't like you--much!--is you've got that way of seemingquietly superior to everybody else. "

"I!" she cried. "I have?"

"Oh, you think you keep it sort of confidential to yourself, but it'splain enough! I don't believe in that kind of thing. "

"You don't?"

"No, " said George emphatically. "Not with me! I think the world's likethis: there's a few people that their birth and position, and so on, puts them at the top, and they ought to treat each other entirely asequals. " His voice betrayed a little emotion as he added, "I wouldn'tspeak like this to everybody. "

"You mean you're confiding your deepest creed--or code, whatever itis--to me?"

"Go on, make fun of it, then!" George said bitterly. "You do thinkyou're terribly clever! It makes me tired!"

"Well, as you don't like my seeming 'quietly superior, ' after this I'llbe noisily superior, " she returned cheerfully. "We aim to please!"

"I had a notion before I came for you today that we were going toquarrel, " he said. 

"No, we won't; it takes two!" She laughed and waved her muff toward anew house, not quite completed, standing in a field upon their right. They had passed beyond Amberson Addition, and were leaving the northernfringes of the town for the open country. "Isn't that a beautifulhouse!" she exclaimed. "Papa and I call it our Beautiful House. "

George was not pleased. "Does it belong to you?"

"Of course not! Papa brought me out here the other day, driving inhis machine, and we both loved it. It's so spacious and dignified andplain. "

"Yes, it's plain enough!" George grunted. 

"Yet it's lovely; the gray-green roof and shutters give just enoughcolour, with the trees, for the long white walls. It seems to me thefinest house I've seen in this part of the country. "

George was outraged by an enthusiasm so ignorant--not ten minutes agothey had passed the Amberson Mansion. "Is that a sample of your taste inarchitecture?" he asked. 

"Yes. Why?"

"Because it strikes me you better go somewhere and study the subject alittle!"

Lucy looked puzzled. "What makes you have so much feeling about it? HaveI offended you?"

"Offended' nothing!" George returned brusquely. "Girls usually thinkthey know it all as soon as they've learned to dance and dress and flirta little. They never know anything about things like architecture, forinstance. That house is about as bum a house as any house I ever saw!"

"Why?"

"Why?" George repeated. "Did you ask me why?"

"Yes. "

"Well, for one thing--" he paused--"for one thing--well, just look atit! I shouldn't think you'd have to do any more than look at it if you'dever given any attention to architecture. "

"What is the matter with its architecture, Mr. Minafer?"

"Well, it's this way, " said George. "It's like this. Well, for instance, that house--well, it was built like a town house. " He spoke of it in thepast tense, because they had now left it far behind them--a human habitof curious significance. "It was like a house meant for a street in thecity. What kind of a house was that for people of any taste to build outhere in the country?"

"But papa says it's built that way on purpose. There are a lot of otherhouses being built in this direction, and papa says the city's comingout this way; and in a year or two that house will be right in town. "

"It was a bum house, anyhow, " said George crossly. "I don't even knowthe people that are building it. They say a lot of riffraff come to townevery year nowadays and there's other riffraff that have always livedhere, and have made a little money, and act as if they owned the place. Uncle Sydney was talking about it yesterday: he says he and some ofhis friends are organizing a country club, and already some of theseriffraff are worming into it--people he never heard of at all! Anyhow, Iguess it's pretty clear you don't know a great deal about architecture. "

She demonstrated the completeness of her amiability by laughing. "I'llknow something about the North Pole before long, " she said, "if we keepgoing much farther in this direction!"

At this he was remorseful. "All right, we'll turn, and drive southawhile till you get warmed up again. I expect we have been going againstthe wind about long enough. Indeed, I'm sorry!"

He said, "Indeed, I'm sorry, " in a nice way, and looked very strikinglyhandsome when he said it, she thought. No doubt it is true that thereis more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repented than over all thesaints who consistently remain holy, and the rare, sudden gentlenessesof arrogant people have infinitely more effect than the continualgentleness of gentle people. Arrogance turned gentle melts theheart; and Lucy gave her companion a little sidelong, sunny nod ofacknowledgment. George was dazzled by the quick glow of her eyes, andfound himself at a loss for something to say. 

Having turned about, he kept his horse to a walk, and at this gaitthe sleighbells tinkled but intermittently. Gleaming wanly through thewhitish vapour that kept rising from the trotter's body and flanks, theywere like tiny fog-bells, and made the only sounds in a great wintersilence. The white road ran between lonesome rail fences; and frozenbarnyards beyond the fences showed sometimes a harrow left to rust, withits iron seat half filled with stiffened snow, and sometimes an olddead buggy, it's wheels forever set, it seemed, in the solid ice of deepruts. Chickens scratched the metallic earth with an air of protest, anda masterless ragged colt looked up in sudden horror at the mild tinkleof the passing bells, then blew fierce clouds of steam at the sleigh. The snow no longer fell, and far ahead, in a grayish cloud that lay uponthe land, was the town. 

Lucy looked at this distant thickening reflection. "When we get thisfar out we can see there must be quite a little smoke hanging over thetown, " she said. "I suppose that's because it's growing. As it growsbigger it seems to get ashamed of itself, so it makes this cloud andhides in it. Papa says it used to be a bit nicer when he lived here:he always speaks of it differently--he always has a gentle look, aparticular tone of voice, I've noticed. He must have been very fond ofit. It must have been a lovely place: everybody must have been so jolly. From the way he talks, you'd think life here then was just one longmidsummer serenade. He declares it was always sunshine, that the airwasn't like the air anywhere else--that, as he remembers it, therealways seemed to be gold-dust in the air. I doubt it! I think it doesn'tseem to be duller air to him now just on account of having a little sootin it sometimes, but probably because he was twenty years younger then. It seems to me the gold-dust he thinks was here is just his being youngthat he remembers. I think it was just youth. It is pretty pleasantto be young, isn't it?" She laughed absently, then appeared to becomewistful. "I wonder if we really do enjoy it as much as we'll look backand think we did! I don't suppose so. Anyhow, for my part I feel as ifI must be missing something about it, somehow, because I don't ever seemto be thinking about what's happening at the present moment; I'm alwayslooking forward to something--thinking about things that will happenwhen I'm older. "

"You're a funny girl, " George said gently. "But your voice sounds prettynice when you think and talk along together like that!"

The horse shook himself all over, and the impatient sleighbells made hiswish audible. Accordingly, George tightened the reins, and the cutterwas off again at a three-minute trot, no despicable rate of speed. Itwas not long before they were again passing Lucy's Beautiful House, and here George thought fit to put an appendix to his remark. "You're afunny girl, and you know a lot--but I don't believe you know much aboutarchitecture!"

Coming toward them, black against the snowy road, was a strangesilhouette. It approached moderately and without visible means ofprogression, so the matter seemed from a distance; but as the cuttershortened the distance, the silhouette was revealed to be Mr. Morgan'shorseless carriage, conveying four people atop: Mr. Morgan with George'smother beside him, and, in the rear seat, Miss Fanny Minafer and theHonorable George Amberson. All four seemed to be in the liveliesthumour, like high-spirited people upon a new adventure; and Isabel wavedher handkerchief dashingly as the cutter flashed by them. 

"For the Lord's sake!" George gasped. 

"Your mother's a dear, " said Lucy. "And she does wear the mostbewitching things! She looked like a Russian princess, though I doubt ifthey're that handsome. "

George said nothing; he drove on till they had crossed Amberson Additionand reached the stone pillars at the head of National Avenue. There heturned. 

"Let's go back and take another look at that old sewing-machine, " hesaid. "It certainly is the weirdest, craziest--"

He left the sentence unfinished, and presently they were again in sightof the old sewing-machine. George shouted mockingly. 

Alas! three figures stood in the road, and a pair of legs, with the toesturned up, indicated that a fourth figure lay upon its back in the snow, beneath a horseless carriage that had decided to need a horse. 

George became vociferous with laughter, and coming up at his trotter'sbest gait, snow spraying from runners and every hoof, swerved to theside of the road and shot by, shouting, "Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git ahoss!"

Three hundred yards away he turned and came back, racing; leaning outas he passed, to wave jeeringly at the group about the disabled machine:"Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a--"

The trotter had broken into a gallop, and Lucy cried a warning: "Becareful!" she said. "Look where you're driving! There's a ditch on thatside. Look--"

George turned too late; the cutter's right runner went into the ditchand snapped off; the little sleigh upset, and, after dragging itsoccupants some fifteen yards, left them lying together in a bankof snow. Then the vigorous young horse kicked himself free of allannoyances, and disappeared down the road, galloping cheerfully. 

Chapter VIII

When George regained some measure of his presence of mind, Miss LucyMorgan's cheek, snowy and cold, was pressing his nose slightly to oneside; his right arm was firmly about her neck; and a monstrous amountof her fur boa seemed to mingle with an equally unplausible quantity ofsnow in his mouth. He was confused, but conscious of no objection to anyof these juxtapositions. She was apparently uninjured, for she sat up, hatless, her hair down, and said mildly:

"Good heavens!"

Though her father had been under his machine when they passed, hewas the first to reach them. He threw himself on his knees beside hisdaughter, but found her already laughing, and was reassured. "They'reall right, " he called to Isabel, who was running toward them, ahead ofher brother and Fanny Minafer. "This snowbank's a feather bed--nothingthe matter with them at all. Don't look so pale!"

"Georgie!" she gasped. "Georgie!"

Georgie was on his feet, snow all over him. 

"Don't make a fuss, mother! Nothing's the matter. That darned sillyhorse--"

Sudden tears stood in Isabel's eyes. "To see you downunderneath--dragging--oh--" Then with shaking hands she began to brushthe snow from him. 

"Let me alone, " he protested. "You'll ruin your gloves. You're gettingsnow all over you, and--"

"No, no!" she cried. "You'll catch cold; you mustn't catch cold!" Andshe continued to brush him. 

Amberson had brought Lucy's hat; Miss Fanny acted as lady's-maid; andboth victims of the accident were presently restored to about theirusual appearance and condition of apparel. In fact, encouraged by thetwo older gentlemen, the entire party, with one exception, decided thatthe episode was after all a merry one, and began to laugh about it. ButGeorge was glummer than the December twilight now swiftly closing in. 

"That darned horse!" he said. 

"I wouldn't bother about Pendennis, Georgie, " said his uncle. "You cansend a man out for what's left of the cutter tomorrow, and Pendenniswill gallop straight home to his stable: he'll be there a long whilebefore we will, because all we've got to depend on to get us home isGene Morgan's broken-down chafing-dish yonder. "

They were approaching the machine as he spoke, and his friend, againunderneath it, heard him. He emerged, smiling. "She'll go, " he said. 

"What!"

"All aboard!"

He offered his hand to Isabel. She was smiling but still pale, and hereyes, in spite of the smile, kept upon George in a shocked anxiety. MissFanny had already mounted to the rear seat, and George, after helpingLucy Morgan to climb up beside his aunt, was following. Isabel sawthat his shoes were light things of patent leather, and that snow wasclinging to them. She made a little rush toward him, and, as one of hisfeet rested on the iron step of the machine, in mounting, she began toclean the snow from his shoe with her almost aerial lace handkerchief. "You mustn't catch cold!" she cried. 

"Stop that!" George shouted, and furiously withdrew his foot. 

"Then stamp the snow off, " she begged. "You mustn't ride with wet feet. "

"They're not!" George roared, thoroughly outraged. "For heaven's sakeget in! You're standing in the snow yourself. Get in!"

Isabel consented, turning to Morgan, whose habitual expression ofapprehensiveness was somewhat accentuated. He climbed up after her, George Amberson having gone to the other side. "You're the same IsabelI used to know!" he said in a low voice. "You're a divinely ridiculouswoman. "

"Am I, Eugene?" she said, not displeased. "'Divinely' and 'ridiculous'just counterbalance each other, don't they? Plus one and minus one equalnothing; so you mean I'm nothing in particular?"

"No, " he answered, tugging at a lever. "That doesn't seem to beprecisely what I meant. There!" This exclamation referred to thesubterranean machinery, for dismaying sounds came from beneath thefloor, and the vehicle plunged, then rolled noisily forward. 

"Behold!" George Amberson exclaimed. "She does move! It must be anotheraccident. "

"Accident?" Morgan shouted over the din. "No! She breathes, she stirs;she seems to feel a thrill of life along her keel!" And he began to sing"The Star Spangled Banner. "

Amberson joined him lustily, and sang on when Morgan stopped. Thetwilight sky cleared, discovering a round moon already risen; and themusical congressman hailed this bright presence with the complete textand melody of "The Danube River. "

His nephew, behind, was gloomy. He had overheard his mother'sconversation with the inventor: it seemed curious to him that thisMorgan, of whom he had never heard until last night, should be using thename "Isabel" so easily; and George felt that it was not just the thingfor his mother to call Morgan "Eugene;" the resentment of the previousnight came upon George again. Meanwhile, his mother and Morgan continuedtheir talk; but he could no longer hear what they said; the noise ofthe car and his uncle's songful mood prevented. He marked how animatedIsabel seemed; it was not strange to see his mother so gay, but it wasstrange that a man not of the family should be the cause of her gaiety. And George sat frowning. 

Fanny Minafer had begun to talk to Lucy. "Your father wanted to provethat his horseless carriage would run, even in the snow, " she said. "Itreally does, too. "

"Of course!"

"It's so interesting! He's been telling us how he's going to change it. He says he's going to have wheels all made of rubber and blown up withair. I don't understand what he means at all; I should think they'dexplode--but Eugene seems to be very confident. He always was confident, though. It seems so like old times to hear him talk!"

She became thoughtful, and Lucy turned to George. "You tried to swingunderneath me and break the fall for me when we went over, " she said. "Iknew you were doing that, and--it was nice of you. "

"Wasn't any fall to speak of, " he returned brusquely. "Couldn't havehurt either of us. "

"Still it was friendly of you--and awfully quick, too. I'll not--I'llnot forget it!"

Her voice had a sound of genuineness, very pleasant; and George began toforget his annoyance with her father. This annoyance of his had notbeen alleviated by the circumstance that neither of the seats of theold sewing-machine was designed for three people, but when his neighbourspoke thus gratefully, he no longer minded the crowding--in fact, itpleased him so much that he began to wish the old sewing-machine wouldgo even slower. And she had spoken no word of blame for his letting thatdarned horse get the cutter into the ditch. George presently addressedher hurriedly, almost tremulously, speaking close to her ear:

"I forgot to tell you something: you're pretty nice! I thought so thefirst second I saw you last night. I'll come for you tonight and takeyou to the Assembly at the Amberson Hotel. You're going, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I'm going with papa and the Sharons I'll see you there. "

"Looks to me as if you were awfully conventional, " George grumbled; andhis disappointment was deeper than he was willing to let her see--thoughshe probably did see. "Well, we'll dance the cotillion together, anyhow. "

"I'm afraid not. I promised Mr. Kinney. "

"What!" George's tone was shocked, as at incredible news. "Well, youcould break that engagement, I guess, if you wanted to! Girls always canget out of things when they want to. Won't you?"

"I don't think so. "

"Why not?"

"Because I promised him. Several days ago. "

George gulped, and lowered his pride, "I don't--oh, look here! I onlywant to go to that thing tonight to get to see something of you; and ifyou don't dance the cotillion with me, how can I? I'll only be here twoweeks, and the others have got all the rest of your visit to see you. Won't you do it, please?"

"I couldn't. "

"See here!" said the stricken George. "If you're going to decline todance that cotillion with me simply because you've promised a--a--amiserable red-headed outsider like Fred Kinney, why we might as wellquit!"

"Quit what?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean, " he said huskily. 

"I don't. "

"Well, you ought to!"

"But I don't at all!"

George, thoroughly hurt, and not a little embittered, expressed himselfin a short outburst of laughter: "Well, I ought to have seen it!"

"Seen what?"

"That you might turn out to be a girl who'd like a fellow of thered-headed Kinney sort. I ought to have seen it from the first!"

Lucy bore her disgrace lightly. "Oh, dancing a cotillion with a persondoesn't mean that you like him--but I don't see anything in particularthe matter with Mr. Kinney. What is?"

"If you don't see anything the matter with him for yourself, " Georgeresponded, icily, "I don't think pointing it out would help you. Youprobably wouldn't understand. "

"You might try, " she suggested. "Of course I'm a stranger here, and ifpeople have done anything wrong or have something unpleasant aboutthem, I wouldn't have any way of knowing it, just at first. If poor Mr. Kinney--"

"I prefer not to discuss it, " said George curtly. "He's an enemy ofmine. "

"Why?"

"I prefer not to discuss it. "

"Well, but--"

"I prefer not to discuss it!"

"Very well. " She began to hum the air of the song which Mr. GeorgeAmberson was now discoursing, "O moon of my delight that knows nowane"--and there was no further conversation on the back seat. 

They had entered Amberson Addition, and the moon of Mr. Amberson'sdelight was overlaid by a slender Gothic filagree; the branches thatsprang from the shade trees lining the street. Through the windows ofmany of the houses rosy lights were flickering; and silver tinsel andevergreen wreaths and brilliant little glass globes of silver and winecolour could be seen, and glimpses were caught of Christmas trees, withpeople decking them by firelight--reminders that this was Christmas Eve. The ride-stealers had disappeared from the highway, though now and then, over the gasping and howling of the horseless carriage, there came ashrill jeer from some young passer-by upon the sidewalk:

"Mister, fer heaven's sake go an' git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss!"

The contrivance stopped with a heart-shaking jerk before Isabel's house. The gentlemen jumped down, helping Isabel and Fanny to descend; therewere friendly leavetakings--and one that was not precisely friendly. 

"It's 'au revoir, ' till to-night, isn't it?" Lucy asked, laughing. 

"Good afternoon!" said George, and he did not wait, as his relativesdid, to see the old sewing machine start briskly down the street, towardthe Sharons'; its lighter load consisting now of only Mr. Morgan and hisdaughter. George went into the house at once. 

He found his father reading the evening paper in the library. "Where areyour mother and your Aunt Fanny?" Mr. Minafer inquired, not looking up. 

"They're coming, " said his son; and, casting himself heavily into achair, stared at the fire. 

His prediction was verified a few moments later; the two ladies camein cheerfully, unfastening their fur cloaks. "It's all right, Georgie, "said Isabel. "Your Uncle George called to us that Pendennis got homesafely. Put your shoes close to the fire, dear, or else go and changethem. " She went to her husband and patted him lightly on the shoulder, an action which George watched with sombre moodiness. "You might dressbefore long, " she suggested. "We're all going to the Assembly, afterdinner, aren't we? Brother George said he'd go with us. "

"Look here, " said George abruptly. "How about this man Morgan and hisold sewing-machine? Doesn't he want to get grandfather to put money intoit? Isn't he trying to work Uncle George for that? Isn't that what he'sup to?"

It was Miss Fanny who responded. "You little silly!" she cried, withsurprising sharpness. "What on earth are you talking about? EugeneMorgan's perfectly able to finance his own inventions these days. "

"I'll bet he borrows money of Uncle George, " the nephew insisted. 

Isabel looked at him in grave perplexity. "Why do you say such a thing, George?" she asked. 

"He strikes me as that sort of man, " he answered doggedly. "Isn't he, father?"

Minafer set down his paper for the moment. "He was a fairly wild youngfellow twenty years ago, " he said, glancing at his wife absently. "Hewas like you in one thing, Georgie; he spent too much money--only hedidn't have any mother to get money out of a grandfather for him, so hewas usually in debt. But I believe I've heard he's done fairly well oflate years. No, I can't say I think he's a swindler, and I doubt if heneeds anybody else's money to back his horseless carriage. "

"Well, what's he brought the old thing here for, then? People thatown elephants don't take them elephants around with 'em when they govisiting. What's he got it here for?"

"I'm sure I don't know, " said Mr. Minafer, resuming his paper. "Youmight ask him. "

Isabel laughed, and patted her husband's shoulder again. "Aren't yougoing to dress? Aren't we all going to the dance?"

He groaned faintly. "Aren't your brother and Georgie escorts enough foryou and Fanny?"

"Wouldn't you enjoy it at all?"

"You know I don't. "

Isabel let her hand remain upon his shoulder a moment longer; she stoodbehind him, looking into the fire, and George, watching her broodingly, thought there was more colour in her face than the reflection of theflames accounted for. "Well, then, " she said indulgently, "stay at homeand be happy. We won't urge you if you'd really rather not. "

"I really wouldn't, " he said contentedly. 

Half an hour later, George was passing through the upper hall, in abath-robe stage of preparation for the evening's' gaieties, when heencountered his Aunt Fanny. He stopped her. "Look here!" he said. 

"What in the world is the matter with you?" she demanded, regardinghim with little amiability. "You look as if you were rehearsing for avillain in a play. Do change your expression!"

His expression gave no sign of yielding to the request; on the contrary, its somberness deepened. "I suppose you don't know why father doesn'twant to go tonight, " he said solemnly. "You're his only sister, and yetyou don't know!"

"He never wants to go anywhere that I ever heard of, " said Fanny. "Whatis the matter with you?"

"He doesn't want to go because he doesn't like this man Morgan. "

"Good gracious!" Fanny cried impatiently. "Eugene Morgan isn't in yourfather's thoughts at all, one way or the other. Why should he be?"

George hesitated. "Well--it strikes me--Look here, what makes youand--and everybody--so excited over him?"

"Excited!" she jeered. "Can't people be glad to see an old friendwithout silly children like you having to make a to-do about it? I'vejust been in your mother's room suggesting that she might give a littledinner for them--"

"For who?"

"For whom, Georgie! For Mr. Morgan and his daughter. "

"Look here!" George said quickly. "Don't do that! Mother mustn't dothat. It wouldn't look well. "

"Wouldn't look well!" Fanny mocked him; and her suppressed vehemencebetrayed a surprising acerbity. "See here, Georgie Minafer, I suggestthat you just march straight on into your room and finish your dressing!Sometimes you say things that show you have a pretty mean little mind!"

George was so astounded by this outburst that his indignation wasdelayed by his curiosity. "Why, what upsets you this way?" he inquired. 

"I know what you mean, " she said, her voice still lowered, but notdecreasing in sharpness. "You're trying to insinuate that I'd getyour mother to invite Eugene Morgan here on my account because he's awidower!"

"I am?" George gasped, nonplussed. "I'm trying to insinuate that you'resetting your cap at him and getting mother to help you? Is that what youmean?"

Beyond a doubt that was what Miss Fanny meant. She gave him a white-hotlook. "You attend to your own affairs!" she whispered fiercely, andswept away. 

George, dumfounded, returned to his room for meditation. 

He had lived for years in the same house with his Aunt Fanny, and itnow appeared that during all those years he had been thus intimatelyassociating with a total stranger. Never before had he met thepassionate lady with whom he had just held a conversation in the hall. So she wanted to get married! And wanted George's mother to help herwith this horseless-carriage widower!

"Well, I will be shot!" he muttered aloud. "I will--I certainly will beshot!" And he began' to laugh. "Lord 'lmighty!"

But presently, at the thought of the horseless-carriage widower'sdaughter, his grimness returned, and he resolved upon a line of conductfor the evening. He would nod to her carelessly when he first saw her;and, after that, he would notice her no more: he would not dance withher; he would not favour her in the cotillion--he would not go near her!

He descended to dinner upon the third urgent summons of a colouredbutler, having spent two hours dressing--and rehearsing. 

Chapter IX

The Honourable George Amberson was a congressman who led cotillions--thesort of congressman an Amberson would be. He did it negligently, tonight, yet with infallible dexterity, now and then glancing humorouslyat the spectators, people of his own age. They were seated in a tropicalgrove at one end of the room whither they had retired at the beginningof the cotillion, which they surrendered entirely to the twenties andthe late 'teens. And here, grouped with that stately pair, Sydney andAmelia Amberson, sat Isabel with Fanny, while Eugene Morgan appeared tobestow an amiable devotion impartially upon the three sisters-in-law. Fanny watched his face eagerly, laughing at everything he said; Ameliasmiled blandly, but rather because of graciousness than because ofinterest; while Isabel, looking out at the dancers, rhythmically moved agreat fan of blue ostrich feathers, listened to Eugene thoughtfully, yetall the while kept her shining eyes on Georgie. 

Georgie had carried out his rehearsed projects with precision, he hadgiven Miss Morgan a nod studied into perfection during his lengthytoilet before dinner. "Oh, yes, I do seem to remember that curiouslittle outsider!" this nod seemed to say. Thereafter, all cognizanceof her evaporated: the curious little outsider was permitted no furtherexistence worth the struggle. Nevertheless, she flashed in the cornerof his eye too often. He was aware of her dancing demurely, and of herviciously flirtatious habit of never looking up at her partner, but keeping her eyes concealed beneath downcast lashes; and he hadover-sufficient consciousness of her between the dances, though it wasnot possible to see her at these times, even if he had cared to lookfrankly in her direction--she was invisible in a thicket of youngdresscoats. The black thicket moved as she moved and her location washatefully apparent, even if he had not heard her voice laughing from thethicket. It was annoying how her voice, though never loud, pursued him. No matter how vociferous were other voices, all about, he seemed unableto prevent himself from constantly recognizing hers. It had a quaver init, not pathetic--rather humorous than pathetic--a quality which annoyedhim to the point of rage, because it was so difficult to get away from. She seemed to be having a "wonderful time!"

An unbearable soreness accumulated in his chest: his dislike of the girland her conduct increased until he thought of leaving this sickeningAssembly and going home to bed. That would show her! But just thenhe heard her laughing, and decided that it wouldn't show her. So heremained. 

When the young couples seated themselves in chairs against the walls, round three sides of the room, for the cotillion, George joineda brazen-faced group clustering about the doorway--youths with nopartners, yet eligible to be "called out" and favoured. He marked thathis uncle placed the infernal Kinney and Miss Morgan, as the leadingcouple, in the first chairs at the head of the line upon the leader'sright; and this disloyalty on the part of Uncle George was inexcusable, for in the family circle the nephew had often expressed his opinionof Fred Kinney. In his bitterness, George uttered a significantmonosyllable. 

The music flourished; whereupon Mr. Kinney, Miss Morgan, and six oftheir neighbours rose and waltzed knowingly. Mr. Amberson's whistleblew;' then the eight young people went to the favour-table and weregiven toys and trinkets wherewith to delight the new partners it was nowtheir privilege to select. Around the walls, the seated non-participantsin this ceremony looked rather conscious; some chattered, endeavouringnot to appear expectant; some tried not to look wistful; and others werefrankly solemn. It was a trying moment; and whoever secured a favour, this very first shot, might consider the portents happy for a successfulevening. 

Holding their twinkling gewgaws in their hands, those about to bestowhonour came toward the seated lines, where expressions becamefeverish. Two of the approaching girls seemed to wander, not finding apredetermined object in sight; and these two were Janie Sharon, and hercousin, Lucy. At this, George Amberson Minafer, conceiving that he hadlittle to anticipate from either, turned a proud back upon the room andaffected to converse with his friend, Mr. Charlie Johnson. 

The next moment a quick little figure intervened between the two. It wasLucy, gaily offering a silver sleighbell decked with white ribbon. 

"I almost couldn't find you!" she cried. 

George stared, took her hand, led her forth in silence, danced with her. She seemed content not to talk; but as the whistle blew, signalling thatthis episode was concluded, and he conducted her to her seat, she liftedthe little bell toward him. "You haven't taken your favour. You'resupposed to pin it on your coat, " she said. "Don't you want it?"

"If you insist!" said George stiffly. And he bowed her into her chair;then turned and walked away, dropping the sleighbell haughtily into histrousers' pocket. 

The figure proceeded to its conclusion, and George was given othersleighbells, which he easily consented to wear upon his lapel; but, asthe next figure 'began, he strolled with a bored air to the tropicalgrove, where sat his elders, and seated himself beside his Uncle Sydney. His mother leaned across Miss Fanny, raising her voice over the music tospeak to him. 

"Georgie, nobody will be able to see you here. You'll not be favoured. You ought to be where you can dance. "

"Don't care to, " he returned. "Bore!"

"But you ought--" She stopped and laughed, waving her fan to direct hisattention behind him. "Look! Over your shoulder!"

He turned, and discovered Miss Lucy Morgan in the act of offering him apurple toy balloon. 

"I found you!" she laughed. 

George was startled. "Well--" he said. 

"Would you rather 'sit it out?'" Lucy asked quickly, as he did not move. "I don't care to dance if you--"

"No, " he said, rising. "It would be better to dance. " His tone wassolemn, and solemnly he departed with her from the grove. Solemnly hedanced with her. 

Four times, with not the slightest encouragement, she brought him afavour: 'four times in succession. When the fourth came, "Look here!"said George huskily. "You going to keep this up all' night? What do youmean by it?"

For an instant she seemed confused. "That's what cotillions are for, aren't they?" she murmured. 

"What do you mean: what they're for?"

"So that a girl can dance with a person she wants to?"

George's huskiness increased. "Well, do you mean you--you want to dancewith me all the time--all evening?"

"Well, this much of it--evidently!" she laughed. 

"Is it because you thought I tried to keep you from getting hurt thisafternoon when we upset?"

She shook her head. 

"Was it because you want to even things up for making me angry--I mean, for hurting my feelings on the way home?"

With her eyes averted--for girls of nineteen can be as shy as boys, sometimes--she said, "Well--you only got angry because I couldn't dancethe cotillion with you. I--I didn't feel terribly hurt with you forgetting angry about that!"

"Was there any other reason? Did my telling you I liked you haveanything to do with it?"

She looked up gently, and, as George met her eyes, something exquisitelytouching, yet queerly delightful, gave him a catch in the throat. Shelooked instantly away, and, turning, ran out from the palm grove, wherethey stood, to the dancing-floor. 

"Come on!" she cried. "Let's dance!"

He followed her. 

"See here--I--I--" he stammered. "You mean--Do you--"

"No, no!" she laughed. "Let's dance!"

He put his arm about her almost tremulously, and they began to waltz. Itwas a happy dance for both of them. 

Christmas day is the children's, but the holidays are youth'sdancing-time. The holidays belong to the early twenties and the 'teens, home from school and college. These years possess the holidays for alittle while, then possess them only in smiling, wistful memories ofholly and twinkling lights and dance-music, and charming facesall aglow. It is the liveliest time in life, the happiest of theirresponsible times in life. Mothers echo its happiness--nothing is likea mother who has a son home from college, except another mother with ason home from college. Bloom does actually come upon these mothers; itis a visible thing; and they run like girls, walk like athletes, laughlike sycophants. Yet they give up their sons to the daughters of othermothers, and find it proud rapture enough to be allowed to sit andwatch. 

Thus Isabel watched George and Lucy dancing, as together they dancedaway the holidays of that year into the past. 

"They seem to get along better than they did at first, those twochildren, " Fanny Minafer said sitting beside her at the Sharons' dance, a week after the Assembly. "They seemed to be always having littlequarrels of some sort, at first. At least George did: he seemed to becontinually pecking at that lovely, dainty, little Lucy, and being crosswith her over nothing. "

"Pecking?" Isabel laughed. "What a word to use about Georgie! I think Inever knew a more angelically amiable disposition in my life!"

Miss Fanny echoed her sister-in-law's laugh, but it was a rueful echo, and not sweet. "He's amiable to you!" she said. "That's all the side ofhim you ever happen to see. And why wouldn't he be amiable to anybodythat simply fell down and worshipped him every minute of her life? Mostof us would!"

"Isn't he worth worshipping? Just look at him! Isn't he charming withLucy! See how hard he ran to get it when she dropped her handkerchiefback there. "

"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you about George!" said Miss Fanny. "I'm fond enough of him, for that matter. He can be charming, and he'scertainly stunning looking, if only--"

"Let the 'if only' go, dear, " Isabel suggested good-naturedly. "Let'stalk about that dinner you thought I should--"

"I?" Miss Fanny interrupted quickly. "Didn't you want to give ityourself?"

"Indeed, I did, my dear!" said Isabel heartily. "I only meant thatunless you had proposed it, perhaps I wouldn't--"

But here Eugene came for her to dance, and she left the sentenceuncompleted. Holiday dances can be happy for youth renewed as well asfor youth in bud--and yet it was not with the air of a rival that MissFanny watched her brother's wife dancing with the widower. Miss Fanny'seyes narrowed a little, but only as if her mind engaged in a hopefulcalculation. She looked pleased. 

Chapter X

A few days after George's return to the university it became evidentthat not quite everybody had gazed with complete benevolence upon thevarious young collegians at their holiday sports. The Sunday editionof the principal morning paper even expressed some bitterness under theheading, "Gilded Youths of the Fin-de-Siecle"--this was considered theknowing phrase of the time, especially for Sunday supplements--and thereis no doubt that from certain references in this bit of writing somepeople drew the conclusion that Mr. George Amberson Minafer had not yetgot his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating. Undeniably, FannyMinafer was one of the people who drew this conclusion, for she cut thearticle out and enclosed it in a letter to her nephew, having written onthe border of the clipping, "I wonder whom it can mean!"

George read part of it. 

We debate sometimes what is to be the future of this nation when wethink that in a few years public affairs may be in the hands of thefin-de-siecle gilded youths we see about us during the Christmasholidays. Such foppery, such luxury, such insolence, was surely neverpractised by the scented, overbearing patricians of the Palatine, evenin Rome's most decadent epoch. In all the wild orgy of wastefulness andluxury with which the nineteenth century reaches its close, the gildedyouth has been surely the worst symptom. With his airs of young milord, his fast horses, his gold and silver cigarette-cases, his clothes froma New York tailor, his recklessness of money showered upon him byindulgent mothers or doting grandfathers, he respects nothing andnobody. He is blase if you please. Watch him at a social function howcondescendingly he deigns to select a partner for the popular waltz ortwo step how carelessly he shoulders older people out of his way, withwhat a blank stare he returns the salutation of some old acquaintancewhom he may choose in his royal whim to forget! The unpleasant partof all this is that the young women he so condescendingly selects aspartners for the dance greet him with seeming rapture, though in theirhearts they must feel humiliated by his languid hauteur, and many olderpeople beam upon him almost fawningly if he unbends so far as to throwthem a careless, disdainful word!

One wonders what has come over the new generation. Of such as these theRepublic was not made. Let us pray that the future of our country isnot in the hands of these fin-de-siecle gilded youths, but rather in thecalloused palms of young men yet unknown, labouring upon the farms ofthe land. When we compare the young manhood of Abraham Lincoln with thespecimens we are now producing, we see too well that it bodes ill forthe twentieth century--

George yawned, and tossed the clipping into his waste-basket, wonderingwhy his aunt thought such dull nonsense worth the sending. As for herinsinuation, pencilled upon the border, he supposed she meant to joke--asupposition which neither surprised him nor altered his lifelong opinionof her wit. 

He read her letter with more interest:

The dinner your mother gave for the Morgans was a lovely affair. It waslast Monday evening, just ten days after you left. It was peculiarlyappropriate that your mother should give this dinner, because herbrother George, your uncle, was Mr. Morgan's most intimate friend beforehe left here a number of years ago, and it was a pleasant occasion forthe formal announcement of some news which you heard from Lucy Morganbefore you returned to college. At least she told me she had told youthe night before you left that her father had decided to return here tolive. It was appropriate that your mother, herself an old friend, shouldassemble a representative selection of Mr. Morgan's old friends aroundhim at such a time. He was in great spirits and most entertaining. As your time was so charmingly taken up during your visit home with ayounger member of his family, you probably overlooked opportunities ofhearing him talk, and do not know what an interesting man he can be. 

He will soon begin to build his factory here for the manufactureof automobiles, which he says is a term he prefers to "horselesscarriages. " Your Uncle George told me he would like to invest in thisfactory, as George thinks there is a future for automobiles; perhapsnot for general use, but as an interesting novelty, which people withsufficient means would like to own for their amusement and the sake ofvariety. However, he said Mr. Morgan laughingly declined his offer, asMr. M. Was fully able to finance this venture, though not starting ina very large way. Your uncle said other people are manufacturingautomobiles in different parts of the country with success. Your fatheris not very well, though he is not actually ill, and the doctor tellshim he ought not to be so much at his office, as the long years ofapplication indoors with no exercise are beginning to affect himunfavourably, but I believe your father would die if he had to giveup his work, which is all that has ever interested him outside of hisfamily. I never could understand it. Mr. Morgan took your mother and mewith Lucy to see Modjeska in "Twelfth Night" yesterday evening, andLucy said she thought the Duke looked rather like you, only much moredemocratic in his manner. I suppose you will think I have written agreat deal about the Morgans in this letter, but thought you would beinterested because of your interest in a younger member of his family. Hoping that you are finding college still as attractive as ever, Affectionately, Aunt Fanny. 

George read one sentence in this letter several times. Then he droppedthe missive in his wastebasket to join the clipping, and strolled downthe corridor of his dormitory to borrow a copy of "Twelfth Night. "Having secured one, he returned to his study and refreshed his memory ofthe play--but received no enlightenment that enabled him to comprehendLucy's strange remark. However, he found himself impelled in thedirection of correspondence, and presently wrote a letter--not a replyto his Aunt Fanny. 

Dear Lucy: No doubt you will be surprised at hearing from me so soonagain, especially as this makes two in answer to the one received fromyou since getting back to the old place. I hear you have been makingcomments about me at the theatre, that some actor was more democratic inhis manners than I am, which I do not understand. You know my theory oflife because I explained it to you on our first drive together, when Itold you I would not talk to everybody about things I feel like the wayI spoke to you of my theory of life. I believe those who are able shouldhave a true theory of life, and I developed my theory of life long, longago. 

Well, here I sit smoking my faithful briar pipe, indulging in thefragrance of my tobacco as I look out on the campus from my many-panedwindow, and things are different with me from the way they were way backin Freshman year. I can see now how boyish in many ways I was then. Ibelieve what has changed me as much as anything was my visit home at thetime I met you. So I sit here with my faithful briar and dream the olddreams over as it were, dreaming of the waltzes we waltzed together andof that last night before we parted, and you told me the good news youwere going to live there, and I would find my friend waiting for me, when I get home next summer. 

I will be glad my friend will be waiting for me. I am not capable offriendship except for the very few, and, looking back over my life, I remember there were times when I doubted if I could feel a greatfriendship for anybody--especially girls. I do not take a great interestin many people, as you know, for I find most of them shallow. Here inthe old place I do not believe in being hail-fellow-well-met with everyTom, Dick, and Harry just because he happens to be a classmate, any morethan I do at home, where I have always been careful who I was seen with, largely on account of the family, but also because my disposition eversince my boyhood has been to encourage real intimacy from but the few. 

What are you reading now? I have finished both "Henry Esmond" and "TheVirginians. " I like Thackeray because he is not trashy, and because hewrites principally of nice people. My theory of literature is an authorwho does not indulge in trashiness--writes about people you couldintroduce into your own home. I agree with my Uncle Sydney, as I onceheard him say he did not care to read a book or go to a play aboutpeople he would not care to meet at his own dinner table. I believe weshould live by certain standards and ideals, as you know from my tellingyou my theory of life. 

Well, a letter is no place for deep discussions, so I will not go intothe subject. From several letters from my mother, and one from AuntFanny, I hear you are seeing a good deal of the family since I left. I hope sometimes you think of the member who is absent. I got a silverframe for your photograph in New York, and I keep it on my desk. Itis the only girl's photograph I ever took the trouble to have framed, though, as I told you frankly, I have had any number of other girls'photographs, yet all were only passing fancies, and oftentimes I havequestioned in years past if I was capable of much friendship toward thefeminine sex, which I usually found shallow until our own friendshipbegan. When I look at your photograph, I say to myself, "At last, atlast here is one that will not prove shallow. "

My faithful briar has gone out. I will have to rise and fill it, thenonce more in the fragrance of My Lady Nicotine, I will sit and dream theold dreams over, and think, too, of the true friend at home awaiting myreturn in June for the summer vacation. 

 Friend, this is from your friend, G. A. M. 

George's anticipations were not disappointed. When he came home in Junehis friend was awaiting him; at least, she was so pleased to see himagain that for a few minutes after their first encounter she was alittle breathless, and a great deal glowing, and quiet withal. Theirsentimental friendship continued, though sometimes he was irritated byher making it less sentimental than he did, and sometimes by what hecalled her "air of superiority. " Her air was usually, in truth, thatof a fond but amused older sister; and George did not believe such anattitude was warranted by her eight months of seniority. 

Lucy and her father were living at the Amberson Hotel, while Morgan gothis small machine-shops built in a western outskirt of the town; andGeorge grumbled about the shabbiness and the old-fashioned look ofthe hotel, though it was "still the best in the place, of course. " Heremonstrated with his grandfather, declaring that the whole AmbersonEstate would be getting "run-down and out-at-heel, if things weren'ttaken in hand pretty soon. " He urged the general need of rebuilding, renovating, varnishing, and lawsuits. But the Major, declining to hearhim out, interrupted querulously, saying that he had enough to botherhim without any advice from George; and retired to his library, going sofar as to lock the door audibly. 

"Second childhood!" George muttered, shaking his head; and he thoughtsadly that the Major had not long to live. However, this surmisedepressed him for only a moment or so. Of course, people couldn't beexpected to live forever, and it would be a good thing to have someonein charge of the Estate who wouldn't let it get to looking so rusty thatriffraff dared to make fun of it. For George had lately undergone theannoyance of calling upon the Morgans, in the rather stuffy red veloursand gilt parlour of their apartment at the hotel, one evening when Mr. Frederick Kinney also was a caller, and Mr. Kinney had not been tactful. In fact, though he adopted a humorous tone of voice, in expressing his, sympathy for people who, through the city's poverty in hotels, wereobliged to stay at the Amberson, Mr. Kinney's intention was interpretedby the other visitor as not at all humorous, but, on the contrary, personal and offensive. 

George rose abruptly, his face the colour of wrath. "Good-night, MissMorgan. Good-night, Mr. Morgan, " he said. "I shall take pleasure incalling at some other time when a more courteous sort of people may bepresent. "

"Look here!" the hot-headed Fred burst out. "Don't you try to make meout a boor, George Minafer! I wasn't hinting anything at you; I simplyforgot all about your grandfather owning this old building. Don't youtry to put me in the light of a boor! I won't--"

But George walked out in the very course of this vehement protest, andit was necessarily left unfinished. 

Mr. Kinney remained only a few moments after George's departure; and asthe door closed upon him, the distressed Lucy turned to her father. She was plaintively surprised to find him in a condition of immoderatelaughter. 

"I didn't--I didn't think I could hold out!" he gasped, and, afterchoking until tears came to his eyes, felt blindly for the chair fromwhich he had risen to wish Mr. Kinney an indistinct good-night. Hishand found the arm of the chair; he collapsed feebly, and sat utteringincoherent sounds. 

"Papa!"

"It brings things back so!" he managed to explain, "This very FredKinney's father and young George's father, Wilbur Minafer, used to dojust such things when they were at that age--and, for that matter, sodid George Amberson and I, and all the rest of us!" And, in spite of hisexhaustion, he began to imitate: "Don't you try to put me in the lightof a boor!" "I shall take pleasure in calling at some time when a morecourteous sort of people--" He was unable to go on. 

There is a mirth for every age, and Lucy failed to comprehend herfather's, but tolerated it a little ruefully. 

"Papa, I think they were shocking. Weren't they awful!"

"Just--just boys!" he moaned, wiping his eyes. But Lucy could not smileat all; she was beginning to look indignant. "I can forgive that poorFred Kinney, " she said. "He's just blundering--but George--oh, Georgebehaved outrageously!"

"It's a difficult age, " her father observed, his calmness somewhatrestored. "Girls don't seem to have to pass through it quite as boys do, or their savoir faire is instinctive--or something!" And he gave away toa return of his convulsion. 

She came and sat upon the arm of his chair. "Papa, why should Georgebehave like that?"

"He's sensitive. "

"Rather! But why is he? He does anything he likes to, without any regardfor what people think. Then why should he mind so furiously whenthe least little thing reflects upon him, or on anything or anybodyconnected with him?"

Eugene patted her hand. "That's one of the greatest puzzles of humanvanity, dear; and I don't pretend to know the answer. In all my life, the most arrogant people that I've known have been the most sensitive. The people who have done the most in contempt of other people's opinion, and who consider themselves the highest above it, have been the mostfurious if it went against them. Arrogant and domineering people can'tstand the least, lightest, faintest breath of criticism. It just killsthem. "

"Papa, do you think George is arrogant and domineering?"

"Oh, he's still only a boy, " said Eugene consolingly. "There's plentyof fine stuff in him--can't help but be, because he's Isabel Amberson'sson. "

Lucy stroked his hair, which was still almost as dark as her own. "Youliked her pretty well once, I guess, papa. "

"I do still, " he said quietly. 

"She's lovely--lovely! Papa--" she paused, then continued--"I wondersometimes--"

"What?"

"I wonder just how she happened to marry Mr. Minafer. "

"Oh, Minafer's all right, " said Eugene. "He's a quiet sort of man, buthe's a good man and a kind man. He always was, and those things count. "

"But in a way--well, I've heard people say there wasn't anything to himat all except business and saving money. Miss Fanny Minafer herself toldme that everything George and his mother have of their own--that is, just to spend as they like--she says it has always come from MajorAmberson. "

"Thrift, Horatio!" said Eugene lightly. "Thrift's an inheritance, and acommon enough one here. The people who settled the country had to save, so making and saving were taught as virtues, and the people, to thethird generation, haven't found out that making and saving are onlymeans to an end. Minafer doesn't believe in money being spent. Hebelieves God made it to be invested and saved. "

"But George isn't saving. He's reckless, and even if he is arrogant andconceited and bad-tempered, he's awfully generous. "

"Oh, he's an Amberson, " said her father. "The Ambersons aren't saving. They're too much the other way, most of them. "

"I don't think I should have called George bad-tempered, " Lucy saidthoughtfully. "No. I don't think he is. "

"Only when he's cross about something?" Morgan suggested, with asemblance of sympathetic gravity. 

"Yes, " she said brightly, not perceiving that his intention washumorous. "All the rest of the time he's really very amiable. Of course, he's much more a perfect child, the whole time, than he realizes! Hecertainly behaved awfully to-night. " She jumped up, her indignationreturning. "He did, indeed, and it won't do to encourage him in it. Ithink he'll find me pretty cool--for a week or so!"

Whereupon her father suffered a renewal of his attack of uproariouslaughter. 

Chapter XI

In the matter of coolness, George met Lucy upon her own predeterminedground; in fact, he was there first, and, at their next encounter, proved loftier and more formal than she did. Their estrangement lastedthree weeks, and then disappeared without any preliminary treaty: it hadworn itself out, and they forgot it. 

At times, however, George found other disturbances to the friendship. Lucy was "too much the village belle, " he complained; and took a satiricattitude toward his competitors, referring to them as her "local swainsand bumpkins, " sulking for an afternoon when she reminded him that he, too, was at least "local. " She was a belle with older people as well;Isabel and Fanny were continually taking her driving, bringing her homewith them to lunch or dinner, and making a hundred little engagementswith her, and the Major had taken a great fancy to her, insisting uponher presence and her father's at the Amberson family dinner at theMansion every Sunday evening. She knew how to flirt with old people, hesaid, as she sat next him at the table on one of these Sunday occasions;and he had always liked her father, even when Eugene was a "terror" longago. "Oh, yes, he was!" the Major laughed, when she remonstrated. "Hecame up here with my son George and some others for a serenade onenight, and Eugene stepped into a bass fiddle, and the poor musiciansjust gave up! I had a pretty half-hour getting my son George upstairs. I remember! It was the last time Eugene ever touched a drop--but he'dtouched plenty before that, young lady, and he daren't deny it! Well, well; there's another thing that's changed: hardly anybody drinksnowadays. Perhaps it's just as well, but things used to be livelier. That serenade was just before Isabel was married--and don't you fret, Miss Lucy: your father remembers it well enough!" The old gentlemanburst into laughter, and shook his finger at Eugene across the table. "The fact is, " the Major went on hilariously, "I believe if Eugenehadn't broken that bass fiddle and given himself away, Isabel wouldnever have taken Wilbur! I shouldn't be surprised if that was about allthe reason that Wilbur got her! What do you think. Wilbur?"

"I shouldn't be surprised, " said Wilbur placidly. "If your notion isright, I'm glad 'Gene broke the fiddle. He was giving me a hard run!"

The Major always drank three glasses of champagne at his Sunday dinner, and he was finishing the third. "What do you say about it, Isabel? ByJove!" he cried, pounding the table. "She's blushing!"

Isabel did blush, but she laughed. "Who wouldn't blush!" she cried, andher sister-in-law came to her assistance. 

"The important thing, " said Fanny jovially, "is that Wilbur did get her, and not only got her, but kept her!"

Eugene was as pink as Isabel, but he laughed without any sign ofembarrassment other than his heightened colour. "There's anotherimportant thing--that is, for me, " he said. "It's the only thing thatmakes me forgive that bass viol for getting in my way. "

"What is it?" the Major asked. 

"Lucy, " said Morgan gently. 

Isabel gave him a quick glance, all warm approval, and there was amurmur of friendliness round the table. 

George was not one of those who joined in this applause. He consideredhis grandfather's nonsense indelicate, even for second childhood, and hethought that the sooner the subject was dropped the better. However, hehad only a slight recurrence of the resentment which had assailed himduring the winter at every sign of his mother's interest in Morgan;though he was still ashamed of his aunt sometimes, when it seemed to himthat Fanny was almost publicly throwing herself at the widower's head. Fanny and he had one or two arguments in which her fierceness againastonished and amused him. 

"You drop your criticisms of your relatives, " she bade him, hotly, oneday, "and begin thinking a little about your own behaviour! You saypeople will 'talk' about my--about my merely being pleasant to an oldfriend! What do I care how they talk? I guess if people are talkingabout anybody in this family they're talking about the impertinentlittle snippet that hasn't any respect for anything, and doesn't evenknow enough to attend to his own affairs!"

"Snippet, ' Aunt Fanny!" George laughed. "How elegant! And 'littlesnippet'--when I'm over five-feet-eleven?"

"I said it!" she snapped, departing. "I don't see how Lucy can standyou!"

"You'd make an amiable stepmother-in-law!" he called after her. "I'll becareful about proposing to Lucy!"

These were but roughish spots in a summer that glided by evenly andquickly enough, for the most part, and, at the end, seemed to fly. Onthe last night before George went back to be a Junior, his mother askedhim confidently if it had not been a happy summer. 

He hadn't thought about it, he answered. "Oh, ' I suppose so. Why?"

"I just thought it would be: nice to hear you say so, " she said, smiling. "I mean, it's pleasant for people of my age to know that peopleof your age realize that they're happy. "

"People of your age!" he repeated. "You know you don't look preciselylike an old woman, mother. Not precisely!"

"No, " she said. "And I suppose I feel about as young as you do, inside, but it won't be many years before I must begin to look old. It doescome!" She sighed, still smiling. "It's seemed to me that, it must havebeen a happy summer for you--a real 'summer of roses and wine'--withoutthe wine, perhaps. 'Gather ye roses while ye may'--or was it primroses?Time does really fly, or perhaps it's more like the sky--and smoke--"

George was puzzled. "What do you mean: time being like the sky andsmoke?"

"I mean the things that we have and that we think are so solid--they'relike smoke, and time is like the sky that the smoke disappears into. Youknow how wreath of smoke goes up from a chimney, and seems all thick andblack and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such importantthings and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner--andthen, in such a little while, it isn't there at all; nothing is left butthe sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever. "

"It strikes me you're getting mixed up, " said George cheerfully. "Idon't see much resemblance between time and the sky, or between thingsand smoke-wreaths; but I do see one reason you like 'Lucy Morgan somuch. She talks that same kind of wistful, moony way sometimes--I don'tmean to say I mind it in either of you, because I rather like to listento it, and you've got a very good voice, mother. It's nice to listen to, no matter how much smoke and sky, and so on, you talk. So's Lucy's forthat matter; and I see why you're congenial. She talks that way to herfather, too; and he's right there with the same kind of guff. Well, it'sall right with me!" He laughed, teasingly, and allowed her to retain hishand, which she had fondly seized. "I've got plenty to think about whenpeople drool along!"

She pressed his hand to her cheek, and a tear made a tiny warm streakacross one of his knuckles. 

"For heaven's sake!" he said. "What's the matter? Isn't everything allright?"

"You're going away!"

"Well, I'm coming back, don't you suppose? Is that all that worriesyou?"

She cheered up, and smiled again, but shook her head. "I never can bearto see you go--that's the most of it. I'm a little bothered about yourfather, too. "

"Why?"

"It seems to me he looks so badly. Everybody thinks so. "

"What nonsense!" George laughed. "He's been looking that way all summer. He isn't much different from the way he's looked all his life, that Ican see. What's the matter with him?"

"He never talks much about his business to me but I think he's beenworrying about some investments he made last year. I think his worry hasaffected his health. "

"What investments?" George demanded. "He hasn't gone into Mr. Morgan'sautomobile concern, has he?"

"No, " Isabel smiled. "The 'automobile concern' is all Eugene's, and it'sso small I understand it's taken hardly anything. No; your fatherhas always prided himself on making only the most absolutely safeinvestments, but two or three years ago he and your Uncle George bothput a great deal--pretty much everything they could get together, Ithink--into the stock of rolling-mills some friends of theirs owned, andI'm afraid the mills haven't been doing well. "

"What of that? Father needn't worry. You and I could take care of himthe rest of his life on what grandfather--"

"Of course, " she agreed. "But your father's always lived so for hisbusiness and taken such pride in his sound investments; it's a passionwith him. I--"

"Pshaw! He needn't worry! You tell him we'll look after him: we'll buildhim a little stone bank in the backyard, if he busts up, and he can goand put his pennies in it every morning. That'll keep him just as happyas he ever was!" He kissed her. "Good-night, I'm going to tell Lucygood-bye. Don't sit up for me. "

She walked to the front gate with him, still holding his hand, and hetold her again not to "sit up" for him. 

"Yes, I will, " she laughed. "You won't be very late. "

"Well--it's my last night. "

"But I know Lucy, and she knows I want to see you, too, your last night. You'll see: she'll send you home promptly at eleven!"

But she was mistaken: Lucy sent him home promptly at ten. 

Chapter XII

Isabel's uneasiness about her husbands health--sometimes reflected inher letters to George during the winter that followed--had not beenalleviated when the accredited Senior returned for his next summervacation, and she confided to him in his room, soon after his arrival, that "something" the doctor had said to her lately had made her moreuneasy than ever. 

"Still worrying over his rolling-mills investments?" George asked, notseriously impressed. 

"I'm afraid it's past that stage from what Dr Rainey says. His worriesonly aggravate his condition now. Dr. Rainey says we ought to get himaway. "

"Well, let's do it, then. "

"He won't go. "

"He's a man awfully set in his ways; that's true, " said George. "I don'tthink there's anything much the matter with him, though, and he looksjust the same to me. Have you seen Lucy lately? How is she?"

"Hasn't she written you?"

"Oh, about once a month, " he answered carelessly. "Never says much aboutherself. How's she look?"

"She looks--pretty!" said Isabel. "I suppose she wrote you they'vemoved?"

"Yes; I've got her address. She said they were building. "

"They did. It's all finished, and they've been in it a month. Lucy is socapable; she keeps house exquisitely. It's small, but oh, such a prettylittle house!"

"Well, that's fortunate, " George said. "One thing I've always felt theydidn't know a great deal about is architecture. "

"Don't they?" asked Isabel, surprised. "Anyhow, their house is charming. It's way out beyond the end of Amberson Boulevard; it's quite near thatbig white house with a gray-green roof somebody built out there a yearor so ago. There are any number of houses going up, out that way; andthe trolley-line runs within a block of them now, on the next street, and the traction people are laying tracks more than three miles beyond. I suppose you'll be driving out to see Lucy to-morrow. "

"I thought--" George hesitated. "I thought perhaps I'd go after dinnerthis evening. "

At this his mother laughed, not astonished. "It was only my feeble jokeabout 'to-morrow, ' Georgie! I was pretty sure you couldn't wait thatlong. Did Lucy write you about the factory?"

"No. What factory?"

"The automobile shops. They had rather a dubious time at first, I'mafraid, and some of Eugene's experiments turned out badly, but thisspring they've finished eight automobiles and sold them all, and they'vegot twelve more almost finished, and they're sold already! Eugene's sogay over it!"

"What do his old sewing-machines look like? Like that first one he hadwhen they came here?"

"No, indeed! These have rubber tires blown up with air--pneumatic! Andthey aren't so high; they're very easy to get into, and the engine'sin front--Eugene thinks that's a great improvement. They're veryinteresting to look at; behind the driver's seat there's a sort of boxwhere four people can sit, with a step and a little door in the rear, and--"

"I know all about it, " said George. "I've seen any number like that, East. You can see all you want of 'em, if you stand on Fifth Avenue halfan hour, any afternoon. I've seen half-a-dozen go by almost at the sametime--within a few minutes, anyhow; and of course electric hansoms area common sight there any day. I hired one, myself, the last time I wasthere. How fast do Mr. Morgan's machines go?"

"Much too fast! It's very exhilarating--but rather frightening; and theydo make a fearful uproar. He says, though, he thinks he sees a way toget around the noisiness in time. "

"I don't mind the noise, " said George. "Give me a horse, for mine, though, any day. I must get up a race with one of these things:Pendennis'll leave it one mile behind in a two-mile run. How'sgrandfather?"

"He looks well, but he complains sometimes of his heart: I supposethat's natural at his age--and it's an Amberson trouble. " Havingmentioned this, she looked anxious instantly. "Did you ever feel anyweakness there, Georgie?"

"No!" he laughed. 

"Are you sure, dear?"

"No!" And he laughed again. "Did you?"

"Oh, I think not--at least, the doctor told me he thought my heart wasabout all right. He said I needn't be alarmed. "

"I should think not! Women do seem to be always talking about health: Isuppose they haven't got enough else to think of!"

"That must be it, " she said gayly. "We're an idle lot!"

George had taken off his coat. "I don't like to hint to a lady, " hesaid, "but I do want to dress before dinner. "

"Don't be long; I've got to do a lot of looking at you, dear!" Shekissed him and ran away singing. 

But his Aunt Fanny was not so fond; and at the dinner-table there camea spark of liveliness into her eye when George patronizingly asked herwhat was the news in her own "particular line of sport. "

"What do you mean, Georgie?" she asked quietly. 

"Oh I mean: What's the news in the fast set generally? You been causingany divorces lately?"

"No, " said Fanny, the spark in her eye getting brighter. "I haven't beencausing anything. "

"Well, what's the gossip? You usually hear pretty much everything thatgoes on around the nooks and crannies in this town, I hear. What's thelast from the gossips' corner, auntie?"

Fanny dropped her eyes, and the spark was concealed, but a movementof her lower lip betokened a tendency to laugh, as she replied. "Therehasn't been much gossip lately, except the report that Lucy Morgan andFred Kinney are engaged--and that's quite old, by this time. "

Undeniably, this bit of mischief was entirely successful, for there wasa clatter upon George's plate. "What--what do you think you're talkingabout?" he gasped. 

Miss Fanny looked up innocently. "About the report of Lucy Morgan'sengagement to Fred Kinney. "

George turned dumbly to his mother, and Isabel shook her headreassuringly. "People are always starting rumours, " she said. "I haven'tpaid any attention to this one. "

"But you--you've heard it?" he stammered. 

"Oh, one hears all sorts of nonsense, dear. I haven't the slightest ideathat it's true. "

"Then you have heard it!"

"I wouldn't let it take my appetite, " his father suggested drily. "Thereare plenty of girls in the world!"

George turned pale. 

"Eat your dinner, Georgie, " his aunt said sweetly. "Food will do yougood. I didn't say I knew this rumour was true. I only said I'd heardit. "

"When? When did you hear it!"

"Oh, months ago!" And Fanny found any further postponement of laughterimpossible. 

"Fanny, you're a hard-hearted creature, " Isabel said gently. "You reallyare. Don't pay any attention to her, George. Fred Kinney's only a clerkin his uncle's hardware place: he couldn't marry for ages--even ifanybody would accept him!"

George breathed tumultuously. "I don't care anything about 'ages'!What's that got to do with it?" he said, his thoughts appearing tobe somewhat disconnected. "Ages, ' don't mean anything! I only want toknow--I want to know--I want--" He stopped. 

"What do you want?" his father asked crossly. 

"Why don't you say it? Don't make such a fuss. "

"I'm not--not at all, " George declared, pushing his chair back from thetable. 

"You must finish your dinner, dear, " his mother urged. "Don't--"

"I have finished. I've eaten all I want. I don't want any more thanI wanted. I don't want--I--" He rose, still incoherent. "I prefer--Iwant--Please excuse me!"

He left the room, and a moment later the screens outside the open frontdoor were heard to slam:

"Fanny! You shouldn't--"

"Isabel, don't reproach me, he did have plenty of dinner, and I onlytold the truth: everybody has been saying--"

"But there isn't any truth in it. "

"We don't actually know there isn't, " Miss Fanny insisted, giggling. "We've never asked Lucy. "

"I wouldn't ask her anything so absurd!"

"George would, " George's father remarked. "That's what he's gone to do. "

Mr. Minafer was not mistaken: that was what his son had gone to do. Lucyand her father were just rising from their dinner table when the stirredyouth arrived at the front door of the new house. It was a cottage, however, rather than a house; and Lucy had taken a free hand with thearchitect, achieving results in white and green, outside, and white andblue, inside, to such effect of youth and daintiness that her fathercomplained of "too much spring-time!" The whole place, including his ownbedroom, was a young damsel's boudoir, he said, so that nowhere couldhe smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he wassmoking when George arrived, and he encouraged George to join him inthe pastime, but the caller, whose air was both tense and preoccupied, declined with something like agitation. 

"I never smoke--that is, I'm seldom--I mean, no thanks, " he said. "Imean not at all. I'd rather not. "

"Aren't you well, George?" Eugene asked, looking at him in perplexity. "Have you been overworking at college? You do look rather pa--"

"I don't work, " said George. "I mean I don't work. I think, but I don'twork. I only work at the end of the term. There isn't much to do. "

Eugene's perplexity was little decreased, and a tinkle of the door-bellafforded him obvious relief. "It's my foreman, " he said, looking at hiswatch. "I'll take him out in the yard to talk. This is no place for aforeman. " And he departed, leaving the "living room" to Lucy and George. It was a pretty room, white panelled and blue curtained--and no placefor a foreman, as Eugene said. There was a grand piano, and Lucy stoodleaning back against it, looking intently at George, while her fingers, behind her, absently struck a chord or two. And her dress was the dressfor that room, being of blue and white, too; and the high colour inher cheeks was far from interfering with the general harmony ofthings--George saw with dismay that she was prettier than ever, andnaturally he missed the reassurance he might have felt had he been ableto guess that Lucy, on her part, was finding him better looking thanever. For, however unusual the scope of George's pride, vanity of beautywas not included; he did not think about his looks. 

"What's wrong, George?" she asked softly. 

"What do you mean: 'What's wrong?"

"You're awfully upset about something. Didn't you get though yourexamination all right?"

"Certainly I did. What makes you think anything's 'wrong' with me?"

"You do look pale, as papa said, and it seemed to me that the way youtalked sounded--well, a little confused. "

"Confused'! I said I didn't care to smoke. What in the world is confusedabout that?"

"Nothing. But--"

"See here!" George stepped close to her. "Are you glad to see me?"

"You needn't be so fierce about it!" Lucy protested, laughing at hisdramatic intensity. "Of course I am! How long have I been lookingforward to it?"

"I don't know, " he said sharply, abating nothing of his fierceness. "Howlong have you?"

"Why--ever since you went away!"

"Is that true? Lucy, is that true?"

"You are funny!" she said. "Of course it's true. Do tell me what's thematter with you, George!"

"I will!" he exclaimed. "I was a boy when I saw you last. I see thatnow, though I didn't then. Well, I'm not a boy any longer. I'm a man, and a man has a right to demand a totally different treatment. "

"Why has he?"

"What?"

"I don't seem to be able to understand you at all, George. Why shouldn'ta boy be treated just as well as a man?"

George seemed to find himself at a loss. "Why shouldn't--Well, heshouldn't, because a man has a right to certain explanations. "

"What explanations?"

"Whether he's been made a toy of!" George almost shouted. "That's what Iwant to know!"

Lucy shook her head despairingly. "You are the queerest person! You sayyou're a man now, but you talk more like a boy than ever. What does makeyou so excited?"

"'Excited!'" he stormed. "Do you dare to stand there and call me'excited'? I tell you, I never have been more calm or calmer in mylife! I don't know that a person needs to be called 'excited' because hedemands explanations that are his simple due!"

"What in the world do you want me to explain?"

"Your conduct with Fred Kinney!" George shouted. 

Lucy uttered a sudden cry of laughter; she was delighted. "It's beenawful!" she said. "I don't know that I ever heard of worse misbehaviour!Papa and I have been twice to dinner with his family, and I've beenthree times to church with Fred--and once to the circus! I don't knowwhen they'll be here to arrest me!"

"Stop that!" George commanded fiercely. "I want to know just one thing, and I mean to know it, too!"

"Whether I enjoyed the circus?"

"I want to know if you're engaged to him!"

"No!" she cried and lifting her face close to his for the shortestinstant possible, she gave him a look half merry, half defiant, but allfond. It was an adorable look. 

"Lucy!" he said huskily. 

But she turned quickly from him, and ran to the other end of the room. He followed awkwardly, stammering:

"Lucy, I want--I want to ask you. Will you--will you--will you beengaged to me?"

She stood at a window, seeming to look out into the summer darkness, herback to him. 

"Will you, Lucy?"

"No, " she murmured, just audibly. 

"Why not?"

"I'm older than you. "

"Eight months!"

"You're too young. "

"Is that--" he said, gulping--"is that the only reason you won't?"

She did not answer. 

As she stood, persistently staring out of the window, with her back tohim, she did not see how humble his attitude had become; but his voicewas low, and it shook so that she could have no doubt of his emotion. "Lucy, please forgive me for making such a row, " he said, thus gently. "I've been--I've been terribly upset--terribly! You know how I feelabout you, and always have felt about you. I've shown it in every singlething I've done since the first time I met you, and I know you know it. Don't you?"

Still she did not move or speak. 

"Is the only reason you won't be engaged to me you think I'm too young, Lucy?"

"It's--it's reason enough, " she said faintly. 

At that he caught one of her hands, and she turned to him: there weretears in her eyes, tears which he did not understand at all. 

"Lucy, you little dear!" he cried. "I knew you--"

"No, no!" she said, and she pushed him away, withdrawing her hand. "George, let's not talk of solemn things. "

"Solemn things!' Like what?"

"Like--being engaged. "

But George had become altogether jubilant, and he laughed triumphantly. "Good gracious, that isn't solemn!"

"It is, too!" she said, wiping her eyes. "It's too solemn for us. "

"No, it isn't! I--"

"Let's sit down and be sensible, dear, " she said. "You sit over there--"

"I will if you'll call me, 'dear' again. "

"No, " she said. "I'll only call you that once again this summer--thenight before you go away. "

"That will have to do, then, " he laughed, "so long as I know we'reengaged. "

"But we're not!" she protested. "And we never will be, if you don'tpromise not to speak of it again until--until I tell you to!"

"I won't promise that, " said the happy George. "I'll only promise not tospeak of it till the next time you call me 'dear'; and you've promisedto call me that the night before I leave for my senior year. "

"Oh, but I didn't!" she said earnestly, then hesitated. "Did I?"

"Didn't you?"

"I don't think I meant it, " she murmured, her wet lashes flickeringabove troubled eyes. 

"I know one thing about you, " he said gayly, his triumph increasing. "You never went back on anything you said, yet, and I'm not afraid ofthis being the first time!"

"But we mustn't let--" she faltered; then went on tremulously, "George, we've got on so well together, we won't let this make a differencebetween us, will we?" And she joined in his laughter. 

"It will all depend on what you tell me the night before I go away. Youagree we're going to settle things then, don't you, Lucy?"

"I don't promise. "

"Yes, you do! Don't you?"

"Well--"

Chapter XIII

Tonight George began a jubilant warfare upon his Aunt Fanny, openingthe campaign upon his return home at about eleven o'clock. Fanny hadretired, and was presumably asleep, but George, on the way to his ownroom, paused before her door, and serenaded her in a full baritone:

 "As I walk along the Boy de Balong With my independent air, The people all declare, 'He must be a millionaire!' Oh, you hear them sigh, and wish to die, And see them wink the other eye. At the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo!"

Isabel came from George's room, where she had been reading, waiting forhim. "I'm afraid you'll disturb your father, dear. I wish you'd singmore, though--in the daytime! You have a splendid voice. "

"Good-night, old lady!"

"I thought perhaps I--Didn't you want me to come in with you and talk alittle?"

"Not to-night. You go to bed. Good-night, old lady!"

He kissed her hilariously, entered his room with a skip, closed his doornoisily; and then he could be heard tossing things about, loudly humming"The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo. "

Smiling, his mother knelt outside his door to pray; then, with her"Amen, " pressed her lips to the bronze door-knob; and went silently toher own apartment. 

After breakfasting in bed, George spent the next morning at hisgrandfather's and did not encounter his Aunt Fanny until lunch, when sheseemed to be ready for him. 

"Thank you so much for the serenade, George!" she said. "Your poorfather tells me he'd just got to sleep for the first time in two nights, but after your kind attentions he lay awake the rest of last night. "

"Perfectly true, " Mr. Minafer said grimly. 

"Of course, I didn't know, sir, " George hastened to assure him. "I'mawfully sorry. But Aunt Fanny was so gloomy and excited before I wentout, last evening, I thought she needed cheering up. "

"I!" Fanny jeered. "I was gloomy? I was excited? You mean about thatengagement?"

"Yes. Weren't you? I thought I heard you worrying over somebody's beingengaged. Didn't I hear you say you'd heard Mr. Eugene Morgan was engagedto marry some pretty little seventeen-year-old girl?"

Fanny was stung, but she made a brave effort. "Did you ask Lucy?" shesaid, her voice almost refusing the teasing laugh she tried to make itutter. "Did you ask her when Fred Kinney and she--"

"Yes. That story wasn't true. But the other one--" Here he stared atFanny, and then affected dismay. "Why, what's the matter with your face, Aunt Fanny? It seems agitated!"

"Agitated!" Fanny said disdainfully, but her voice undeniably lackedsteadiness. "Agitated!"

"Oh, come!" Mr. Minafer interposed. "Let's have a little peace!"

"I'm willing, " said George. "I don't want to see poor Aunt Fanny allstirred up over a rumour I just this minute invented myself. She's soexcitable--about certain subjects--it's hard to control her. " He turnedto his mother. "What's the matter with grandfather?"

"Didn't you see him this morning?" Isabel asked. 

"Yes. He was glad to see me, and all that, but he seemed pretty fidgety. Has he been having trouble with his heart again?"

"Not lately. No. "

"Well, he's not himself. I tried to talk to him about the estate; it'sdisgraceful--it really is--the way things are looking. He wouldn'tlisten, and he seemed upset. What's he upset over?"

Isabel looked serious; however, it was her husband who suggestedgloomily, "I suppose the Major's bothered about this Sydney and Ameliabusiness, most likely. "

"What Sydney and Amelia business?" George asked. 

"Your mother can tell you, if she wants to, " Minafer said. "It's not myside of the family, so I keep off. "

"It's rather disagreeable for all of us, Georgie, " Isabel began. "Yousee, your Uncle Sydney wanted a diplomatic position, and he thoughtbrother George, being in Congress, could arrange it. George did get himthe offer of a South American ministry, but Sydney wanted a Europeanambassadorship, and he got quite indignant with poor George for thinkinghe'd take anything smaller--and he believes George didn't work hardenough for him. George had done his best, of course, and now he's outof Congress, and won't run again--so there's Sydney's idea of a bigdiplomatic position gone for good. Well, Sydney and your Aunt Amelia areterribly disappointed, and they say they've been thinking for yearsthat this town isn't really fit to live in--'for a gentleman, ' Sydneysays--and it is getting rather big and dirty. So they've sold theirhouse and decided to go abroad to live permanently; there's a villa nearFlorence they've often talked of buying. And they want father to letthem have their share of the estate now, instead of waiting for him toleave it to them in his will. "

"Well, I suppose that's fair enough, " George said. "That is, in case heintended to leave them a certain amount in his will. "

"Of course that's understood, Georgie. Father explained his will to uslong ago; a third to them, and a third to brother George, and a third tous. "

Her son made a simple calculation in his mind. Uncle George was abachelor, and probably would never marry; Sydney and Amelia werechildless. The Major's only grandchild appeared to remain the eventualheir of the entire property, no matter if the Major did turn overto Sydney a third of it now. And George had a fragmentary visionof himself, in mourning, arriving to take possession of a historicFlorentine villa--he saw himself walking up a cypress-bordered path, with ancient carven stone balustrades in the distance, and servantsin mourning livery greeting the new signore. "Well, I suppose it'sgrandfather's own affair. He can do it or not, just as he likes. I don'tsee why he'd mind much. "

"He seemed rather confused and pained about it, " Isabel said. "I thinkthey oughtn't to urge it. George says that the estate won't stand takingout the third that Sydney wants, and that Sydney and Amelia are behavinglike a couple of pigs. " She laughed, continuing, "Of course I don't knowwhether they are or not: I never have understood any more about businessmyself than a little pig would! But I'm on George's side, whether he'sright or wrong; I always was from the time we were children: and Sydneyand Amelia are hurt with me about it, I'm afraid. They've stoppedspeaking to George entirely. Poor father Family rows at his time oflife. "

George became thoughtful. If Sydney and Amelia were behaving like pigs, things might not be so simple as at first they seemed to be. UncleSydney and Aunt Amelia might live an awful long while, he thought; andbesides, people didn't always leave their fortunes to relatives. Sydneymight die first, leaving everything to his widow, and some curly-hairedItalian adventurer might get round her, over there in Florence; shemight be fool enough to marry again--or even adopt somebody!

He became more and more thoughtful, forgetting entirely a plan he hadformed for the continued teasing of his Aunt Fanny; and, an hour afterlunch, he strolled over to his grandfather's, intending to apply forfurther information, as a party rightfully interested. 

He did not carry out this intention, however. Going into the big houseby a side entrance, he was informed that the Major was upstairs in hisbedroom, that his sons Sydney and George were both with him, and that aserious argument was in progress. "You kin stan' right in de middle datbig, sta'y-way, " said Old Sam, the ancient negro, who was his informant, "an' you kin heah all you a-mind to wivout goin' on up no fudda. Mist'Sydney an' Mist' Jawge talkin' louduh'n I evuh heah nobody ca'y on innish heah house! Quollin', honey, big quollin'!"

"All right, " said George shortly. "You go on back to your own part ofthe house, and don't make any talk. Hear me?"

"Yessuh, yessuh, " Sam chuckled, as he shuffled away. "Plenty talkin'wivout Sam! Yessuh!"

George went to the foot of the great stairway. He could hear angryvoices overhead--those of his two uncles--and a plaintive murmur, as ifthe Major tried to keep the peace. Such sounds were far from encouragingto callers, and George decided not to go upstairs until this interviewwas over. His decision was the result of no timidity, nor of a toosensitive delicacy. What he felt was, that if he interrupted the scenein his grandfather's room, just at this time, one of the three gentlemenengaging in it might speak to him in a peremptory manner (in the heatof the moment) and George saw no reason for exposing his dignity to suchmischances. Therefore he turned from the stairway, and going quietlyinto the library, picked up a magazine--but he did not open it, for hisattention was instantly arrested by his Aunt Amelia's voice, speaking inthe next room. The door was open and George heard her distinctly. 

"Isabel does? Isabel!" she exclaimed, her tone high and shrewish. "Youneedn't tell me anything about Isabel Minafer, I guess, my dear oldFrank Bronson! I know her a little better than you do, don't you think?"

George heard the voice of Mr. Bronson replying--a voice familiar to himas that of his grandfather's attorney-in-chief and chief intimate aswell. He was a contemporary of the Major's, being over seventy, and theyhad been through three years of the War in the same regiment. Ameliaaddressed him now, with an effect of angry mockery, as "my dear oldFrank Bronson"; but that (without the mockery) was how the Ambersonfamily almost always spoke of him: "dear old Frank Bronson. " He was ahale, thin old man, six feet three inches tall, and without a stoop. 

"I doubt your knowing Isabel, " he said stiffly. "You speak of her as youdo because she sides with her brother George, instead of with you andSydney. "

"Pooh!" Aunt Amelia was evidently in a passion. "You know what's beengoing on over there, well enough, Frank Bronson!"

"I don't even know what you're talking about. "

"Oh, you don't? You don't know that Isabel takes George's side simplybecause he's Eugene Morgan's best friend?"

"It seems to me you're talking pure nonsense, " said Bronson sharply. "Not impure nonsense, I hope!"

Amelia became shrill. "I thought you were a man of the world: don'ttell me you're blind! For nearly two years Isabel's been pretendingto chaperone Fanny Minafer with Eugene, and all the time she's beendragging that poor fool Fanny around to chaperone her and Eugene! Underthe circumstances, she knows people will get to thinking Fanny's apretty slim kind of chaperone, and Isabel wants to please George becauseshe thinks there'll be less talk if she can keep her own brother around, seeming to approve. 'Talk!' She'd better look out! The whole town willbe talking, the first thing she knows! She--"

Amelia stopped, and stared at the doorway in a panic, for her nephewstood there. 

She kept her eyes upon his white face for a few strained moments, then, regaining her nerve, looked away and shrugged her shoulders. 

 "You weren't intended to hear what I've been saying, George, " shesaid quietly. "But since you seem to--"

"Yes, I did. "

"So!" She shrugged her shoulders again. "After all, I don't know butit's just as well, in the long run. "

He walked up to where she sat. "You--you--" he said thickly. "Itseems--it seems to me you're--you're pretty common!"

Amelia tried to give the impression of an unconcerned person laughingwith complete indifference, but the sounds she produced were disjointedand uneasy. She fanned herself, looking out of the open window near her. "Of course, if you want to make more trouble in the family than we'vealready got, George, with your eavesdropping, you can go and repeat--"

Old Bronson had risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt wastalking nonsense because she's piqued over a business matter, George, "he said. "She doesn't mean what she said, and neither she nor any oneelse gives the slightest credit to such foolishness--no one in theworld!"

George gulped, and wet lines shone suddenly along his lower eyelids. "They--they'd better not!" he said, then stalked out of the room, andout of the house. He stamped fiercely across the stone slabs of thefront porch, descended the steps, and halted abruptly, blinking in thestrong sunshine. 

In front of his own gate, beyond the Major's broad lawn, his mother wasjust getting into her victoria, where sat already his Aunt Fannyand Lucy Morgan. It was a summer fashion-picture: the three ladiescharmingly dressed, delicate parasols aloft; the lines of the victoriagraceful as those of a violin; the trim pair of bays in glisteningharness picked out with silver, and the serious black driver whomIsabel, being an Amberson, dared even in that town to put into a blacklivery coat, boots, white breeches, and cockaded hat. They jingledsmartly away, and, seeing George standing on the Major's lawn, Lucywaved, and Isabel threw him a kiss. 

But George shuddered, pretending not to see them, and stooped as ifsearching for something lost in the grass, protracting that postureuntil the victoria was out of hearing. And ten minutes later, GeorgeAmberson, somewhat in the semblance of an angry person plunging out ofthe Mansion, found a pale nephew waiting to accost him. 

"I haven't time to talk, Georgie. "

"Yes, you have. You'd better!"

"What's the matter, then?"

His namesake drew him away from the vicinity of the house. "I want totell you something I just heard Aunt Amelia say, in there. "

"I don't want to hear it, " said Amberson. "I've been hearing entirelytoo much of what 'Aunt Amelia, says, lately. "

"She says my mother's on your side about this division of the propertybecause you're Eugene Morgan's best friend. "

"What in the name of heaven has that got to do with your mother's beingon my side?"

"She said--" George paused to swallow. "She said--" He faltered. 

"You look sick, " said his uncle; and laughed shortly. "If it's becauseof anything Amelia's been saying, I don't blame you! What else did shesay?"

George swallowed again, as with nausea, but under his uncle'sencouragement he was able to be explicit. "She said my mother wanted youto be friendly to her about Eugene Morgan. She said my mother had beenusing Aunt Fanny as a chaperone. "

Amberson emitted a laugh of disgust. "It's wonderful what tommy-rot awoman in a state of spite can think of! I suppose you don't doubt thatAmelia Amberson created this specimen of tommy-rot herself?"

"I know she did. "

"Then what's the matter?"

"She said--" George faltered again. "She said--she implied peoplewere--were talking about it. "

"Of all the damn nonsense!" his uncle exclaimed. George looked at himhaggardly. "You're sure they're not?"

"Rubbish! Your mother's on my side about this division because she knowsSydney's a pig and always has been a pig, and so has his spiteful wife. I'm trying to keep them from getting the better of your mother as wellas from getting the better of me, don't you suppose? Well, they're ina rage because Sydney always could do what he liked with father unlessyour mother interfered, and they know I got Isabel to ask him not todo what they wanted. They're keeping up the fight and they're sore--andAmelia's a woman who always says any damn thing that comes into herhead! That's all there is to it. "

"But she said, " George persisted wretchedly; "she said there was talk. She said--"

"Look here, young fellow!" Amberson laughed good-naturedly. "Thereprobably is some harmless talk about the way your Aunt Fanny goes afterpoor Eugene, and I've no doubt I've abetted it myself. People can't helpbeing amused by a thing like that. Fanny was always languishing at him, twenty-odd years ago, before he left here. Well, we can't blame the poorthing if she's got her hopes up again, and I don't know that I blameher, myself, for using your mother the way she does. "

"How do you mean?"

Amberson put his hand on George's shoulder. "You like to tease Fanny, "he said, "but I wouldn't tease her about this, if I were you. Fannyhasn't got much in her life. You know, Georgie, just being an aunt isn'treally the great career it may sometimes appear to you! In fact, Idon't know of anything much that Fanny has got, except her feelingabout Eugene. She's always had it--and what's funny to us is pretty muchlife-and-death to her, I suspect. Now, I'll not deny that Eugene Morganis attracted to your mother. He is; and that's another case of 'alwayswas'; but I know him, and he's a knight, George--a crazy one, perhaps, if you've read 'Don Quixote. ' And I think your mother likes him betterthan she likes any man outside her own family, and that he interests hermore than anybody else--and 'always has. ' And that's all there is to it, except--"

"Except what?" George asked quickly, as he paused. 

"Except that I suspect--" Amberson chuckled, and began over: "I'll tellyou in confidence. I think Fanny's a fairly tricky customer, for such aninnocent old girl! There isn't any real harm in her, but she's a greatdiplomatist--lots of cards up her lace sleeves, Georgie! By the way, did you ever notice how proud she is of her arms? Always flashing 'em atpoor Eugene!" And he stopped to laugh again. 

"I don't see anything confidential about that, " George complained. "Ithought--"

"Wait a minute! My idea is--don't forget it's a confidential one, butI'm devilish right about it, young Georgie!--it's this: Fanny uses yourmother for a decoy duck. She does everything in the world she can tokeep your mother's friendship with Eugene going, because she thinksthat's what keeps Eugene about the place, so to speak. Fanny's alwayswith your mother, you see; and whenever he sees Isabel he sees Fanny. Fanny thinks he'll get used to the idea of her being around, and someday her chance may come! You see, she's probably afraid--perhaps sheeven knows, poor thing!--that she wouldn't get to see much of Eugene ifit weren't for Isabel's being such a friend of his. There! D'you see?"

"Well--I suppose so. " George's brow was still dark, however. "If you'resure whatever talk there is, is about Aunt Fanny. If that's so--"

"Don't be an ass, " his uncle advised him lightly, moving away. "I'm offfor a week's fishing to forget that woman in there, and her pig of ahusband. " (His gesture toward the Mansion indicated Mr. And Mrs. SydneyAmberson. ) "I recommend a like course to you, if you're silly enough topay any attention to such rubbishings! Good-bye!"

George was partially reassured, but still troubled: a word haunted himlike the recollection of a nightmare. "Talk!"

He stood looking at the houses across the street from the Mansion;and though the sunshine was bright upon them, they seemed mysteriouslythreatening. He had always despised them, except the largest of them, which was the home of his henchman, Charlie Johnson. The Johnsons hadoriginally owned a lot three hundred feet wide, but they had sold all ofit except the meager frontage before the house itself, and fivehouses were now crowded into the space where one used to squire it sospaciously. Up and down the street, the same transformation had takenplace: every big, comfortable old brick house now had two or threesmaller frame neighbours crowding up to it on each side, cheap-lookingneighbours, most of them needing paint and not clean--and yet, thoughthey were cheap looking, they had cost as much to build as the big brickhouses, whose former ample yards they occupied. Only where George stoodwas there left a sward as of yore; the great, level, green lawn thatserved for both the Major's house and his daughter's. This serenedomain--unbroken, except for the two gravelled carriage-drives--aloneremained as it had been during the early glories of the AmbersonAddition. 

George stared at the ugly houses opposite, and hated them more thanever; but he shivered. Perhaps the riffraff living in those houses satat the windows to watch their betters; perhaps they dared to gossip--

He uttered an exclamation, and walked rapidly toward his own front gate. The victoria had returned with Miss Fanny alone; she jumped out brisklyand the victoria waited. 

"Where's mother?" George asked sharply, as he met her. 

"At Lucy's. I only came back to get some embroidery, because we foundthe sun too hot for driving. I'm in a hurry. "

But, going into the house with her, he detained her when she would havehastened upstairs. 

"I haven't time to talk now, Georgie; I'm going right back. I promisedyour mother--"

"You listen!" said George. 

"What on earth--"

He repeated what Amelia had said. This time, however, he spoke coldly, and without the emotion he had exhibited during the recital to hisuncle: Fanny was the one who showed agitation during this interview, forshe grew fiery red, and her eyes dilated. "What on earth do you want tobring such trash to me for?" she demanded, breathing fast. 

"I merely wished to know two things: whether it is your duty or mine tospeak to father of what Aunt Amelia--"

Fanny stamped her foot. "You little fool!" she cried. "You awful littlefool!"

"I decline--"

"Decline, my hat! Your father's a sick man, and you--"

"He doesn't seem so to me. "

"Well, he does to me! And you want to go troubling him with an Ambersonfamily row! It's just what that cat would love you to do!"

"Well, I--"

"Tell your father if you like! It will only make him a little sicker tothink he's got a son silly enough to listen to such craziness!"

"Then you're sure there isn't any talk?" Fanny disdained a reply inwords. She made a hissing sound of utter contempt and snapped herfingers. Then she asked scornfully: "What's the other thing you wantedto know?"

George's pallor increased. "Whether it mightn't be better, under thecircumstances, " he said, "if this family were not so intimate with theMorgan family--at least for a time. It might be better--"

Fanny stared at him incredulously. "You mean you'd quit seeing Lucy?"

"I hadn't thought of that side of it, but if such a thing were necessaryon account of talk about my mother, I--I--" He hesitated unhappily. "Isuggested that if all of us--for a time--perhaps only for a time--itmight be better if--"

"See here, " she interrupted. "We'll settle this nonsense right now. IfEugene Morgan comes to this house, for instance, to see me, your mothercan't get up and leave the place the minute he gets here, can she? Whatdo you want her to do: insult him? Or perhaps you'd prefer she'd insultLucy? That would do just as well. What is it you're up to, anyhow? Doyou really love your Aunt Amelia so much that you want to please her?Or do you really hate your Aunt Fanny so much that you want to--that youwant to--"

She choked and sought for her handkerchief; suddenly she began to cry. 

"Oh, see here, " George said. "I don't hate you, " Aunt Fanny. "That'ssilly. I don't--"

"You do! You do! You want to--you want to destroy the only thing--thatI--that I ever--" And, unable to continue, she became inaudible in herhandkerchief. 

George felt remorseful, and his own troubles were lightened: all atonce it became clear to him that he had been worrying about nothing. Heperceived that his Aunt Amelia was indeed an old cat, and that to giveher scandalous meanderings another thought would be the height of folly. By no means unsusceptible to such pathos as that now exposed beforehim, he did not lack pity for Fanny, whose almost spoken confession waslamentable; and he was granted the vision to understand that his motheralso pitied Fanny infinitely more than he did. This seemed to explaineverything. 

He patted the unhappy lady awkwardly upon her shoulder. "There, there!"he said. "I didn't mean anything. Of course the only thing to do aboutAunt Amelia is to pay no attention to her. It's all right, Aunt Fanny. Don't cry. I feel a lot better now, myself. Come on; I'll drive backthere with you. It's all over, and nothing's the matter. Can't you cheerup?"

Fanny cheered up; and presently the customarily hostile aunt andnephew were driving out Amberson Boulevard amiably together in the hotsunshine. 

Chapter XIV

"Almost" was Lucy's last word on the last night of George'svacation--that vital evening which she had half consented to agree uponfor "settling things" between them. "Almost engaged, " she meant. AndGeorge, discontented with the "almost, " but contented that she seemedglad to wear a sapphire locket with a tiny photograph of George AmbersonMinafer inside it, found himself wonderful in a new world at the finalinstant of their parting. For, after declining to let him kissher "good-bye, " as if his desire for such a ceremony were the mostpreposterous absurdity in the world, she had leaned suddenly close tohim and left upon his cheek the veriest feather from a fairy's wing. 

She wrote him a month later:

No. It must keep on being almost. 

Isn't almost pretty pleasant? You know well enough that I care for you. I did from the first minute I saw you, and I'm pretty sure youknew it--I'm afraid you did. I'm afraid you always knew it. I'm notconventional and cautious about being engaged, as you say I am, dear. (Ialways read over the "dears" in your letters a time or two, as you sayyou do in mine--only I read all of your letters a time or two!) Butit's such a solemn thing it scares me. It means a good deal to a lotof people besides you and me, and that scares me, too. You write that Itake your feeling for me "too lightly" and that I "take the whole affairtoo lightly. " Isn't that odd! Because to myself I seem to take itas something so much more solemn than you do. I shouldn't be a bitsurprised to find myself an old lady, some day, still thinking ofyou--while you'd be away and away with somebody else perhaps, and meforgotten ages ago! "Lucy Morgan, " you'd say, when you saw my obituary. "Lucy Morgan? Let me see: I seem to remember the name. Didn't I knowsome Lucy Morgan or other, once upon a time?" Then you'd shake yourbig white head and stroke your long white beard--you'd have such adistinguished long white beard! and you'd say, 'No. I don't seem toremember any Lucy Morgan; I wonder what made me think I did?' And poorme! I'd be deep in the ground, wondering if you'd heard about it andwhat you were saying! Good-bye for to-day. Don't work too hard--dear!

George immediately seized pen and paper, plaintively but vigorouslyrequesting Lucy not to imagine him with a beard, distinguished orotherwise, even in the extremities of age. Then, after inscribing hisprotest in the matter of this visioned beard, he concluded his missivein a tone mollified to tenderness, and proceeded to read a letter fromhis mother which had reached him simultaneously with Lucy's. Isabelwrote from Asheville, where she had just arrived with her husband. 

I think your father looks better already, darling, though we've beenhere only a few hours It may be we've found just the place to build himup. The doctors said they hoped it would prove to be, and if it is, itwould be worth the long struggle we had with him to get him to give upand come. Poor dear man, he was so blue, not about his health but aboutgiving up the worries down at his office and forgetting them for atime--if he only will forget them! It took the pressure of the familyand all his best friends, to get him to come--but father and brotherGeorge and Fanny and Eugene Morgan all kept at him so constantly that hejust had to give in. I'm afraid that in my anxiety to get him to do whatthe doctors wanted him to, I wasn't able to back up brother George as Ishould in his difficulty with Sydney and Amelia. I'm so sorry! Georgeis more upset than I've ever seen him--they've got what they wanted, andthey're sailing before long, I hear, to live in Florence. Father said hecouldn't stand the constant persuading--I'm afraid the word he used was"nagging. " I can't understand people behaving like that. George saysthey may be Ambersons, but they're vulgar! I'm afraid I almost agreewith him. At least, I think they were inconsiderate. But I don't seewhy I'm unburdening myself of all this to you, poor darling! We'll haveforgotten all about it long before you come home for the holidays, andit should mean little or nothing to you, anyway. Forget that I've beenso foolish!

Your father is waiting for me to take a walk with him--that's a splendidsign, because he hasn't felt he could walk much, at home, lately. Imustn't keep him waiting. Be careful to wear your mackintosh and rubbersin rainy weather, and, as soon as it begins to get colder, your ulster. Wish you could see your father now. Looks so much better! We plan tostay six weeks if the place agrees with him. It does really seem toalready! He's just called in the door to say he's waiting. Don't smoketoo much, darling boy. 

Devotedly, your mother Isabel. 

But she did not keep her husband there for the six weeks sheanticipated. She did not keep him anywhere that long. Three weeks afterwriting this letter, she telegraphed suddenly to George that they wereleaving for home at once; and four days later, when he and a friendcame whistling into his study, from lunch at the club, he found anothertelegram upon his desk. 

He read it twice before he comprehended its import. 

Papa left us at ten this morning, dearest. Mother. 

The friend saw the change in his face. "Not bad news?"

George lifted utterly dumfounded eyes from the yellow paper. 

"My father, " he said weakly. "She says--she says he's dead. I've got togo home. "

His Uncle George and the Major met him at the station when hearrived--the first time the Major had ever come to meet his grandson. The old gentleman sat in his closed carriage (which still needed paint)at the entrance to the station, but he got out and advanced to graspGeorge's hand tremulously, when the latter appeared. "Poor fellow!" hesaid, and patted him repeatedly upon the shoulder. "Poor fellow! PoorGeorgie!"

George had not yet come to a full realization of his loss: so far, his condition was merely dazed; and as the Major continued to pat him, murmuring "Poor fellow!" over and over, George was seized by an almostirresistible impulse to tell his grandfather that he was not a poodle. But he said "Thanks, " in a low voice, and got into the carriage, histwo relatives following with deferential sympathy. He noticed that theMajor's tremulousness did not disappear, as they drove up the street, and that he seemed much feebler than during the summer. Principally, however, George was concerned with his own emotion, or rather, with hislack of emotion; and the anxious sympathy of his grandfather and hisuncle made him feel hypocritical. He was not grief-stricken; but he feltthat he ought to be, and, with a secret shame, concealed his callousnessbeneath an affectation of solemnity. 

But when he was taken into the room where lay what was left of WilburMinafer, George had no longer to pretend; his grief was sufficient. Itneeded only the sight of that forever inert semblance of the quiet manwho had been always so quiet a part of his son's life--so quiet a partthat George had seldom been consciously aware that his father was indeeda. Part of his life. As the figure lay there, its very quietness waswhat was most lifelike; and suddenly it struck George hard. And in thatunexpected, racking grief of his son, Wilbur Minafer became more vividlyGeorge's father than he had ever been in life. 

When George left the room, his arm was about his black-robed mother, hisshoulders were still shaken with sobs. He leaned upon his mother; shegently comforted him; and presently he recovered his composure andbecame self-conscious enough to wonder if he had not been making anunmanly display of himself. "I'm all right again, mother, " he saidawkwardly. "Don't worry about me: you'd better go lie down, orsomething; you look pretty pale. "

Isabel did look pretty pale, but not ghastly pale, as Fanny did. Fanny'sgrief was overwhelming; she stayed in her room, and George did notsee her until the next day, a few minutes before the funeral, when herhaggard face appalled him. But by this time he was quite himself again, and during the short service in the cemetery his thoughts even wanderedso far as to permit him a feeling of regret not directly connected withhis father. Beyond the open flower-walled grave was a mound where newgrass grew; and here lay his great-uncle, old John Minafer, who haddied the previous autumn; and beyond this were the graves of George'sgrandfather and grandmother Minafer, and of his grandfather Minafer'ssecond wife, and her three sons, George's half-uncles, who had beendrowned together in a canoe accident when George was a child--Fanny wasthe last of the family. Next beyond was the Amberson family lot, wherelay the Major's wife and their sons Henry and Milton, uncles whom Georgedimly remembered; and beside them lay Isabel's older sister, his AuntEstelle, who had died, in her girlhood, long before George was born. TheMinafer monument was a granite block, with the name chiseled upon itsone polished side, and the Amberson monument was a white marble shafttaller than any other in that neighbourhood. But farther on there was anewer section of the cemetery, an addition which had been thrown open tooccupancy only a few years before, after dexterous modern treatment bya landscape specialist. There were some large new mausoleums here, andshafts taller than the Ambersons', as well as a number of monuments ofsome sculptural pretentiousness; and altogether the new section appearedto be a more fashionable and important quarter than that older one whichcontained the Amberson and Minafer lots. This was what caused George'sregret, during the moment or two when his mind strayed from his fatherand the reading of the service. 

On the train, going back to college, ten days later, this regret (thoughit was as much an annoyance as a regret) recurred to his mind, and afeeling developed within him that the new quarter of the cemetery wasin bad taste--not architecturally or sculpturally perhaps, but inpresumption: it seemed to flaunt a kind of parvenu ignorance, as if itwere actually pleased to be unaware that all the aristocratic and reallyimportant families were buried in the old section. 

The annoyance gave way before a recollection of the sweet mournfulnessof his mother's face, as she had said good-bye to him at the station, and of how lovely she looked in her mourning. He thought of Lucy, whomhe had seen only twice, and he could not help feeling that in thesequiet interviews he had appeared to her as tinged with heroism--she hadshown, rather than said, how brave she thought him in his sorrow. Butwhat came most vividly to George's mind, during these retrospections, was the despairing face of his Aunt Fanny. Again and again he thought ofit; he could not avoid its haunting. And for days, after he got backto college, the stricken likeness of Fanny would appear before himunexpectedly, and without a cause that he could trace in his immediatelyprevious thoughts. Her grief had been so silent, yet it had so amazedhim. 

George felt more and more compassion for this ancient antagonist of his, and he wrote to his mother about her:

I'm afraid poor Aunt Fanny might think now father's gone we won't wanther to live with us any longer and because I always teased her so muchshe might think I'd be for turning her out. I don't know where on earthshe'd go or what she could live on if we did do something like this, andof course we never would do such a thing, but I'm pretty sure she hadsomething of the kind on her mind. She didn't say anything, but the wayshe looked is what makes me think so. Honestly, to me she looked justscared sick. You tell her there isn't any danger in the world of mytreating her like that. Tell her everything is to go on just as italways has. Tell her to cheer up!

Chapter XV

Isabel did more for Fanny than telling her to cheer up. Everything thatFanny inherited from her father, old Aleck Minafer, had been investedin Wilbur's business; and Wilbur's business, after a period of illnesscorresponding in dates to the illness of Wilbur's body, had died justbefore Wilbur did. George Amberson and Fanny were both "wiped out toa miracle of precision, " as Amberson said. They "owned not a penny andowed not a penny, " he continued, explaining his phrase. "It's like themoment just before drowning: you're not under water and you're not outof it. All you know is that you're not dead yet. "

He spoke philosophically, having his "prospects" from his father to fallback upon; but Fanny had neither "prospects" nor philosophy. However, a legal survey of Wilbur's estate revealed the fact that his lifeinsurance was left clear of the wreck; and Isabel, with the cheerfulconsent of her son, promptly turned this salvage over to hersister-in-law. Invested, it would yield something better than ninehundred dollars a year, and thus she was assured of becoming neither apauper nor a dependent, but proved to be, as Amberson said, adding hisefforts to the cheering up of Fanny, "an heiress, after all, in spite ofrolling mills and the devil. " She was unable to smile, and he continuedhis humane gayeties. "See what a wonderfully desirable income ninehundred dollars is, Fanny: a bachelor, to be in your class, must haveexactly forty-nine thousand one hundred a year. Then, you see, all youneed to do, in order to have fifty thousand a year, is to be a littleencouraging when some bachelor in your class begins to show by hishaberdashery what he wants you to think about him!"

She looked at him wanly, murmured a desolate response--she had "sewingto do"--and left the room; while Amberson shook his head ruefully athis sister. "I've often thought that humor was not my forte, " he sighed. "Lord! She doesn't 'cheer up' much!"

The collegian did not return to his home for the holidays. Instead, Isabel joined him, and they went South for the two weeks. She was proudof her stalwart, good-looking son at the hotel where they stayed, and itwas meat and drink to her when she saw how people stared at him in thelobby and on the big verandas--indeed, her vanity in him was so dominantthat she was unaware of their staring at her with more interest and anadmiration friendlier than George evoked. Happy to have him to herselffor this fortnight, she loved to walk with him, leaning upon his arm, toread with him, to watch the sea with him--perhaps most of all she likedto enter the big dining room with him. 

Yet both of them felt constantly the difference between thisChristmastime and other Christmas-times of theirs--in all, it was asorrowful holiday. But when Isabel came East for George's commencement, in June, she brought Lucy with her--and things began to seem different, especially when George Amberson arrived with Lucy's father on Class Day. Eugene had been in New York, on business; Amberson easily persuadedhim to this outing; and they made a cheerful party of it, with the newgraduate of course the hero and center of it all. 

His uncle was a fellow alumnus. "Yonder was where I roomed when I washere, " he said, pointing out one of the university buildings to Eugene. "I don't know whether George would let my admirers place a tablet tomark the spot, or not. He owns all these buildings now, you know. "

"Didn't you, when you were here? Like uncle, like nephew. "

"Don't tell George you think he's like me. Just at this time we shouldbe careful of the young gentleman's feelings. "

"Yes, " said Eugene. "If we weren't he mightn't let us exist at all. "

"I'm sure I didn't have it so badly at his age, " Amberson saidreflectively, as they strolled on through the commencement crowd. "Forone thing, I had brothers and sisters, and my mother didn't just sitat my feet as George's does; and I wasn't an only grandchild, either. Father's always spoiled Georgie a lot more than he did any of his own'children. "

Eugene laughed. "You need only three things to explain all that's goodand bad about Georgie. "

"Three?"

"He's Isabel's only child. He's an Amberson. He's a boy. "

"Well, Mister Bones, of these three things which are the good ones andwhich are the bad ones?"

"All of them, " said Eugene. 

It happened that just then they came in sight of the subject of theirdiscourse. George was walking under the elms with Lucy, swinging astick and pointing out to her various objects and localities which hadattained historical value during the last four years. The two older menmarked his gestures, careless and graceful; they observed his attitude, unconsciously noble, his easy proprietorship of the ground beneath hisfeet and round about, of the branches overhead, of the old buildingsbeyond, and of Lucy. 

"I don't know, " Eugene said, smiling whimsically. "I don't know. When Ispoke of his being a human being--I don't know. Perhaps it's more likedeity. "

"I wonder if I was like that!" 'Amberson groaned. ' "You don't supposeevery Amberson has had to go through it, do you?"

"Don't worry! At least half of it is a combination of youth, good looks, and college; and even the noblest Ambersons get over their nobility andcome to, be people in time. It takes more than time, though. "

"I should say it did take more than time!" his friend agreed, shaking arueful head. 

Then they walked over to join the loveliest Amberson, whom neither timenor trouble seemed to have touched. She stood alone, thoughtful underthe great trees, chaperoning George and Lucy at a distance; but, seeingthe two friends approaching, she came to meet them. 

"It's charming, isn't it!" she said, moving her black-gloved hand toindicate the summery dressed crowd strolling about them, or clusteringin groups, each with its own hero. "They seem so eager and so confident, all these boys--it's touching. But of course youth doesn't know it'stouching. "

Amberson coughed. "No, it doesn't seem to take itself as pathetic, precisely! Eugene and I were just speaking of something like that. Do you know what I think whenever I see these smooth, triumphal youngfaces? I always think: 'Oh, how you're going to catch it'!"

"George!"

"Oh, yes, " he said. "Life's most ingenious: it's got a special wallopingfor every mother's son of 'em!"

"Maybe, " said Isabel, troubled--"maybe some of the mothers can take thewalloping for them. "

"Not one!" her brother assured her, with emphasis. "Not any more thanshe can take on her own face the lines that are bound to come on herson's. I suppose you know that all these young faces have got to getlines on 'em?"

"Maybe they won't, " she said, smiling wistfully. "Maybe times willchange, and nobody will have to wear lines. "

"Times have changed like that for only one person that I know, " Eugenesaid. And as Isabel looked inquiring, he laughed, and she saw that shewas the "only one person. " His implication was justified, moreover, andshe knew it. She blushed charmingly. 

"Which is it puts the lines on the faces?" Amberson asked. "Is it ageor trouble? Of course we can't decide that wisdom does it--we must bepolite to Isabel. "

"I'll tell you what puts the lines there, " Eugene said. "Age puts some, and trouble puts some, and work puts some, but the deepest are carved bylack of faith. The serenest brow is the one that believes the most. "

"In what?" Isabel asked gently. 

"In everything!"

She looked at him inquiringly, and he laughed as he had a moment before, when she looked at him that way. "Oh, yes, you do!" he said. 

She continued to look at him inquiringly a moment or two longer, andthere was an unconscious earnestness in her glance, something trustfulas well as inquiring, as if she knew that whatever he meant it was allright. Then her eyes drooped thoughtfully, and she seemed to addresssome inquiries to herself. She looked up suddenly. "Why, I believe, " shesaid, in a tone of surprise, "I believe I do!"

And at that both men laughed. "Isabel!" her brother exclaimed. "You'rea foolish person! There are times when you look exactly fourteen yearsold!"

But this reminded her of her real affair in that part of the world. "Good gracious!" she said. "Where have the children got to? We must takeLucy pretty soon, so that George can go and sit with the Class. We mustcatch up with them. "

She took her brother's arm, and the three moved on, looking about themin the crowd. 

"Curious, " Amberson remarked, as they did not immediately discover theyoung people they sought. "Even in such a concourse one would think wecouldn't fail to see the proprietor. "

"Several hundred proprietors today, " Eugene suggested. 

"No; they're only proprietors of the university, " said George's uncle. "We're looking for the proprietor of the universe. "

"There he is!" cried Isabel fondly, not minding this satire at all. "Anddoesn't he look it!"

Her escorts were still laughing at her when they joined the proprietorof the universe and his pretty friend, and though both Amberson andEugene declined to explain the cause of their mirth, even upon Lucy'surgent request, the portents of the day were amiable, and the five madea happy party--that is to say, four of them made a happy audience forthe fifth, and the mood of this fifth was gracious and cheerful. 

George took no conspicuous part in either the academic or the socialcelebrations of his class; he seemed to regard both sets of exerciseswith a tolerant amusement, his own "crowd" "not going in much for eitherof those sorts of things, " as he explained to Lucy. What his crowd hadgone in for remained ambiguous; some negligent testimony indicatingthat, except for an astonishing reliability which they all seemed tohave attained in matters relating to musical comedy, they had not gonein for anything. Certainly the question one of them put to Lucy, inresponse to investigations of hers, seemed to point that way: "Don't youthink, " he said, "really, don't you think that being things is ratherbetter than doing things?"

He said "rahthuh bettuh" for "rather better, " and seemed to do itdeliberately, with perfect knowledge of what he was doing. Later, Lucymocked him to George, and George refused to smile: he somewhat inclinedto such pronunciations, himself. This inclination was one of the thingsthat he had acquired in the four years. 

What else he had acquired, it might have puzzled him to state, hadanybody asked him and required a direct reply within a reasonable spaceof time. He had learned how to pass examinations by "cramming"; that is, in three or four days and nights he could get into his head enough ofa selected fragment of some scientific or philosophical or literary orlinguistic subject to reply plausibly to six questions out of ten. Hecould retain the information necessary for such a feat just long enoughto give a successful performance; then it would evaporate utterly fromhis brain, and leave him undisturbed. George, like his "crowd, " not onlypreferred "being things" to "doing things, " but had contented himselfwith four years of "being things" as a preparation for going on "beingthings. " And when Lucy rather shyly pressed him for his friend'sprobable definition of the "things" it seemed so superior and beautifulto be, George raised his eyebrows slightly, meaning that she should haveunderstood without explanation; but he did explain: "Oh, family and allthat--being a gentleman, I suppose. "

Lucy gave the horizon a long look, but offered no comment. 

Chapter XVI

"Aunt Fanny doesn't look much better, " George said to his mother, a fewminutes after their arrival, on the night they got home. He stood witha towel in her doorway, concluding some sketchy ablutions before goingdownstairs to a supper which Fanny was hastily preparing for them. Isabel had not telegraphed; Fanny was taken by surprise when they droveup in a station cab at eleven o'clock; and George instantly demanded "alittle decent food. " (Some criticisms of his had publicly disturbed thecomposure of the dining-car steward four hours previously. ) "I neversaw anybody take things so hard as she seems to, " he observed, his voicemuffled by the towel. "Doesn't she get over it at all? I thought she'dfeel better when we turned over the insurance to her--gave it to herabsolutely, without any strings to it. She looks about a thousand yearsold!"

"She looks quite girlish, sometimes, though, " his mother said. 

"Has she looked that way much since father--"

"Not so much, " Isabel said thoughtfully. "But she will, as times goeson. "

"Time'll have to hurry, then, it seems to me, " George observed, returning to his own room. 

When they went down to the dining room, he pronounced acceptable thesalmon salad, cold beef, cheese, and cake which Fanny made ready forthem without disturbing the servants. The journey had fatiguedIsabel, she ate nothing, but sat to observe with tired pleasure themanifestations of her son's appetite, meanwhile giving her sister-in-lawa brief summary of the events of commencement. But presently she kissedthem both good-night--taking care to kiss George lightly upon the sideof his head, so as not to disturb his eating--and left aunt and nephewalone together. 

"It never was becoming to her to look pale, " Fanny said absently, a fewmoments after Isabel's departure. 

"Wha'd you say, Aunt Fanny?"

"Nothing. I suppose your mother's been being pretty gay? Going a lot?"

"How could she?" George asked cheerfully. "In mourning, of course allshe could do was just sit around and look on. That's all Lucy could doeither, for the matter of that. "

"I suppose so, " his aunt assented. "How did Lucy get home?"

George regarded her with astonishment. "Why, on the train with the restof us, of course. "

"I didn't mean that, " Fanny explained. "I meant from the station. Didyou drive out to their house with her before you came here?"

"No. She drove home with her father, of course. "

"Oh, I see. So Eugene came to the station to meet you. "

"To meet us?" George echoed, renewing his attack upon the salmon salad. "How could he?"

"I don't know what you mean, " Fanny said drearily, in the desolate voicethat had become her habit. "I haven't seen him while your mother's beenaway. "

"Naturally, " said George. "He's been East himself. "

At this Fanny's drooping eyelids opened wide. 

"Did you see him?"

"Well, naturally, since he made the trip home with us!"

"He did?" she said sharply. "He's been with you all the time?"

"No; only on the train and the last three days before we left. UncleGeorge got him to come. "

Fanny's eyelids drooped again, and she sat silent until George pushedback his chair and lit a cigarette, declaring his satisfaction with whatshe had provided. "You're a fine housekeeper, " he said benevolently. "You know how to make things look dainty as well as taste the right way. I don't believe you'd stay single very long if some of the bachelors andwidowers around town could just once see--"

She did not hear him. "It's a little odd, " she said. 

"What's odd?"

"Your mother's not mentioning that Mr. Morgan had been with you. "

"Didn't think of it, I suppose, " said George carelessly; and, hisbenevolent mood increasing, he conceived the idea that a little harmlessrallying might serve to elevate his aunt's drooping spirits. "I'll tellyou something, in confidence, " he said solemnly. 

She looked up, startled. "What?"

"Well, it struck me that Mr. Morgan was looking pretty absent-minded, most of the time; and he certainly is dressing better than he used to. Uncle George told me he heard that the automobile factory had been doingquite well--won a race, too! I shouldn't be a bit surprised if all theyoung fellow had been waiting for was to know he had an assured incomebefore he proposed. "

"What 'young fellow'?"

"This young fellow Morgan, " laughed George; "Honestly, Aunt Fanny, Ishouldn't be a bit surprised to have him request an interview with meany day, and declare that his intentions are honourable, and ask mypermission to pay his addresses to you. What had I better tell him?"

Fanny burst into tears. 

"Good heavens!" George cried. "I was only teasing. I didn't mean--"

"Let me alone, " she said lifelessly; and, continuing to weep, rose andbegan to clear away the dishes. 

"Please, Aunt Fanny--"

"Just let me alone. "

George was distressed. "I didn't mean anything, Aunt Fanny! I didn'tknow you'd got so sensitive as all that. "

"You'd better go up to bed, " she said desolately, going on with her workand her weeping. 

"Anyhow, " he insisted, "do let these things wait. Let the servants 'tendto the table in the morning. "

"No. "

"But, why not?"

"Just let me alone. "

"Oh, Lord!" George groaned, going to the door. There he turned. "Seehere, Aunt Fanny, there's not a bit of use your bothering about thosedishes tonight. What's the use of a butler and three maids if--"

"Just let me alone. "

He obeyed, and could still hear a pathetic sniffing from the dining roomas he went up the stairs. 

"By George!" he grunted, as he reached his own room; and his thought wasthat living with a person so sensitive to kindly raillery might provelugubrious. He whistled, long and low, then went to the window andlooked through the darkness to the great silhouette of his grandfather'shouse. Lights were burning over there, upstairs; probably his newlyarrived uncle was engaged in talk with the Major. 

George's glance lowered, resting casually upon the indistinct ground, and he beheld some vague shapes, unfamiliar to him. Formless heaps, theyseemed; but, without much curiosity, he supposed that sewer connectionsor water pipes might be out of order, making necessary some excavations. He hoped the work would not take long; he hated to see that sweep oflawn made unsightly by trenches and lines of dirt, even temporarily. Notgreatly disturbed, however, he pulled down the shade, yawned, and beganto, undress, leaving further investigation for the morning. 

But in the morning he had forgotten all about it, and raised his shade, to let in the light, without even glancing toward the ground. Not untilhe had finished dressing did he look forth from his window, and then hisglance was casual. The next instant his attitude became electric, and hegave utterance to a bellow of dismay. He ran from his room, plungeddown the stairs, out of the front door, and, upon a nearer view of thedestroyed lawn, began to release profanity upon the breezeless summerair, which remained unaffected. Between his mother's house and hisgrandfather's, excavations for the cellars of five new houses were inprocess, each within a few feet of its neighbour. Foundations of brickwere being laid; everywhere were piles of brick and stacked lumber, andsand heaps and mortar' beds. 

It was Sunday, and so the workmen implicated in these defacings weredenied what unquestionably; they would have considered a treat; butas the fanatic orator continued the monologue, a gentleman inflannels emerged upward from one of the excavations, and regarded himcontemplatively. 

"Obtaining any relief, nephew?" he inquired with some interest. "Youmust have learned quite a number of those expressions in childhood--it'sso long since I'd heard them I fancied they were obsolete. "

"Who wouldn't swear?" George demanded hotly. "In the name of God, whatdoes grandfather mean, doing such things?"

"My private opinion is, " said Amberson gravely, "he desires to increasehis income by building these houses to rent. "

"Well, in the name of God, can't he increase his income any other waybut this?"

"In the name of God, it would appear he couldn't. "

"It's beastly! It's a damn degradation! It's a crime!"

"I don't know about its being a crime, " said his uncle, stepping oversome planks to join him. "It might be a mistake, though. Your mothersaid not to tell you until we got home, so as not to spoil commencementfor you. She rather feared you'd be upset. "

"Upset! Oh, my Lord, I should think I would be upset! He's in his secondchildhood. What did you let him do it for, in the name of--"

"Make it in the name of heaven this time, George; it's Sunday. Well, Ithought, myself, it was a mistake. "

"I should say so!"

"Yes, " said Amberson. "I wanted him to put up an apartment buildinginstead of these houses. "

"An apartment building! Here?"

"Yes; that was my idea. "

George struck his hands together despairingly. "An apartment house! Oh, my Lord!"

"Don't worry! Your grandfather wouldn't listen to me, but he'll wishhe had, some day. He says that people aren't going to live in miserablelittle flats when they can get a whole house with some grass in frontand plenty of backyard behind. He sticks it out that apartment houseswill never do in a town of this type, and when I pointed out to himthat a dozen or so of 'em already are doing, he claimed it was just thenovelty, and that they'd all be empty as soon as people got used to 'em. So he's putting up these houses. "

"Is he getting miserly in his old age?"

"Hardly! Look what he gave Sydney and Amelia!"

"I don't mean he's a miser, of course, " said George. "Heaven knowshe's liberal enough with mother and me; but why on earth didn't he sellsomething or other rather than do a thing like this?"

"As a matter of fact, " Amberson returned coolly, "I believe he has soldsomething or other, from time to time. "

"Well, in heaven's name, " George cried, "what did he do it for?"

"To get money, " his uncle mildly replied. "That's my deduction. "

"I suppose you're joking--or trying to!"

"That's the best way to look at it, " Amberson said amiably. "Take thewhole thing as a joke--and in the meantime, if you haven't had yourbreakfast--"

"I haven't!"

"Then if I were you I'd go in and gets some. And"--he paused, becomingserious--"and if I were you I wouldn't say anything to your grandfatherabout this. "

"I don't think I could trust myself to speak to him about it, " saidGeorge. "I want to treat him respectfully, because he is my grandfather, but I don't believe I could if I talked to him about such a thing asthis!"

And with a gesture of despair, plainly signifying that all too soonafter leaving bright college years behind him he had entered into thefull tragedy of life, George turned bitterly upon his heel and went intothe house for his breakfast. 

His uncle, with his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after him notaltogether unsympathetically, then descended again into the excavationwhence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he took in the old carriagewith the Major, when, George was encountered upon the highway, flashingalong in his runabout with Lucy beside him and Pendennis doing betterthan three minutes. 

"He seems to have recovered, " Amberson remarked: "Looks in the highestgood spirits. "

"I beg your pardon. "

"Your grandson, " Amberson explained. "He was inclined to melancholy thismorning, but seemed jolly enough just now when they passed us. "

"What was he melancholy about? Not getting remorseful about all themoney he's spent at college, was he?" The Major chuckled feebly, butwith sufficient grimness. "I wonder what he thinks I'm made of, " heconcluded querulously. 

"Gold, " his son suggested, adding gently, "And he's right about part ofyou, father. "

"What part?"

"Your heart. "

The Major laughed ruefully. "I suppose that may account for how heavyit feels, sometimes, nowadays. This town seems to be rolling right overthat old heart you mentioned, George--rolling over it and buryingit under! When I think of those devilish workmen digging up my lawn, yelling around my house--"

"Never mind, father. Don't think of it. When things are a nuisance it'sa good idea not to keep remembering 'em. "

"I try not to, " the old gentleman murmured. "I try to keep rememberingthat I won't be remembering anything very long. " And, somehow convincedthat this thought was a mirthful one, he laughed loudly, and slapped hisknee. "Not so very long now, my boy!" he chuckled, continuing to echohis own amusement. "Not so very long. Not so very long!"

Chapter XVII

Young George paid his respects to his grandfather the following morning, having been occupied with various affairs and engagements on Sundayuntil after the Major's bedtime; and topics concerned with buildingor excavations were not introduced into the conversation, which was acheerful one until George lightly mentioned some new plans of his. Hewas a skillful driver, as the Major knew, and he spoke of his desire toextend his proficiency in this art: in fact, be entertained the ambitionto drive a four-in-hand. However, as the Major said nothing, and merelysat still, looking surprised, George went on to say that he did notpropose to "go in for coaching just at the start"; he thought it wouldbe better to begin with a tandem. He was sure Pendennis could be trainedto work as a leader; and all that one needed to buy at present, he said, would be "comparatively inexpensive--a new trap, and the harness, of course, and a good bay to match Pendennis. " He did not care for aspecial groom; one of the stablemen would do. 

At this point the Major decided to speak. "You say one of the stablemenwould do?" he inquired, his widened eyes remaining fixed upon hisgrandson. "That's lucky, because one's all there is, just at present, George. Old fat Tom does it all. Didn't you notice, when you tookPendennis out, yesterday?"

"Oh, that will be all right, sir. My mother can lend me her man. "

"Can she?" The old gentleman smiled faintly. "I wonder--" He paused. 

"What, sir?"

"Whether you mightn't care to go to law-school somewhere perhaps. I'd beglad to set aside a sum that would see you through. "

This senile divergence from the topic in hand surprised Georgepainfully. "I have no interest whatever in the law, " he said. "I don'tcare for it, and the idea of being a professional man has never appealedto me. None of the family has ever gone in for that sort of thing, to myknowledge, and I don't care to be the first. I was speaking of driving atandem--"

"I know you were, " the Major said quietly. 

George looked hurt. "I beg your pardon. Of course if the idea doesn'tappeal to you--" And he rose to go. 

The Major ran a tremulous hand through his hair, sighing deeply. "I--Idon't like to refuse you anything, Georgie, " he said. "I don't know thatI often have refused you whatever you wanted--in reason--"

"You've always been more than generous, sir, " George interruptedquickly. "And if the idea of a tandem doesn't appeal to you, why--ofcourse--" And he waved his hand, heroically dismissing the tandem. 

The Major's distress became obvious. "Georgie, I'd like to, but--butI've an idea tandems are dangerous to drive, and your mother might beanxious. She--"

"No, sir; I think not. She felt it would be rather a good thing--help tokeep me out in the open air. But if perhaps your finances--"

"Oh, it isn't that so much, " the old gentleman said hurriedly. "I wasn'tthinking of that altogether. " He laughed uncomfortably. "I guess wecould still afford a new horse or two, if need be--"

 "I thought you said--"

The Major waved his hand airily. "Oh, a few retrenchments wherethings were useless; nothing gained by a raft of idle darkies in thestable--nor by a lot of extra land that might as well be put to work forus in rentals. And if you want this thing so very much--"

"It's not important enough to bother about, really, of course. "

"Well, let's wait till autumn then, " said the Major in a tone of relief. "We'll see about it in the autumn, if you're still in the mind for itthen. That will be a great deal better. You remind me of it, along inSeptember--or October. We'll see what can be done. " He rubbed his handscheerfully. "We'll see what can be done about it then, Georgie. We'llsee. "

And George, in reporting this conversation to his mother, was ruefullyhumorous. "In fact, the old boy cheered up so much, " he told her, "you'dhave thought he'd got a real load off his mind. He seemed to think he'dfixed me up perfectly, and that I was just as good as driving a tandemaround his library right that minute! Of course I know he's anything butmiserly; still I can't help thinking he must be salting a lot of moneyaway. I know prices are higher than they used to be, but he doesn'tspend within thousands of what he used to, and we certainly can't bespending more than we always have spent. Where does it all go to? UncleGeorge told me grandfather had sold some pieces of property, and itlooks a little queer. If he's really 'property poor, ' of course we oughtto be more saving than we are, and help him out. I don't mind givingup a tandem if it seems a little too expensive just now. I'm perfectlywilling to live quietly till he gets his bank balance where he wants it. But I have a faint suspicion, not that he's getting miserly--not that atall--but that old age has begun to make him timid about money. There'sno doubt about it, he's getting a little queer: he can't keep his mindon a subject long. Right in the middle of talking about one thing he'llwander off to something else; and I shouldn't be surprised if he turnedout to be a lot better off than any of us guess. It's entirely possiblethat whatever he's sold just went into government bonds, or even hissafety deposit box. There was a friend of mine in college had an olduncle like that: made the whole family think he was poor as dirt--andthen left seven millions. People get terribly queer as they get old, sometimes, and grandfather certainly doesn't act the way he used to. Heseems to be a totally different man. For instance, he said he thoughttandem driving might be dangerous--"

"Did he?" Isabel asked quickly. "Then I'm glad he doesn't want you tohave one. I didn't dream--"

"But it's not. There isn't the slightest--"

Isabel had a bright idea. "Georgie! Instead of a tandem wouldn't itinterest you to get one of Eugene's automobiles?"

"I don't think so. They're fast enough, of course. In fact, runningone of those things is getting to be quite on the cards for sport, andpeople go all over the country in 'em. But they're dirty things, andthey keep getting out of order, so that you're always lying down on yourback in the mud, and--"

"Oh, no, " she interrupted eagerly. "Haven't you noticed? You don't seenearly so many people doing that nowadays as you did two or three yearsago, and, when you do, Eugene says it's apt to be one of the olderpatterns. The way they make them now, you can get at most of themachinery from the top. I do think you'd be interested, dear. "

George remained indifferent. "Possibly--but I hardly think so. I know alot of good people are really taking them up, but still--"

"But still' what?" she said as he paused. 

"But still--well, I suppose I'm a little old-fashioned and fastidious, but I'm afraid being a sort of engine driver never will appeal tome, mother. It's exciting, and I'd like that part of it, but still itdoesn't seem to me precisely the thing a gentleman ought to do. Too muchoveralls and monkey-wrenches and grease!"

"But Eugene says people are hiring mechanics to do all that sort ofthing for them. They're beginning to have them just the way they havecoachmen; and he says it's developing into quite a profession. "

"I know that, mother, of course; but I've seen some of these mechanics, and they're not very satisfactory. For one thing, most of them onlypretend to understand the machinery and they let people break down ahundred miles from nowhere, so that about all these fellows are goodfor is to hunt up a farmer and hire a horse to pull the automobile. Andfriends of mine at college that've had a good deal of experience tell methe mechanics who do understand the engines have no training at all asservants. They're awful! They say anything they like, and usually speakto members of the family as 'Say!' No, I believe I'd rather wait forSeptember and a tandem, mother. "

Nevertheless, George sometimes consented to sit in an automobile, whilewaiting for September, and he frequently went driving in one of Eugene'scars with Lucy and her father. He even allowed himself to be escortedwith his mother and Fanny through the growing factory, which was now, asthe foreman of the paint shop informed the visitors, "turning out a carand a quarter a day. " George had seldom been more excessively bored, buthis mother showed a lively interest in everything, wishing to haveall the machinery explained to her. It was Lucy who did most of theexplaining, while her father looked on and laughed at the mistakes shemade, and Fanny remained in the background with George, exhibiting ableakness that overmatched his boredom. 

From the factory Eugene took them to lunch at a new restaurant, justopened in the town, a place which surprised Isabel with its metropolitanair, and, though George made fun of it to her, in a whisper, she offeredeverything the tribute of pleased exclamations; and her gayety helpedEugene's to make the little occasion almost a festive one. 

George's ennui disappeared in spite of himself, and he laughed to seehis mother in such spirits. "I didn't know mineral waters could go toa person's head, " he said. "Or perhaps it's this place. It might pay tohave a new restaurant opened somewhere in town every time you get theblues. "

Fanny turned to him with a wan smile. "Oh, she doesn't 'get the blues, 'George!" Then she added, as if fearing her remark might be thoughtunpleasantly significant, "I never knew a person of a more evendisposition. I wish I could be like that!" And though the tone ofthis afterthought was not so enthusiastic as she tried to make it, shesucceeded in producing a fairly amiable effect. 

"No, " Isabel said, reverting to George's remark, and overlookingFanny's. "What makes me laugh so much at nothing is Eugene's factory. Wouldn't anybody be delighted to see an old friend take an idea out ofthe air like that--an idea that most people laughed at him for--wouldn'tany old friend of his be happy to see how he'd made his idea into sucha splendid, humming thing as that factory--all shiny steel, clicking andbuzzing away, and with all those workmen, such muscled looking men andyet so intelligent looking?"

"Hear! Hear!" George applauded. "We seem to have a lady orator among us. I hope the waiters won't mind. "

Isabel laughed, not discouraged. "It's beautiful to see such a thing, "she said. "It makes us all happy, dear old Eugene!"

And with a brave gesture she stretched out her hand to him across thesmall table. He took it quickly, giving her a look in which his laughtertried to remain, but vanished before a gratitude threatening to becomeemotional in spite of him. Isabel, however, turned instantly to Fanny. "Give him your hand, Fanny, " she said gayly; and, as Fanny mechanicallyobeyed, "There!" Isabel cried. "If brother George were here, Eugenewould have his three oldest and best friends congratulating him all atonce. We know what brother George thinks about it, though. It's justbeautiful, Eugene!"

Probably if her brother George had been with them at the little table, he would have made known what he thought about herself, for it mustinevitably have struck him that she was in the midst of one of those"times" when she looked "exactly fourteen years old. " Lucy served asa proxy for Amberson, perhaps, when she leaned toward George andwhispered: "Did you ever see anything so lovely?"

"As what?" George inquired, not because he misunderstood, but because hewished to prolong the pleasant neighbourliness of whispering. 

"As your mother! Think of her doing that! She's a darling! Andpapa"--here she imperfectly repressed a tendency to laugh--"papa looksas if he were either going to explode or utter loud sobs!"

Eugene commanded his features, however, and they resumed their customaryapprehensiveness. "I used to write verse, " he said--"if you remember--"

"Yes, " Isabel interrupted gently. "I remember. "

"I don't recall that I've written any for twenty years or so, " hecontinued. "But I'm almost thinking I could do it again, to thank youfor making a factory visit into such a kind celebration. "

"Gracious!" Lucy whispered, giggling. "Aren't they sentimental"

"People that age always are, " George returned. "They get sentimentalover anything at all. Factories or restaurants, it doesn't matter what!"

And both of them were seized with fits of laughter which they managedto cover under the general movement of departure, as Isabel had risen togo. 

Outside, upon the crowded street, George helped Lucy into his runabout, and drove off, waving triumphantly, and laughing at Eugene who wasstruggling with the engine of his car, in the tonneau of which Isabeland Fanny had established themselves. "Looks like a hand-organ mangrinding away for pennies, " said George, as the runabout turned thecorner and into National Avenue. "I'll still take a horse, any day. "

He was not so cocksure, half an hour later, on an open road, when asiren whistle wailed behind him, and before the sound had died away, Eugene's car, coming from behind with what seemed fairly like onelong leap, went by the runabout and dwindled almost instantaneously inperspective, with a lace handkerchief in a black-gloved hand flutteringsweet derision as it was swept onward into minuteness--a mere whitespeck--and then out of sight. 

George was undoubtedly impressed. "Your Father does know how to drivesome, " the dashing exhibition forced him to admit. "Of course Pendennisisn't as young as he was, and I don't care to push him too hard. Iwouldn't mind handling one of those machines on the road like that, myself, if that was all there was to it--no cranking to do, or foolingwith the engine. Well, I enjoyed part of that lunch quite a lot, Lucy. "

"The salad?"

"No. Your whispering to me. "

"Blarney!"

George made no response, but checked Pendennis to a walk. Whereupon Lucyprotested quickly: "Oh, don't!"

"Why? Do you want him to trot his legs off?"

"No, but--"

"No, but'--what?"

She spoke with apparent gravity: "I know when you make him walk it's soyou can give all your attention to--to proposing to me again!"

And as she turned a face of exaggerated color to him, "By the Lord, butyou're a little witch!" George cried. 

"George, do let Pendennis trot again!"

"I won't!"

She clucked to the horse. "Get up, Pendennis! Trot! Go on! Commence!"

Pendennis paid no attention; she meant nothing to him, and Georgelaughed at her fondly. "You are the prettiest thing in this world, Lucy!" he exclaimed. "When I see you in winter, in furs, with yourcheeks red, I think you're prettiest then, but when I see you in summer, in a straw hat and a shirtwaist and a duck skirt and white gloves andthose little silver buckled slippers, and your rose-coloured parasol, and your cheeks not red but with a kind of pinky glow about them, then Isee I must have been wrong about the winter! When are you going to dropthe 'almost' and say we're really engaged?"

"Oh, not for years! So there's the answer, and Let's trot again. "

But George was persistent; moreover, he had become serious during thelast minute or two. "I want to know, " he said. "I really mean it. "

"Let's don't be serious, George, " she begged him hopefully. "Let's talkof something pleasant. "

He was a little offended. "Then it isn't pleasant for you to know that Iwant to marry you?"

At this she became as serious as he could have asked; she looked down, and her lip quivered like that of a child about to cry. Suddenly she puther hand upon one of his for just an instant, and then withdrew it. 

"Lucy!" he said huskily. "Dear, what's the matter? You look as ifyou were going to cry. You always do that, " he went on plaintively, "whenever I can get you to talk about marrying me. "

"I know it, " she murmured. 

"Well, why do you?"

Her eyelids flickered, and then she looked up at him with a sad gravity, tears seeming just at the poise. "One reason's because I have a feelingthat it's never going to be. "

"Why?"

"It's just a feeling. "

"You haven't any reason or--"

"It's just a feeling. "

"Well, if that's all, " George said, reassured, and laughing confidently, "I guess I won't be very much troubled!" But at once he became seriousagain, adopting the tone of argument. "Lucy, how is anything ever goingto get a chance to come of it, so long as you keep sticking to 'almost'?Doesn't it strike you as unreasonable to have a 'feeling' that we'llnever be married, when what principally stands between us is the factthat you won't be really engaged to me? That does seem pretty absurd!Don't you care enough about me to marry me?"

She looked down again, pathetically troubled. "Yes. "

"Won't you always care that much about me?"

"I'm--yes--I'm afraid so, George. I never do change much aboutanything. "

"Well, then, why in the world won't you drop the 'almost'?"

Her distress increased. "Everything is--everything--"

"What about 'everything'?"

"Everything is so--so unsettled. "

And at that he uttered an exclamation of impatience. "If you aren't thequeerest girl! What is 'unsettled'?"

"Well, for one thing, " she said, able to smile at his vehemence, "youhaven't settled on anything to do. At least, if you have you've neverspoken of it. "

As she spoke, she gave him the quickest possible side glance of hopefulscrutiny; then looked away, not happily. Surprise and displeasure wereintentionally visible upon the countenance of her companion; and hepermitted a significant period of silence to elapse before making anyresponse. "Lucy, " he said, finally, with cold dignity, "I should like toask you a few questions. "

"Yes?"

"The first is: Haven't you perfectly well understood that I don't meanto go into business or adopt a profession?"

"I wasn't quite sure, " she said gently. "I really didn't know--quite. "

"Then of course it's time I did tell you. I never have been able to seeany occasion for a man's going into trade, or being a lawyer, or any ofthose things if his position and family were such that he didn't needto. You know, yourself, there are a lot of people in the East--in theSouth, too, for that matter--that don't think we've got any particularfamily or position or culture in this part of the country. I've metplenty of that kind of provincial snobs myself, and they're prettygalling. There were one or two men in my crowd at college, theirfamilies had lived on their income for three generations, and they neverdreamed there was anybody in their class out here. I had to show thema thing or two, right at the start, and I guess they won't forget it!Well, I think it's time all their sort found out that three generationscan mean just as much out here as anywhere else. That's the way I feelabout it, and let me tell you I feel it pretty deeply!"

"But what are you going to do, George?" she cried. 

George's earnestness surpassed hers; he had become flushed and hisbreathing was emotional. As he confessed, with simple genuineness, hedid feel what he was saying "pretty deeply"; and in truth his stateapproached the tremulous. "I expect to live an honourable life, " hesaid. "I expect to contribute my share to charities, and to take partin--in movements. "

"What kind?"

"Whatever appeals to me, " he said. 

Lucy looked at him with grieved wonder. "But you really don't mean tohave any regular business or profession at all?"

"I certainly do not!" George returned promptly and emphatically. 

"I was afraid so, " she said in a low voice. 

George continued to breathe deeply throughout another protractedinterval of silence. Then he said, "I should like to revert to thequestions I was asking you, if you don't mind. "

"No, George. I think we'd better--"

"Your father is a business man--"

"He's a mechanical genius, " Lucy interrupted quickly. "Of course he'sboth. And he was a lawyer once--he's done all sorts of things. "

"Very well. I merely wished to ask if it's his influence that makes youthink I ought to 'do' something?"

Lucy frowned slightly. "Why, I suppose almost everything I think or saymust be owing to his influence in one way or another. We haven't hadanybody but each other for so many years, and we always think aboutalike, so of course--"

"I see!" And George's brow darkened with resentment. "So that's it, isit? It's your father's idea that I ought to go into business and thatyou oughtn't to be engaged to me until I do. "

Lucy gave a start, her denial was so quick. "No! I've never once spokento him about it. Never!"

George looked at her keenly, and he jumped to a conclusion not far fromthe truth. "But you know without talking to him that it's the way hedoes feel about it? I see. "

She nodded gravely. "Yes. "

George's brow grew darker still. "Do you think I'd be much of a man, " hesaid, slowly, "if I let any other man dictate to me my own way of life?"

"George! Who's 'dictating' your--"

"It seems to me it amounts to that!" he returned. 

"Oh, no! I only know how papa thinks about things. He's never, neverspoken unkindly, or 'dictatingly' of you. " She lifted her hand inprotest, and her face was so touching in its distress that for themoment George forgot his anger. He seized that small, troubled hand. 

"Lucy, " he said huskily. "Don't you know that I love you?"

"Yes--I do. "

"Don't you love me?"

"Yes--I do. "

"Then what does it matter what your father thinks about my doingsomething or not doing anything? He has his way, and I have mine. Idon't believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes and selling potatoesand trying law cases. Why, look at your father's best friend, my UncleGeorge Amberson--he's never done anything in his life, and--"

"Oh, yes, he has, " she interrupted. "He was in politics. "

"Well, I'm glad he's out, " George said. "Politics is a dirty businessfor a gentleman, and Uncle George would tell you that himself. Lucy, let's not talk any more about it. Let me tell mother when I get homethat we're engaged. Won't you, dear?"

She shook her head. 

"Is it because--"

For a fleeting instant she touched to her cheek the hand that held hers. "No, " she said, and gave him a sudden little look of renewed gayety. "Let's let it stay 'almost'. "

"Because your father--"

"Oh, because it's better!"

George's voice shook. "Isn't it your father?"

"It's his ideals I'm thinking of--yes. "

George dropped her hand abruptly and anger narrowed his eyes. "I knowwhat you mean, " he said. "I dare say I don't care for your father'sideals any more than he does for mine!"

He tightened the reins, Pendennis quickening eagerly to the trot; andwhen George jumped out of the runabout before Lucy's gate, and assistedher to descend, the silence in which they parted was the same that hadbegun when Fendennis began to trot. 

Chapter XVIII

That evening, after dinner, George sat with his mother and his AuntFanny upon the veranda. In former summers, when they sat outdoors in theevening, they had customarily used an open terrace at the side of thehouse, looking toward the Major's, but that more private retreat nowafforded too blank and abrupt a view of the nearest of the new houses;so, without consultation, they had abandoned it for the Romanesque stonestructure in front, an oppressive place. 

Its oppression seemed congenial to George; he sat upon the copestone ofthe stone parapet, his back against a stone pilaster; his attitude notcomfortable, but rigid, and his silence not comfortable, either, butheavy. However, to the eyes of his mother and his aunt, who occupiedwicker chairs at a little distance, he was almost indistinguishableexcept for the stiff white shield of his evening frontage. 

"It's so nice of you always to dress in the evening, Georgie, " hismother said, her glance resting upon this surface. "Your Uncle Georgealways used to, and so did father, for years; but they both stoppedquite a long time ago. Unless there's some special occasion, it seemsto me we don't see it done any more, except on the stage and in themagazines. "

He made no response, and Isabel, after waiting a little while, as if sheexpected one, appeared to acquiesce in his mood for silence, and turnedher head to gaze thoughtfully out at the street. 

There, in the highway, the evening life of the Midland city had begun. A rising moon was bright upon the tops of the shade trees, where theirbranches met overhead, arching across the street, but only filteredsplashings of moonlight reached the block pavement below; and throughthis darkness flashed the firefly lights of silent bicycles gliding byin pairs and trios--or sometimes a dozen at a time might come, and notso silent, striking their little bells; the riders' voices calling andlaughing; while now and then a pair of invisible experts would pass, playing mandolin and guitar as if handle-bars were of no account in theworld--their music would come swiftly, and then too swiftly die away. Surreys rumbled lightly by, with the plod-plod of honest old horses, andfrequently there was the glitter of whizzing spokes from a runabout ora sporting buggy, and the sharp, decisive hoof-beats of a trotter. Then, like a cowboy shooting up a peaceful camp, a frantic devil would hurtleout of the distance, bellowing, exhaust racketing like a machine gungone amuck--and at these horrid sounds the surreys and buggies wouldhug the curbstone, and the bicycles scatter to cover, cursing; whilechildren rushed from the sidewalks to drag pet dogs from the street. The thing would roar by, leaving a long wake of turbulence; then theindignant street would quiet down for a few minutes--till another came. 

"There are a great many more than there used to be, " Miss Fannyobserved, in her lifeless voice, as the lull fell after one of thesevisitations. "Eugene is right about that; there seem to be at leastthree or four times as many as there were last summer, and you neverhear the ragamuffins shouting 'Get a horse!' nowadays; but I think hemay be mistaken about their going on increasing after this. I don'tbelieve we'll see so many next summer as we do now. "

"Why?" asked Isabel. 

"Because I've begun to agree with George about their being more a fadthan anything else, and I think it must be the height of the fad justnow. You know how roller-skating came in--everybody in the world seemedto be crowding to the rinks--and now only a few children use rollers forgetting to school. Besides, people won't permit the automobiles to beused. Really, I think they'll make laws against them. You see how theyspoil the bicycling and the driving; people just seem to hate them!They'll never stand it--never in the world! Of course I'd be sorry tosee such a thing happen to Eugene, but I shouldn't be really surprisedto see a law passed forbidding the sale of automobiles, just the waythere is with concealed weapons. "

"Fanny!" exclaimed her sister-in-law. "You're not in earnest?"

"I am, though!"

Isabel's sweet-toned laugh came out of the dusk where she sat. "Thenyou didn't mean it when you told Eugene you'd enjoyed the drive thisafternoon?"

"I didn't say it so very enthusiastically, did I?"

"Perhaps not, but he certainly thought he'd pleased you. "

"I don't think I gave him any right to think he'd pleased me" Fanny saidslowly. 

"Why not? Why shouldn't you, Fanny?"

Fanny did not reply at once, and when she did, her voice was almostinaudible, but much more reproachful than plaintive. "I hardly think I'dwant any one to get the notion he'd pleased me just now. It hardly seemstime, yet--to me. "

Isabel made no response, and for a time the only sound upon the darkveranda was the creaking of the wicker rocking-chair in which Fannysat--a creaking which seemed to denote content and placidity on thepart of the chair's occupant, though at this juncture a series of humanshrieks could have been little more eloquent of emotional disturbance. However, the creaking gave its hearer one great advantage: it could beignored. 

"Have you given up smoking, George?" Isabel asked presently. 

"No. "

"I hoped perhaps you had, because you've not smoked since dinner. Weshan't mind if you care to. "

"No, thanks. "

There was silence again, except for the creaking of the rocking-chair;then a low, clear whistle, singularly musical, was heard softlyrendering an old air from "Fra Diavolo. " The creaking stopped. 

"Is that you, George?" Fanny asked abruptly. 

"Is that me what?"

"Whistling 'On Yonder Rock Reclining'?"

"It's I, " said Isabel. 

"Oh, " Fanny said dryly. 

"Does it disturb you?"

"Not at all. I had an idea George was depressed about something, andmerely wondered if he could be making such a cheerful sound. " And Fannyresumed her creaking. 

"Is she right, George?" his mother asked quickly, leaning forward inher chair to peer at him through the dusk. "You didn't eat a very heartydinner, but I thought it was probably because of the warm weather. Areyou troubled about anything?"

"No!" he said angrily. 

"That's good. I thought we had such a nice day, didn't you?"

"I suppose so, " he muttered, and, satisfied, she leaned back in herchair; but "Fra Diavolo" was not revived. After a time she rose, went tothe steps, and stood for several minutes looking across the street. Thenher laughter was faintly heard. 

"Are you laughing about something?" Fanny inquired. 

"Pardon?" Isabel did not turn, but continued her observation of what hadinterested her upon the opposite side of the street. 

"I asked: Were you laughing at something?"

"Yes, I was!" And she laughed again. "It's that funny, fat old Mrs. Johnson. She has a habit of sitting at her bedroom window with a pair ofopera-glasses. "

"Really!"

"Really. You can see the window through the place that was left when wehad the dead walnut tree cut down. She looks up and down the street, butmostly at father's and over here. Sometimes she forgets to put out thelight in her room, and there she is, spying away for all the world tosee!"

However, Fanny made no effort to observe this spectacle, but continuedher creaking. "I've always thought her a very good woman, " she saidprimly. 

"So she is, " Isabel agreed. "She's a good, friendly old thing, a littletoo intimate in her manner, sometimes, and if her poor old opera-glassesafford her the quiet happiness of knowing what sort of young man our newcook is walking out with, I'm the last to begrudge it to her! Don't youwant to come and look at her, George?"

"What? I beg your pardon. I hadn't noticed what you were talking about. "

"It's nothing, " she laughed. "Only a funny old lady--and she's gone now. I'm going, too--at least, I'm going indoors to read. It's cooler in thehouse, but the heat's really not bad anywhere, since nightfall. Summer'sdying. How quickly it goes, once it begins to die. "

When she had gone into the house, Fanny stopped rocking, and, leaningforward, drew her black gauze wrap about her shoulders and shivered. "Isn't it queer, " she said drearily, "how your mother can use suchwords?"

"What words are you talking about?" George asked. 

"Words like 'die' and 'dying. ' I don't see how she can bear to use themso soon after your poor father--" She shivered again. 

"It's almost a year, " George said absently, and he added: "It seems tome you're using them yourself. "

"I? Never!"

"Yes, you did. "

"When?"

"Just this minute. "

"Oh!" said Fanny. "You mean when I repeated what she said? That's hardlythe same thing, George. "

He was not enough interested to argue the point. "I don't think you'llconvince anybody that mother's unfeeling, " he said indifferently. 

"I'm not trying to convince anybody. I mean merely that in myopinion--well, perhaps it may be just as wise for me to keep my opinionsto myself. "

She paused expectantly, but her possible anticipation that George wouldurge her to discard wisdom and reveal her opinion was not fulfilled. Hisback was toward her, and he occupied himself with opinions of his ownabout other matters. Fanny may have felt some disappointment as she roseto withdraw. 

However, at the last moment she halted with her hand upon the latch ofthe screen door. 

"There's one thing I hope, " she said. "I hope at least she won't leaveoff her full mourning on the very anniversary of Wilbur's death!"

The light door clanged behind her, and the sound annoyed her nephew. Hehad no idea why she thus used inoffensive wood and wire to dramatize herdeparture from the veranda, the impression remaining with him being thatshe was critical of his mother upon some point of funeral millinery. Throughout the desultory conversation he had been profoundly concernedwith his own disturbing affairs, and now was preoccupied with a dialoguetaking place (in his mind) between himself and Miss Lucy Morgan. As hebeheld the vision, Lucy had just thrown herself at his feet. "George, you must forgive me!" she cried. "Papa was utterly wrong! I have toldhim so, and the truth is that I have come to rather dislike him asyou do, and as you always have, in your heart of hearts. George, Iunderstand you: thy people shall be my people and thy gods my gods. George, won't you take me back?"

"Lucy, are you sure you understand me?" And in the darkness George'sbodily lips moved in unison with those which uttered the words in hisimaginary rendering of this scene. An eavesdropper, concealed behindthe column, could have heard the whispered word "sure, " the emphasis putupon it in the vision was so poignant. "You say you understand me, butare you sure?"

Weeping, her head bowed almost to her waist, the ethereal Lucy madereply: "Oh, so sure! I will never listen to father's opinions again. Ido not even care if I never see him again!"

"Then I pardon you, " he said gently. 

This softened mood lasted for several moments--until he realized thatit had been brought about by processes strikingly lacking in substance. Abruptly he swung his feet down from the copestone to the floor of theveranda. "Pardon nothing!" No meek Lucy had thrown herself in remorseat his feet; and now he pictured her as she probably really was atthis moment: sitting on the white steps of her own front porch in themoonlight, with red-headed Fred Kinney and silly Charlie Johnson andfour or five others--all of them laughing, most likely, and some idiotplaying the guitar!

George spoke aloud: "Riffraff!"

And because of an impish but all too natural reaction of the mind, hecould see Lucy with much greater distinctness in this vision than in hisformer pleasing one. For a moment she was miraculously real before him, every line and colour of her. He saw the moonlight shimmering in thechiffon of her skirts brightest on her crossed knee and the tip of herslipper; saw the blue curve of the characteristic shadow behind her, as she leaned back against the white step; saw the watery twinkling ofsequins in the gauze wrap over her white shoulders as she moved, andthe faint, symmetrical lights in her black hair--and not one alluring, exasperating twentieth-of-an-inch of her laughing profile was spared himas she seemed to turn to the infernal Kinney--

"Riffraff!" And George began furiously to pace the stone floor. "Riffraff!" By this hard term--a favourite with him since childhood'sscornful hour--he meant to indicate, not Lucy, but the young gentlemenwho, in his vision, surrounded her. "Riffraff!" he said again, aloud, and again:

"Riffraff!"

At that moment, as it happened, Lucy was playing chess with her father;and her heart, though not remorseful, was as heavy as George could havewished. But she did not let Eugene see that she was troubled, and he waspleased when he won three games of her. Usually she beat him. 

Chapter XIX

George went driving the next afternoon alone, and, encountering Lucyand her father on the road, in one of Morgan's cars, lifted his hat, but nowise relaxed his formal countenance as they passed. Eugene waveda cordial hand quickly returned to the steering-wheel; but Lucy onlynodded gravely and smiled no more than George did. Nor did she accompanyEugene to the Major's for dinner, the following Sunday evening, thoughboth were bidden to attend that feast, which was already reduced innumbers and gayety by the absence of George Amberson. Eugene explainedto his host that Lucy had gone away to visit a school-friend. 

The information, delivered in the library, just before old Sam'sappearance to announce dinner, set Miss Minafer in quite a flutter. "Why, George!" she said, turning to her nephew. "How does it happenyou didn't tell us?" And with both hands opening, as if to express herinnocence of some conspiracy, she exclaimed to the others, "He's neversaid one word to us about Lucy's planning to go away!"

"Probably afraid to, " the Major suggested. "Didn't know but he mightbreak down and cry if he tried to speak of it!" He clapped his grandsonon the shoulder, inquiring jocularly, "That it, Georgie?"

Georgie made no reply, but he was red enough to justify the Major'sdeveloping a chuckle into laughter; though Miss Fanny, observing hernephew keenly, got an impression that this fiery blush was in truth morefiery than tender. She caught a glint in his eye less like confusionthan resentment, and saw a dilation of his nostrils which might haveindicated not so much a sweet agitation as an inaudible snort. Fanny hadnever been lacking in curiosity, and, since her brother's death, thisquality was more than ever alert. The fact that George had spent all theevenings of the past week at home had not been lost upon her, nor hadshe failed to ascertain, by diplomatic inquiries, that since the day ofthe visit to Eugene's shops George had gone driving alone. 

At the dinner-table she continued to observe him, sidelong; and towardthe conclusion of the meal she was not startled by an episode whichbrought discomfort to the others. After the arrival of coffee the Majorwas rallying Eugene upon some rival automobile shops lately built in asuburb, and already promising to flourish. 

"I suppose they'll either drive you out of the business, " said the oldgentleman, "or else the two of you'll drive all the rest of us off thestreets. "

"If we do, we'll even things up by making the streets five or ten timesas long as they are now, " Eugene returned. 

"How do you propose to do that?"

"It isn't the distance from the center of a town that counts, " saidEugene; "it's the time it takes to get there. This town's alreadyspreading; bicycles and trolleys have been doing their share, but theautomobile is going to carry city streets clear out to the county line. "

The Major was skeptical. "Dream on, fair son!" he said. "It's lucky forus that you're only dreaming; because if people go to moving that far, real estate values in the old residence part of town are going to bestretched pretty thin. "

"I'm afraid so, " Eugene assented. "Unless you keep things so bright andclean that the old section will stay more attractive than the new ones. "

"Not very likely! How are things going to be kept 'bright and clean'with soft coal, and our kind of city government?"

"They aren't, " Eugene replied quickly. "There's no hope of it, andalready the boarding-house is marching up National Avenue. There aretwo in the next block below here, and there are a dozen in the half-milebelow that. My relatives, the Sharons, have sold their house and arebuilding in the country--at least, they call it 'the country. ' It willbe city in two or three years. "

"Good gracious!" the Major exclaimed, affecting 'dismay. "So your littleshops are going to ruin all your old friends, Eugene!"

"Unless my old friends take warning in time, or abolish smoke and geta new kind of city government. I should say the best chance is to takeWarning. "

"Well, well!" the Major laughed. "You have enough faith in miracles, Eugene--granting that trolleys and bicycles and automobiles aremiracles. So you think they're to change the face of the land, do you?"

"They're already doing it, Major; and it can't be stopped. Automobiles--"

At this point he was interrupted. George was the interrupter. He hadsaid nothing since entering the dining room, but now he spoke in a loudand peremptory voice, using the tone of one in authority who checks idleprattle and settles a matter forever. 

"Automobiles are a useless nuisance, " he said. 

There fell a moment's silence. 

Isabel gazed incredulously at George, colour slowly heightening upon hercheeks and temples, while Fanny watched him with a quick eagerness, hereyes alert and bright. But Eugene seemed merely quizzical, as if nottaking this brusquerie to himself. The Major was seriously disturbed. 

"What did you say, George?" he asked, though George had spoken but toodistinctly. 

"I said all automobiles were a nuisance, " George answered, repeating notonly the words but the tone in which he had uttered them. And he added, "They'll never amount to anything but a nuisance. They had no businessto be invented. "

The Major frowned. "Of course you forget that Mr. Morgan makes them, andalso did his share in inventing them. If you weren't so thoughtless hemight think you rather offensive. "

"That would be too bad, " said George coolly. "I don't think I couldsurvive it. "

Again there was a silence, while the Major stared at his grandson, aghast. But Eugene began to laugh cheerfully. 

"I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles, " he said. "With all theirspeed forward they may be a step backward in civilization--that is, inspiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beautyof the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure. Butautomobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life thanmost of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things aregoing to be different because of what they bring. They are going toalter war, and they are going to alter peace. I think men's minds aregoing to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can't have the immense outwardchanges that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may bethat George is right, and that the spiritual alteration will be badfor us. Perhaps, ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inwardchange in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasolineengine, but would have to agree with him that automobiles 'had nobusiness to be invented. '" He laughed good-naturedly, and looking athis watch, apologized for having an engagement which made his departurenecessary when he would so much prefer to linger. Then he shookhands with the Major, and bade Isabel, George, and Fanny a cheerfulgood-night--a collective farewell cordially addressed to all three ofthem together--and left them at the table. 

Isabel turned wondering, hurt eyes upon her son. "George, dear!" shesaid. "What did you mean?"

"Just what I said, " he returned, lighting one of the Major's cigars, andhis manner was imperturbable enough to warrant the definition (sometimesmerited by imperturbability) of stubbornness. 

Isabel's hand, pale and slender, upon the tablecloth, touched one of thefine silver candlesticks aimlessly: the fingers were seen to tremble. "Oh, he was hurt!" she murmured. 

"I don't see why he should be, " George said. "I didn't say anythingabout him. He didn't seem to me to be hurt--seemed perfectly cheerful. What made you think he was hurt?"

"I know him!" was all of her reply, half whispered. 

The Major stared hard at George from under his white eyebrows. "Youdidn't mean 'him, ' you say, George? I suppose if we had a clergyman asa guest here you'd expect him not to be offended, and to understand thatyour remarks were neither personal nor untactful, if you said the churchwas a nuisance and ought never to have been invented. By Jove, butyou're a puzzle!"

"In what way, may I ask, sir?"

"We seem to have a new kind of young people these days, " the oldgentleman returned, shaking his head. "It's a new style of courting apretty girl, certainly, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of hisway to try and make an enemy of her father by attacking his business! ByJove! That's a new way to win a woman!"

George flushed angrily and seemed about to offer a retort, but heldhis breath for a moment; and then held his peace. It was Isabel whoresponded to the Major. "Oh, no!" she said. "Eugene would never beanybody's enemy--he couldn't!--and last of all Georgie's. I'm afraid hewas hurt, but I don't fear his not having understood that George spokewithout thinking of what he was saying--I mean, with-out realizing itsbearing on Eugene. "

Again George seemed upon the point of speech, and again controlled theimpulse. He thrust his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and smoked, staring inflexibly at the ceiling. 

"Well, well, " said his grandfather, rising. "It wasn't a very successfullittle dinner!"

Thereupon he offered his arm to his daughter, who took it fondly, andthey left the room, Isabel assuring him that all his little dinners werepleasant, and that this one was no exception. 

George did not move, and Fanny, following the other two, came round thetable, and paused close beside his chair; but George remained posed inhis great imperturbability, cigar between teeth, eyes upon ceiling, andpaid no attention to her. Fanny waited until the sound of Isabel's andthe Major's voices became inaudible in the hall. Then she said quickly, and in a low voice so eager that it was unsteady:

"George, you've struck just the treatment to adopt: you're doing theright thing!"

She hurried out, scurrying after the others with a faint rustling ofher black skirts, leaving George mystified but incurious. He did notunderstand why she should bestow her approbation upon him in the matter, and cared so little whether she did or not that he spared himself eventhe trouble of being puzzled about it. 

In truth, however, he was neither so comfortable nor so imperturbable ashe appeared. He felt some gratification: he had done a little to putthe man in his place--that man whose influence upon his daughter wasprecisely the same thing as a contemptuous criticism of George AmbersonMinafer, and of George Amberson Minafer's "ideals of life. " Lucy's goingaway without a word was intended, he supposed, as a bit of punishment. Well, he wasn't the sort of man that people were allowed to punish: hecould demonstrate that to them--since they started it!

It appeared to him as almost a kind of insolence, this abruptdeparture--not even telephoning! Probably she wondered how he would takeit; she even might have supposed he would show some betraying chagrinwhen he heard of it. 

He had no idea that this was just what he had shown; and he wassatisfied with his evening's performance. Nevertheless, he was notcomfortable in his mind; though he could not have explained his inwardperturbations, for he was convinced, without any confirmation from hisAunt Fanny, that he had done "just the right thing. "

Chapter XX

Isabel came to George's door that night, and when she had kissed himgood-night she remained in the open doorway with her hand upon hisshoulder and her eyes thoughtfully lowered, so that her wish to saysomething more than good-night was evident. Not less obvious was herperplexity about the manner of saying it; and George, divining herthought, amiably made an opening for her. 

"Well, old lady, " he said indulgently, "you needn't look so worried. Iwon't be tactless with Morgan again. After this I'll just keep out ofhis way. "

Isabel looked up, searching his face with the fond puzzlement which hereyes sometimes showed when they rested upon him; then she glanced downthe hall toward Fanny's room, and, after another moment of hesitation, came quickly in, and closed the door. 

"Dear, " she said, "I wish you'd tell me something: Why don't you likeEugene?"

"Oh, I like him well enough, " George returned, with a short laugh, as hesat down and began to unlace his shoes. "I like him well enough--in hisplace. "

"No, dear, " she said hurriedly. "I've had a feeling from the veryfirst that you didn't really like him--that you really never liked him. Sometimes you've seemed to be friendly with him, and you'd laugh withhim over something in a jolly, companionable way, and I'd think I waswrong, and that you really did like him, after all; but to-night I'msure my other feeling was the right one: you don't like him. I can'tunderstand it, dear; I don't see what can be the matter. "

"Nothing's the matter. "

This easy declaration naturally failed to carry great weight, and Isabelwent on, in her troubled voice, "It seems so queer, especially when youfeel as you do about his daughter. "

At this, George stopped unlacing his shoes abruptly, and sat up. "How doI feel about his daughter?" he demanded. 

"Well, it's seemed--as if--as if--" Isabel began timidly. "It didseem--At least, you haven't looked at any other girl, ever since theycame here and--and certainly you've seemed very much interested in her. Certainly you've been very great friends?"

"Well, what of that?"

"It's only that I'm like your grandfather: I can't see how you could beso much interested in a girl and--and not feel very pleasantly towardher father. "

"Well, I'll tell you something, " George said slowly; and a frown ofconcentration could be seen upon his brow, as from a profound effort atself-examination. "I haven't ever thought much on that particular point, but I admit there may be a little something in what you say. The truthis, I don't believe I've ever thought of the two together, exactly--atleast, not until lately. I've always thought of Lucy just as Lucy, and of Morgan just as Morgan. I've always thought of her as aperson herself, not as anybody's daughter. I don't see what's veryextraordinary about that. You've probably got plenty of friends, forinstance, that don't care much about your son--"

"No, indeed!" she protested quickly. "And if I knew anybody who feltlike that, I wouldn't--"

"Never mind, " he interrupted. "I'll try to explain a little more. IfI have a friend, I don't see that it's incumbent upon me to like thatfriend's relatives. If I didn't like them, and pretended to, I'd be ahypocrite. If that friend likes me and wants to stay my friend 'he'llhave to stand my not liking his relatives, or else he can quit. Idecline to be a hypocrite about it; that's all. Now, suppose I havecertain ideas or ideals which I have chosen for the regulation of my ownconduct in life. Suppose some friend of mine has a relative with idealsdirectly the opposite of mine, and my friend believes more in therelative's ideals than in mine: Do you think I ought to give up my ownjust to please a person who's taken up ideals that I really despise?"

"No, dear; of course people can't give up their ideals; but I don't seewhat this has to do with dear little Lucy and--"

"I didn't say it had anything to do with them, " he interrupted. "I wasmerely putting a case to show how a person would be justified in beinga friend of one member of a family, and feeling anything but friendlytoward another. I don't say, though, that I feel unfriendly to Mr. Morgan. I don't say that I feel friendly to him, and I don't say thatI feel unfriendly; but if you really think that I was rude to himto-night--"

"Just thoughtless, dear. You didn't see that what you said to-night--"

"Well, I'll not say anything of that sort again where he can hear it. There, isn't that enough?"

This question, delivered with large indulgence, met with no response;for Isabel, still searching his face with her troubled and perplexedgaze, seemed not to have heard it. On that account, George repeated it, and rising, went to her and patted her reassuringly upon the shoulder. "There, old lady, you needn't fear my tactlessness will worry you again. I can't quite promise to like people I don't care about one way oranother, but you can be sure I'll be careful, after this, not to letthem see it. It's all right, and you'd better toddle along to bed, because I want to undress. "

"But, George, " she said earnestly, "you would like him, if you'd justlet yourself. You say you don't dislike him. Why don't you like him? Ican't understand at all. What is it that you don't--"

"There, there!" he said. "It's all right, and you toddle along. "

"But, George, dear--"

"Now, now! I really do want to get into bed. Good-night, old lady. "

"Good-night, dear. But--"

"Let's not talk of it any more, " he said. "It's all right, and nothingin the world to worry about. So good-night, old lady. I'll be politeenough to him, never fear--if we happen to be thrown together. Sogood-night!"

"But, George, dear--"

"I'm going to bed, old lady; so good-night. "'

Thus the interview closed perforce. She kissed him again before goingslowly to her own room, her perplexity evidently not dispersed; but thesubject was not renewed between them the next day or subsequently. Nordid Fanny make any allusion to the cryptic approbation she had bestowedupon her nephew after the Major's "not very successful little dinner";though she annoyed George by looking at him oftener and longer thanhe cared to be looked at by an aunt. He could not glance her way, itseemed, without finding her red-rimmed eyes fixed upon him eagerly, withan alert and hopeful calculation in them which he declared would send anervous man, into fits. For thus, one day, he broke out, in protest:

"It would!" he repeated vehemently. "Given time it would--straight intofits! What do you find the matter with me? Is my tie always slipping upbehind? Can't you look at something else? My Lord! We'd better buy a catfor you to stare at, Aunt Fanny! A cat could stand it, maybe. What inthe name of goodness do you expect to see?"

But Fanny laughed good-naturedly, and was not offended. "It's more asif I expected you to see something, isn't it?" she said quietly, stilllaughing. 

"Now, what do you mean by that?"

"Never mind!"

"All right, I don't. But for heaven's sake stare at somebody elseawhile. Try it on the house-maid!"

"Well, well, " Fanny said indulgently, and then chose to be more obscurein her meaning than ever, for she adopted a tone of deep sympathy forher final remark, as she left him: "I don't wonder you're nervous thesedays, poor boy!"

And George indignantly supposed that she referred to the ordeal ofLucy's continued absence. During this period he successfully avoidedcontact with Lucy's father, though Eugene came frequently to thehouse, and spent several evenings with Isabel and Fanny; and sometimespersuaded them and the Major to go for an afternoon's motoring. He didnot, however, come again to the Major's Sunday evening dinner, even whenGeorge Amberson returned. Sunday evening was the time, he explained, forgoing over the week's work with his factory managers. 

When Lucy came home the autumn was far enough advanced to smell ofburning leaves, and for the annual editorials, in the papers, on thepurple haze, the golden branches, the ruddy fruit, and the pleasure oflong tramps in the brown forest. George had not heard of her arrival, and he met her, on the afternoon following that event, at the Sharons', where he had gone in the secret hope that he might hear something abouther. Janie Sharon had just begun to tell him that she heard Lucywas expected home soon, after having "a perfectly gorgeoustime"--information which George received with no responsiveenthusiasm--when Lucy came demurely in, a proper little autumn figure ingreen and brown. 

Her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes were bright indeed;evidences, as George supposed, of the excitement incidental to theperfectly gorgeous time just concluded; though Janie and Mary Sharonboth thought they were the effect of Lucy's having seen George'srunabout in front of the house as she came in. George took on colour, himself, as, he rose and nodded indifferently; and the hot suffusion towhich he became subject extended its area to include his neck and ears. Nothing could have made him much more indignant than his consciousnessof these symptoms of the icy indifference which it was his purpose notonly to show but to feel. 

She kissed her cousins, gave George her hand, said "How d'you do, " andtook a chair beside Janie with a composure which augmented George'sindignation. 

"How d'you do, " he said. "I trust that ah--I trust--I do trust--"

He stopped, for it seemed to him that the word "trust" sounded idiotic. Then, to cover his awkwardness, he coughed, and even to his own rosyears his cough was ostentatiously a false one. Whereupon, seeking to beplausible, he coughed again, and instantly hated himself: the sound hemade was an atrocity. Meanwhile, Lucy sat silent, and the two Sharongirls leaned forward, staring at him with strained eyes, their lipstightly compressed; and both were but too easily diagnosed as subject toan agitation which threatened their self-control. He began again. 

"I er--I hope you have had a--a pleasant time. I er--I hope you arewell. I hope you are extremely--I hope extremely--extremely--" And againhe stopped in the midst of his floundering, not knowing how to progressbeyond "extremely, " and unable to understand why the infernal word keptgetting into his mouth. 

"I beg your pardon?" Lucy said. 

George was never more furious; he felt that he was "making a spectacleof himself"; and no young gentleman in the world was more loath thanGeorge Amberson Minafer to look a figure of fun. And while he stoodthere, undeniably such a figure, with Janie and Mary Sharon threateningto burst at any moment, if laughter were longer denied them. Lucy satlooking at him with her eyebrows delicately lifted in casual, politeinquiry. Her own complete composure was what most galled him. 

"Nothing of the slightest importance!" he managed to say. "I was justleaving. Good afternoon!" And with long strides he reached the door andhastened through the hall; but before he closed the front door he heardfrom Janie and Mary Sharon the outburst of wild, irrepressible emotionwhich his performance had inspired. 

He drove home in a tumultuous mood, and almost ran down two ladies whowere engaged in absorbing conversation at a crossing. They were hisAunt Fanny and the stout Mrs. Johnson; a jerk of the reins at thelast instant saved them by a few inches; but their conversation was sointeresting that they were unaware of their danger, and did not noticethe runabout, nor how close it came to them. George was so furious withhimself and with the girl whose unexpected coming into a room could makehim look such a fool, that it might have soothed him a little if he hadactually run over the two absorbed ladies without injuring them beyondrepair. At least, he said to himself that he wished he had; it mighthave taken his mind off of himself for a few minutes. For, in truth, tobe ridiculous (and know it) was one of several things that George wasunable to endure. He was savage. 

He drove into the Major's stable too fast, the sagacious Pendennissaving himself from going through a partition by a swerve whichsplintered a shaft of the runabout and almost threw the driver to thefloor. George swore, and then swore again at the fat old darkey, Tom, for giggling at his swearing. 

"Hoopee!" said old Tom. "Mus' been some white lady use Mist' Jawgemighty bad! White lady say, 'No, suh, I ain' go'n out ridin' 'ith Mist'Jawge no mo'!' Mist' Jawge drive in. 'Dam de dam worl'! Dam de dam hoss!Dam de dam nigga'! Dam de dam dam!' Hoopee!"

"That'll do!" George said sternly. 

"Yessuh!"

George strode from the stable, crossed the Major's back yard, thenpassed behind the new houses, on his way home. These structures werenow approaching completion, but still in a state of rawness hideous toGeorge--though, for that matter, they were never to be anything excepthideous to him. Behind them, stray planks, bricks, refuse of plaster andlath, shingles, straw, empty barrels, strips of twisted tin and brokentiles were strewn everywhere over the dried and pitted gray mud whereonce the suave lawn had lain like a green lake around those statelyislands, the two Amberson houses. And George's state of mind wasnot improved by his present view of this repulsive area, nor by hissensations when he kicked an uptilted shingle only to discover thatwhat uptilted it was a brickbat on the other side of it. After that, thewhole world seemed to be one solid conspiracy of malevolence. 

In this temper he emerged from behind the house nearest to his own, and, glancing toward the street, saw his mother standing with Eugene Morganupon the cement path that led to the front gate. She was bareheaded, andEugene held his hat and stick in his hand; evidently he had been callingupon her, and she had come from the house with him, continuing theirconversation and delaying their parting. 

They had paused in their slow walk from the front door to the gate, yetstill stood side by side, their shoulders almost touching, as thoughneither Isabel nor Eugene quite realized that their feet had ceased tobear them forward; and they were not looking at each other, but atsome indefinite point before them, as people do who consider togetherthoughtfully and in harmony. The conversation was evidently serious; hishead was bent, and Isabel's lifted left hand rested against hercheek; but all the significances of their thoughtful attitude denotedcompanionableness and a shared understanding. Yet, a stranger, passing, would not have thought them married: somewhere about Eugene, not quiteto be located, there was a romantic gravity; and Isabel, tall andgraceful, with high colour and absorbed eyes, was visibly no wifewalking down to the gate with her husband. 

George stared at them. A hot dislike struck him at the sight of Eugene;and a vague revulsion, like a strange, unpleasant taste in his mouth, came over him as he looked at his mother: her manner was eloquent of somuch thought about her companion and of such reliance upon him. And thepicture the two thus made was a vivid one indeed, to George, whose angryeyes, for some reason, fixed themselves most intently upon Isabel'slifted hand, upon the white ruffle at her wrist, bordering the gracefulblack sleeve, and upon the little indentations in her cheek where thetips of her fingers rested. She should not have worn white at herwrist, or at the throat either, George felt; and then, strangely, hisresentment concentrated upon those tiny indentations at the tips of herfingers--actual changes, however slight and fleeting, in his mother'sface, made because of Mr. Eugene Morgan. For the moment, it seemedto George that Morgan might have claimed the ownership of a face thatchanged for him. . It was as if he owned Isabel. 

The two began to walk on toward the gate, where they stopped again, turning to face each other, and Isabel's glance, passing Eugene, fellupon George. Instantly she smiled and waved her hand to him; whileEugene turned and nodded; but George, standing as in some rigid trance, and staring straight at them, gave these signals of greeting no sign ofrecognition whatever. Upon this, Isabel called to him, waving her handagain. 

"Georgie!" she called, laughing. "Wake up, dear! Georgie, hello!"

George turned away as if he had neither seen nor heard, and stalked intothe house by the side door. 

Chapter XXI

He went to his room, threw off his coat, waistcoat, collar, and tie, letting them lie where they chanced to fall, and then, having violentlyenveloped himself in a black velvet dressing-gown, continued this actionby lying down with a vehemence that brought a wheeze of protest from hisbed. His repose was only a momentary semblance, however, for it lastedno longer than the time it took him to groan "Riffraff!" between histeeth. Then he sat up, swung his feet to the floor, rose, and began topace up and down the large room. 

He had just been consciously rude to his mother for the first time inhis life; for, with all his riding down of populace and riffraff, hehad never before been either deliberately or impulsively disregardfulof her. When he had hurt her it had been accidental; and his remorse forsuch an accident was always adequate compensation--and more--to Isabel. But now he had done a rough thing to her; and he did not repent; ratherhe was the more irritated with her. And when he heard her presently goby his door with a light step, singing cheerfully to herself as shewent to her room, he perceived that she had mistaken his intentionaltogether, or, indeed, had failed to perceive that he had any intentionat all. Evidently she had concluded that he refused to speak to her andMorgan out of sheer absent-mindedness, supposing him so immersed in somepreoccupation that he had not seen them or heard her calling to him. Therefore there was nothing of which to repent, even if he had been sominded; and probably Eugene himself was unaware that any disapproval hadrecently been expressed. George snorted. What sort of a dreamy loon didthey take him to be?

There came a delicate, eager tapping at his door, not done with aknuckle but with the tip of a fingernail, which was instantly clarifiedto George's mind's eye as plainly as if he saw it: the long andpolished white-mooned pink shield on the end of his Aunt Fanny's rightforefinger. But George was in no mood for human communications, andeven when things went well he had little pleasure in Fanny's society. Therefore it is not surprising that at the sound of her tapping, insteadof bidding her enter, he immediately crossed the room with the intentionof locking the door to keep her out. 

Fanny was too eager, and, opening the door before he reached it, camequickly in, and closed it behind her. She was in a street dress and ablack hat, with a black umbrella in her black-gloved hand--for Fanny'sheavy mourning, at least, was nowhere tempered with a glimpse of white, though the anniversary of Wilbur's death had passed. An infinitesimalperspiration gleamed upon her pale skin; she breathed fast, as if shehad run up the stairs; and excitement was sharp in her widened eyes. Herlook was that of a person who had just seen something extraordinary orheard thrilling news. 

"Now, what on earth do you want?" her chilling nephew demanded. 

"George, " she said hurriedly, "I saw what you did when you wouldn'tspeak to them. I was sitting with Mrs. Johnson at her front window, across the street, and I saw it all. "

"Well, what of it?"

"You did right!" Fanny said with a vehemence not the less spiritedbecause she suppressed her voice almost to a whisper. "You did exactlyright! You're behaving splendidly about the whole thing, and I want totell you I know your father would thank you if he could see what you'redoing. "

"My Lord!" George broke out at her. "You make me dizzy! For heaven'ssake quit the mysterious detective business--at least do quit it aroundme! Go and try it on somebody else, if you like; but I don't want tohear it!"

She began to tremble, regarding him with a fixed gaze. "You don't careto hear then, " she said huskily, "that I approve of what you're doing?"

"Certainly not! Since I haven't the faintest idea what you think I'm'doing, ' naturally I don't care whether you approve of it or not. AllI'd like, if you please, is to be alone. I'm not giving a tea here, thisafternoon, if you'll permit me to mention it!"

Fanny's gaze wavered; she began to blink; then suddenly she sank into achair and wept silently, but with a terrible desolation. 

"Oh, for the Lord's sake!" he moaned. "What in the world is wrong withyou?"

"You're always picking on me, " she quavered wretchedly, her voiceindistinct with the wetness that bubbled into it from her tears. "Youdo--you always pick on me! You've always done it--always--ever since youwere a little boy! Whenever anything goes wrong with you, you take itout on me! You do! You always--"

George flung to heaven a gesture of despair; it seemed to him the laststraw that Fanny should have chosen this particular time to come and sobin his room over his mistreatment of her!

"Oh, my Lord!" he whispered; then, with a great effort, addressed herin a reasonable tone: "Look here, Aunt Fanny; I don't see what you'remaking all this fuss about. Of course I know I've teased you sometimes, but--"

"Teased' me?" she wailed. "Teased' me! Oh, it does seem too hard, sometimes--this mean old life of mine does seem too hard! I don't thinkI can stand it! Honestly, I don't think I can! I came in here just toshow you I sympathized with you--just to say something pleasant to you, and you treat me as if I were--oh, no, you wouldn't treat a servantthe way you treat me! You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like thisexcept old Fanny! 'Old Fanny' you say. 'It's nobody but old Fanny, so I'll kick her--nobody will resent it. I'll kick her all Iwant to!' You do! That's how you think of me-I know it! And you'reright: I haven't got anything in the world, since my brotherdied--nobody--nothing--nothing!"

"Oh my Lord!" George groaned. 

Fanny spread out her small, soaked handkerchief, and shook it in theair to dry it a little, crying as damply and as wretchedly during thisoperation' as before--a sight which gave George a curious shock to addto his other agitations, it seemed so strange. "I ought not to havecome, " she went on, "because I might have known it would only give youan excuse to pick on me again! I'm sorry enough I came, I can tell you!I didn't mean to speak of it again to you, at all; and I wouldn't have, but I saw how you treated them, and I guess I got excited about it, andcouldn't help following the impulse--but I'll know better next time, I can tell you! I'll keep my mouth shut as I meant to, and as I wouldhave, if I hadn't got excited and if I hadn't felt sorry for you. Butwhat does it matter to anybody if I'm sorry for them? I'm only oldFanny!"

"Oh, good gracious! How can it matter to me who's sorry for me when Idon't know what they're sorry about!"

"You're so proud, " she quavered, "and so hard! I tell you I didn't meanto speak of it to you, and I never, never in the world would have toldyou about it, nor have made the faintest reference to it, if I hadn'tseen that somebody else had told you, or you'd found out for yourselfsome way. I--"

In despair of her intelligence, and in some doubt of his own, Georgestruck the palms of his hands together. "Somebody else had told me what?I'd found what out for myself?"

"How people are talking about your mother. "

Except for the incidental teariness of her voice, her tone was casual, as though she mentioned a subject previously discussed and understood;for Fanny had no doubt that George had only pretended to be mystifiedbecause, in his pride, he would not in words admit that he knew what heknew. 

"What did you say?" he asked incredulously. 

"Of course I understood what you were doing, " Fanny went on, drying herhandkerchief again. "It puzzled other people when you began to be rudeto Eugene, because they couldn't see how you could treat him as you didwhen you were so interested in Lucy. But I remembered how you came tome, that other time when there was so much talk about Isabel; and Iknew you'd give Lucy up in a minute, if it came to a question of yourmother's reputation, because you said then that--"

"Look here, " George interrupted in a shaking voice. "Look here, I'dlike--" He stopped, unable to go on, his agitation was so great. Hischest heaved as from hard running, and his complexion, pallid at first, had become mottled; fiery splotches appearing at his temples and cheeks. "What do you mean by telling me--telling me there's talk about--about--"He gulped, and began again: "What do you mean by using such words as'reputation'? What do you mean, speaking of a 'question' of my--mymother's reputation?"

Fanny looked up at him woefully over the handkerchief which she nowapplied to her reddened nose. "God knows I'm sorry for you, George, " shemurmured. "I wanted to say so, but it's only old Fanny, so whatevershe says--even when it's sympathy--pick on her for it! Hammer her!" Shesobbed. "Hammer her! It's only poor old lonely Fanny!"

"You look here!" George said harshly. "When I spoke to my Uncle Georgeafter that rotten thing I heard Aunt Amelia say about my mother, hesaid if there was any gossip it was about you! He said people might belaughing about the way you ran after Morgan, but that was all. "

Fanny lifted her hands, clenched them, and struck them upon her knees. "Yes; it's always Fanny!" she sobbed. "Ridiculous old Fanny--always, always!"

"You listen!" George said. "After I'd talked to Uncle George I saw you;and you said I had a mean little mind for thinking there might be truthin what Aunt Amelia said about people talking. You denied it. And thatwasn't the only time; you'd attacked me before then, because I intimatedthat Morgan might be coming here too often. You made me believe thatmother let him come entirely on your account, and now you say--"

"I think he did, " Fanny interrupted desolately. "I think he did come asmuch to see me as anything--for a while it looked like it. Anyhow, heliked to dance with me. He danced with me as much as he danced with her, and he acted as if he came on my account at least as much as he did onhers. He did act a good deal that way--and if Wilbur hadn't died--"

"You told me there wasn't any talk. "

"I didn't think there was much, then, " Fanny protested. "I didn't knowhow much there was. "

"What!"

"People don't come and tell such things to a person's family, you know. You don't suppose anybody was going to say to George Amberson that hissister was getting herself talked about, do you? Or that they were goingto say much to me?"

"You told me, " said George, fiercely, "that mother never saw him exceptwhen she was chaperoning you. "

"They weren't much alone together, then, " Fanny returned. "Hardlyever, before Wilbur died. But you don't suppose that stops people fromtalking, do you? Your father never went anywhere, and people saw Eugenewith her everywhere she went--and though I was with them people justthought"--she choked--"they just thought I didn't count! 'Only old FannyMinafer, ' I suppose they'd say! Besides, everybody knew that he'd beenengaged to her--"

"What's that?" George cried. 

"Everybody knows it. Don't you remember your grandfather speaking of itat the Sunday dinner one night?"

"He didn't say they were engaged or--"

"Well, they were! Everybody knows it; and she broke it off on account ofthat serenade when Eugene didn't know what he was doing. He drank whenhe was a young man, and she wouldn't stand it, but everybody in thistown knows that Isabel has never really cared for any other man in herlife! Poor Wilbur! He was the only soul alive that didn't know it!"

Nightmare had descended upon the unfortunate George; he leaned backagainst the foot-board of his bed, gazing wildly at his aunt. "I believeI'm going crazy, " he said. "You mean when you told me there wasn't anytalk, you told me a falsehood?"

"No!" Fanny gasped. 

"You did!"

"I tell you I didn't know how much talk there was, and it wouldn't haveamounted to much if Wilbur had lived. " And Fanny completed this with afatal admission: "I didn't want you to interfere. "

George overlooked the admission; his mind was not now occupied withanalysis. "What do you mean, " he asked, "when you say that if father hadlived, the talk wouldn't have amounted to anything?"

"Things might have been--they might have been different. "

"You mean Morgan might have married you?"

Fanny gulped. "No. Because I don't know that I'd have accepted him. " Shehad ceased to weep, and now she sat up stiffly. "I certainly didn't careenough about him to marry him; I wouldn't have let myself care thatmuch until he showed that he wished to marry me. I'm not that sort ofperson!" The poor lady paid her vanity this piteous little tribute. "What I mean is, if Wilbur hadn't died, people wouldn't have had itproved before their very eyes that what they'd been talking about wastrue!"

"You say--you say that people believe--" George shuddered, then forcedhimself to continue, in a sick voice: "They believe my mother is--is inlove with that man?"

"Of course!"

"And because he comes here--and they see her with him driving--and allthat--they think they were right when they said she was in--in love withhim before--before my father died?"

She looked at him gravely with her eyes now dry between their reddenedlids. "Why, George, " she said, gently, "don't you know that's what theysay? You must know that everybody in town thinks they're going to bemarried very soon. "

George uttered an incoherent cry; and sections of him appeared towrithe. He was upon the verge of actual nausea. 

"You know it!" Fanny cried, getting up. "You don't think I'd havespoken of it to you unless I was sure you knew it?" Her voice was whollygenuine, as it had been throughout the wretched interview: Fanny'ssincerity was unquestionable. "George, I wouldn't have told you, if youdidn't know. What other reason could you have for treating Eugene as youdid, or for refusing to speak to them like that a while ago in the yard?Somebody must have told you?"

"Who told you?" he said. 

"What?"

"Who told you there was talk? Where is this talk? Where does it comefrom? Who does it?"

"Why, I suppose pretty much everybody, " she said. "I know it must bepretty general. "

"Who said so?"

"What?"

George stepped close to her. "You say people don't speak to a person ofgossip about that person's family. Well, how did you hear it, then? Howdid you get hold of it? Answer me!"

Fanny looked thoughtful. "Well, of course nobody not one's most intimatefriends would speak to them about such things, and then only in thekindest, most considerate way. "

"Who's spoken of it to you in any way at all?" George demanded. 

"Why--" Fanny hesitated. 

"You answer me!"

"I hardly think it would be fair to give names. "

"Look here, " said George. "One of your most intimate friends is thatmother of Charlie Johnson's, for instance. Has she ever mentioned thisto you? You say everybody is talking. Is she one?"

"Oh, she may have intimated--"

"I'm asking you: Has she ever spoken of it to you?"

"She's a very kind, discreet woman, George; but she may haveintimated--"

George had a sudden intuition, as there flickered into his mind thepicture of a street-crossing and two absorbed ladies almost run down bya fast horse. "You and she have been talking about it to-day!" he cried. "You were talking about it with her not two hours ago. Do you deny it?"

"I--"

"Do you deny it?"

"No!"

"All right, " said George. "That's enough!"

She caught at his arm as he turned away. "What are you going to do, George?"

"I'll not talk about it, now, " he said heavily. "I think you've done agood deal for one day, Aunt Fanny!"

And Fanny, seeing the passion in his face, began to be alarmed. Shetried to retain possession of the black velvet sleeve which her fingershad clutched, and he suffered her to do so, but used this leverage tourge her to the door. "George, you know I'm sorry for you, whether youcare or not, " she whimpered. "I never in the world would have spoken ofit, if I hadn't thought you knew all about it. I wouldn't have--"

But he had opened the door with his free hand. "Never mind!" he said, and she was obliged to pass out into the hall, the door closing quicklybehind her. 

Chapter XXII

George took off his dressing-gown and put on a collar and a tie, hisfingers shaking so that the tie was not his usual success; then hepicked up his coat and waistcoat, and left the room while still inprocess of donning them, fastening the buttons, as he ran down the frontstairs to the door. It was not until he reached the middle of the streetthat he realized that he had forgotten his hat; and he paused for anirresolute moment, during which his eye wandered, for no reason, to theFountain of Neptune. This castiron replica of too elaborate sculpturestood at the next corner, where the Major had placed it when theAddition was laid out so long ago. The street corners had been shaped toconform with the great octagonal basin, which was no great inconveniencefor horse-drawn vehicles, but a nuisance to speeding automobiles; and, even as George looked, one of the latter, coming too fast, saved itselfonly by a dangerous skid as it rounded the fountain. This skid was toGeorge's liking, though he would have been more pleased to see the cargo over, for he was wishing grief and destruction, just then, upon allthe automobiles in the world. 

His eyes rested a second or two longer upon the Fountain of Neptune, notan enlivening sight even in the shielding haze of autumn twilight. Formore than a year no water had run in the fountain: the connections hadbeen broken, and the Major was evasive about restorations, even whenreminded by his grandson that a dry fountain is as gay as a dry fish. Soot streaks and a thousand pits gave Neptune the distinction, at least, of leprosy, which the mermaids associated with him had been consistentin catching; and his trident had been so deeply affected as to drop itsprongs. Altogether, this heavy work of heavy art, smoked dry, hugelyscabbed, cracked, and crumbling, was a dismal sight to the distractedeye of George Amberson Minafer, and its present condition of crazinessmay have added a mite to his own. His own was sufficient, with noadditions, however, as he stood looking at the Johnsons' house andthose houses on both sides of it--that row of riffraff dwellings he hadthought so damnable, the day when he stood in his grandfather's yard, staring at them, after hearing what his Aunt Amelia said of the "talk"about his mother. 

He decided that he needed no hat for the sort of call he intended tomake, and went forward hurriedly. Mrs. Johnson was at home, the Irishgirl who came to the door informed him, and he was left to await thelady, in a room like an elegant well--the Johnsons' "reception room":floor space, nothing to mention; walls, blue calcimined; ceiling, twelvefeet from the floor; inside shutters and gray lace curtains; five giltchairs, a brocaded sofa, soiled, and an inlaid walnut table, supportingtwo tall alabaster vases; a palm, with two leaves, dying in a corner. 

Mrs. Johnson came in, breathing noticeably; and her round head, smoothlybut economically decorated with the hair of an honest woman, seemedto be lingering far in the background of the Alpine bosom which tookprecedence of the rest of her everywhere; but when she was all in theroom, it was to be seen that her breathing was the result of hospitablehaste to greet the visitor, and her hand, not so dry as Neptune'sFountain, suggested that she had paused for only the briefest ablutions. George accepted this cold, damp lump mechanically. 

"Mr. Amberson--I mean Mr. Minafer!" she exclaimed. "I'm reallydelighted: I understood you asked for me. Mr. Johnson's out of the city, but Charlie's downtown and I'm looking for him at any minute, now, andhe'll be so pleased that you--"

"I didn't want to see Charlie, " George said. "I want"

"Do sit down, " the hospitable lady urged him, seating herself upon thesofa. "Do sit down. "

"No, I thank you. I wish--"

"Surely you're not going to run away again, when you've just come. Dosit down, Mr. Minafer. I hope you're all well at your house and at thedear old Major's, too. He's looking--"

"Mrs. Johnson" George said, in a strained loud voice which arrestedher attention immediately, so that she was abruptly silent, leaving hersurprised mouth open. She had already been concealing some astonishmentat this unexampled visit, however, and the condition of George'sordinarily smooth hair (for he had overlooked more than his hat) had notalleviated her perplexity. "Mrs. Johnson, " he said, "I have come to askyou a few questions which I would like you to answer, if you please. "

She became grave at once. "Certainly, Mr. Minafer. Anything I can--"

He interrupted sternly, yet his voice shook in spite of its sternness. "You were talking with my Aunt Fanny about my mother this afternoon. "

At this Mrs. Johnson uttered an involuntary gasp, but she recoveredherself. "Then I'm sure our conversation was a very pleasant one, if wewere talking of your mother, because--"

Again he interrupted. "My aunt has told me what the conversationvirtually was, and I don't mean to waste any time, Mrs. Johnson. You were talking about a--" George's shoulders suddenly heaveduncontrollably; but he went fiercely on: "You were discussing a scandalthat involved my mother's name. "

"Mr. Minafer!"

"Isn't that the truth?"

"I don't feel called upon to answer, Mr. Minafer, " she said with visibleagitation. "I do not consider that you have any right--"

"My aunt told me you repeated this scandal to her. "

"I don't think your aunt can have said that, " Mrs. Johnson returnedsharply. "I did not repeat a scandal of any kind to your aunt andI think you are mistaken in saying she told you I did. We may, havediscussed some matters that have been a topic of comment about town--"

"Yes!" George cried. "I think you may have! That's what I'm here about, and what I intend to--"

"Don't tell me what you intend, please, " Mrs. Johnson interruptedcrisply. "And I should prefer that you would not make your voice quiteso loud in this house, which I happen to own. Your aunt may have toldyou--though I think it would have been very unwise in her if she did, and not very considerate of me--she may have told you that we discussedsome such topic as I have mentioned, and possibly that would have beentrue. If I talked it over with her, you may be sure I spoke in the mostcharitable spirit, and without sharing in other people's disposition toput an evil interpretation on what may, be nothing more than unfortunateappearances and--"

"My God!" said George. "I can't stand this!"

"You have the option of dropping the subject, " Mrs. Johnson suggestedtartly, and she added: "Or of leaving the house. "

"I'll do that soon enough, but first I mean to know--"

"I am perfectly willing to tell you anything you wish if you willremember to ask it quietly. I'll also take the liberty of reminding youthat I had a perfect right to discuss the subject with your aunt. Otherpeople may be less considerate in not confining their discussion of it, as I have, to charitable views expressed only to a member of the family. Other people--"

"Other people!" the unhappy George repeated viciously. "That's what Iwant to know about--these other people!"

"I beg your pardon. "

"I want to ask you about them. You say you know of other people who talkabout this. "

"I presume they do. "

"How many?"

"What?"

"I want to know how many other people talk about it?"

"Dear, dear!" she protested. "How should I know that?"

"Haven't you heard anybody mention it?"

"I presume so. "

"Well, how many have you heard?"

Mrs. Johnson was becoming more annoyed than apprehensive, and sheshowed it. "Really, this isn't a court-room, " she said. "And I'm not adefendant in a libel-suit, either!"

The unfortunate young man lost what remained of his balance. "You maybe!" he cried. "I intend to know just who's dared to say these things, if I have to force my way into every house in town, and I'm going tomake them take every word of it back! I mean to know the name of everyslanderer that's spoken of this matter to you and of every tattleryou've passed it on to yourself. I mean to know--"

"You'll know something pretty quick!" she said, rising with difficulty;and her voice was thick with the sense of insult. "You'll know thatyou're out in the street. Please to leave my house!"

George stiffened sharply. Then he bowed, and strode out of the door. 

Three minutes later, disheveled and perspiring, but cold all over, heburst into his Uncle George's room at the Major's without knocking. Amberson was dressing. 

"Good gracious, Georgie!" he exclaimed. "What's up?"

"I've just come from Mrs. Johnson's--across the street, " George panted. 

"You have your own tastes!" was Amberson's comment. "But curious as theyare, you ought to do something better with your hair, and button yourwaistcoat to the right buttons--even for Mrs. Johnson! What were youdoing over there?"

"She told me to leave the house, " George said desperately. "I went therebecause Aunt Fanny told me the whole town was talking about my motherand that man Morgan--that they say my mother is going to marry him andthat proves she was too fond of him before my father died--she said thisMrs. Johnson was one that talked about it, and I went to her to ask whowere the others. "

Amberson's jaw fell in dismay. "Don't tell me you did that!" he said, ina low voice; and then, seeing that it was true, "Oh, now you have doneit!"

Chapter XXIII

"I've 'done it'?" George cried. "What do you mean: I've done it? Andwhat have I done?"

Amberson had collapsed into an easy chair beside his dressing-table, thewhite evening tie he had been about to put on dangling from his hand, which had fallen limply on the arm of the chair. The tie dropped to thefloor before he replied; and the hand that had held it was lifted tostroke his graying hair reflectively. "By Jove!" he muttered. "That istoo bad!"

George folded his arms bitterly. "Will you kindly answer my question?What have I done that wasn't honourable and right? Do you think theseriffraff can go about bandying my mother's name--"

"They can now, " said Amberson. "I don't know if they could before, butthey certainly can now!"

"What do you mean by that?"

His uncle sighed profoundly, picked up his tie and, preoccupied withdespondency, twisted the strip of white lawn till it became unwearable. Meanwhile, he tried to enlighten his nephew. "Gossip is never fatal, Georgie, " he said, "until it is denied. Gossip goes on about everyhuman being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to beremembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makesa controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if peopleof good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-ninetimes out of a hundred. "

"See here, " George said: "I didn't come to listen to any generalizingdose of philosophy! I ask you--"

"You asked me what you've done, and I'm telling you. " Amberson gave hima melancholy smile, continuing: "Suffer me to do it in my own way. Fannysays there's been talk about your mother, and that Mrs. Johnson doessome of it. I don't know, because naturally nobody would come to me withsuch stuff or mention it before me; but it's presumably true--I supposeit is. I've seen Fanny with Mrs. Johnson quite a lot; and that old ladyis a notorious gossip, and that's why she ordered you out of her housewhen you pinned her down that she'd been gossiping. I have a suspicionMrs. Johnson has been quite a comfort to Fanny in their long talks; butshe'll probably quit speaking to her over this, because Fanny told you. I suppose it's true that the 'whole town, ' a lot of others, that is, do share in the gossip. In this town, naturally, anything about anyAmberson has always been a stone dropped into the centre of a pond, anda lie would send the ripples as far as a truth would. I've been on asteamer when the story went all over the boat, the second day out, ' thatthe prettiest girl on board didn't have any ears; and you can take itas a rule that when a woman's past thirty-five the prettier her hair is, the more certain you are to meet somebody with reliable information thatit's a wig. You can be sure that for many years there's been more gossipin this place about the Ambersons than about any other family. I daresay it isn't so much so now as it used to be, because the town got toobig long ago, but it's the truth that the more prominent you are themore gossip there is about you, and the more people would like to pullyou down. Well, they can't do it as long as you refuse to know whatgossip there is about you. But the minute you notice it, it's got you!I'm not speaking of certain kinds of slander that sometimes people havegot to take to the courts; I'm talking of the wretched buzzing theMrs. John-sons do--the thing you seem to have such a horror of--people'talking'--the kind of thing that has assailed your mother. People whohave repeated a slander either get ashamed or forget it, if they'relet alone. Challenge them, and in self-defense they believe everythingthey've said: they'd rather believe you a sinner than believe themselvesliars, naturally. Submit to gossip and you kill it; fight it and youmake it strong. People will forget almost any slander except one that'sbeen fought. "

"Is that all?" George asked. 

"I suppose so, " his uncle murmured sadly. 

"Well, then, may I ask what you'd have done, in my place?"

"I'm not sure, Georgie. When I was your age I was like you in many ways, especially in not being very cool-headed, so I can't say. Youth can't betrusted for much, except asserting itself and fighting and making love. "

"Indeed!" George snorted. "May I ask what you think I ought to havedone?"

"Nothing. "

"'Nothing?" George echoed, mocking bitterly "I suppose you think I meanto let my mother's good name--"

"Your mother's good name!" Amberson cut him off impatiently. "Nobodyhas a good name in a bad mouth. Nobody has a good name in a silly mouth, either. Well, your mother's name was in some silly mouths, and allyou've done was to go and have a scene with the worst old woman gossipin the town--a scene that's going to make her into a partisan againstyour mother, whereas she was a mere prattler before. Don't you supposeshe'll be all over town with this to-morrow? To-morrow? Why, she'llhave her telephone going to-night as long as any of her friends are up!People that never heard anything about this are going to bear it allnow, with embellishments. And she'll see to it that everybody who'shinted anything about poor Isabel will know that you're on the warpath;and that will put them on the defensive and make them vicious. The storywill grow as it spreads and--"

George unfolded his arms to strike his right fist into his left palm. "But do you suppose I'm going to tolerate such things?" he shouted. "What do you suppose I'll be doing?"

"Nothing helpful. "

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

"You can do absolutely nothing, " said Amberson. "Nothing of any use. Themore you do the more harm you'll do. "

"You'll see! I'm going to stop this thing if I have to force my way intoevery house on National Avenue and Amberson Boulevard!"

His uncle laughed rather sourly, but made no other comment. 

"Well, what do you propose to do?" George demanded. "Do you propose tosit there--"

"Yes. "

"--and let this riffraff bandy my mother's good name back and forthamong them? Is that what you propose to do?"

"It's all I can do, " Amberson returned. "It's all any of us can do now:just sit still and hope that the thing may die down in time, in spite ofyour stirring up that awful old woman. "

George drew a long breath, then advanced and stood close before hisuncle. "Didn't you understand me when I told you that people are sayingmy mother means to marry this man?"

"Yes, I understood you. "

"You say that my going over there has made matters worse, " George wenton. "How about it if such a--such an unspeakable marriage did takeplace? Do you think that would make people believe they'd been wrong insaying--you know what they say. "

"No, " said Amberson deliberately; "I don't believe it would. There'd bemore badness in the bad mouths and more silliness in the silly mouths, Idare say. But it wouldn't hurt Isabel and Eugene, if they never heardof it; and if they did hear of it, then they could take their choicebetween placating gossip or living for their own happiness. If they havedecided to marry--"

George almost staggered. "Good God!" he gasped. "You speak of itcalmly!"

Amberson looked up at him inquiringly. "Why shouldn't they marry if theywant to?" he asked. "It's their own affair. "

"Why shouldn't they?" George echoed. "Why shouldn't they?"

"Yes. Why shouldn't they? I don't see anything precisely monstrous abouttwo people getting married when they're both free and care about eachother. What's the matter with their marrying?"

"It would be monstrous!" George shouted. "Monstrous even if thishorrible thing hadn't happened, but now in the face of this--oh, thatyou can sit there and even speak of it! Your own sister! O God! Oh--" Hebecame incoherent, swinging away from Amberson and making for the door, wildly gesturing. 

"For heaven's sake, don't be so theatrical!" said his uncle, and then, seeing that George was leaving the room: "Come back here. You mustn'tspeak to your mother of this!"

"Don't 'tend to, " George said indistinctly; and he plunged out into thebig dimly lit hall. He passed his grandfather's room on the way tothe stairs; and the Major was visible within, his white head brightlyillumined by a lamp, as he bent low over a ledger upon his roll-topdesk. He did not look up, and his grandson strode by the door, notreally conscious of the old figure stooping at its tremulous work withlong additions and subtractions that refused to balance as they used to. George went home and got a hat and overcoat without seeing either hismother or Fanny. Then he left word that he would be out for dinner, andhurried away from the house. 

He walked the dark streets of Amberson Addition for an hour, then wentdowntown and got coffee at a restaurant. After that he walked throughthe lighted parts of the town until ten o'clock, when he turned northand came back to the purlieus of the Addition. He strode through thelength and breadth of it again, his hat pulled down over his forehead, his overcoat collar turned up behind. He walked fiercely, though hisfeet ached, but by and by he turned homeward, and, when he reached theMajor's, went in and sat upon the steps of the huge stone veranda infront--an obscure figure in that lonely and repellent place. All lightswere out at the Major's, and finally, after twelve, he saw his mother'swindow darken at home. 

He waited half an hour longer, then crossed the front yards of the newhouses and let himself noiselessly in the front door. The light inthe hall had been left burning, and another in his own room, as hediscovered when he got there. He locked the door quickly and withoutnoise, but his fingers were still upon the key when there was a quickfootfall in the hall outside. 

"Georgie, dear?"

He went to the other end of the room before replying. 

"Yes?"

"I'd been wondering where you were, dear. "

"Had you?"

There was a pause; then she said timidly: "Wherever it was, I hope youhad a pleasant evening. "

After a silence, "Thank you, " he said, without expression. 

Another silence followed before she spoke again. 

"You wouldn't care to be kissed good-night, I suppose?" And witha little flurry of placative laughter, she added: "At your age, ofcourse!"

"I'm going to bed, now, " he said. "Goodnight. "

Another silence seemed blanker than those which had preceded it, andfinally her voice came--it was blank, too. 

"Good-night. "

After he was in bed his thoughts became more tumultuous than ever; whileamong all the inchoate and fragmentary sketches of this dreadful day, now rising before him, the clearest was of his uncle collapsed in abig chair with a white tie dangling from his hand; and one conviction, following upon that picture, became definite in George's mind: that hisUncle George Amberson was a hopeless dreamer from whom no help need beexpected, an amiable imbecile lacking in normal impulses, and whollyuseless in a struggle which required honour to be defended by a man ofaction. 

Then would return a vision of Mrs. Johnson's furious round head, set behind her great bosom like the sun far sunk on the horizon of amountain plateau--and her crackling, asthmatic voice. .. "Without sharingin other people's disposition to put an evil interpretation on what maybe nothing more than unfortunate appearances. ". .. "Other people may beless considerate in not confirming their discussion of it, as I have, tocharitable views. ". .. "you'll know something pretty quick! You'll knowyou're out in the street. ". .. And then George would get up again--andagain--and pace the floor in his bare feet. 

That was what the tormented young man was doing when daylight camegauntly in at his window--pacing the floor, rubbing his head in hishands, and muttering:

"It can't be true: this can't be happening to me!"

Chapter XXIV

Breakfast was brought to him in his room, as usual; but he did notmake his normal healthy raid upon the dainty tray: the food remaineduntouched, and he sustained himself upon coffee--four cups of it, whichleft nothing of value inside the glistening little percolator. Duringthis process he heard his mother being summoned to the telephone in thehall, not far from his door, and then her voice responding: "Yes? Oh, it's you! Indeed I should!. .. Of course. . . . Then I'll expect you aboutthree. .. Yes. Good-bye till then. " A few minutes later he heard herspeaking to someone beneath his window and, looking out, saw herdirecting the removal of plants from a small garden bed to the Major'sconservatory for the winter. There was an air of briskness about her; asshe turned away to go into the house, she laughed gaily with the Major'sgardener over something he said, and this unconcerned cheerfulness ofher was terrible to her son. 

He went to his desk, and, searching the jumbled contents of a drawer, brought forth a large, unframed photograph of his father, upon which hegazed long and piteously, till at last hot tears stood in his eyes. Itwas strange how the inconsequent face of Wilbur seemed to increase inhigh significance during this belated interview between father and son;and how it seemed to take on a reproachful nobility--and yet, under thecircumstances, nothing could have been more natural than that George, having paid but the slightest attention to his father in life, shouldbegin to deify him, now that he was dead. "Poor, poor father!" the sonwhispered brokenly. "Poor man, I'm glad you didn't know!"

He wrapped the picture in a sheet of newspaper, put it under his arm, and, leaving the house hurriedly and stealthily, went downtown to theshop of a silversmith, where he spent sixty dollars on a resplendentlyfestooned silver frame for the picture. Having lunched upon more coffee, he returned to the house at two o'clock, carrying the framed photographwith him, and placed it upon the centre-table in the library, the roommost used by Isabel and Fanny and himself. Then he went to a frontwindow of the long "reception room, " and sat looking out through thelace curtains. 

The house was quiet, though once or twice he heard his mother and Fannymoving about upstairs, and a ripple of song in the voice of Isabel--afragment from the romantic ballad of Lord Bateman. 

"Lord Bateman was a noble lord, A noble lord of high degree; And hesailed West and he sailed East, Far countries for to see. .. . "

The words became indistinct; the air was hummed absently; the hummingshifted to a whistle, then drifted out of hearing, and the place wasstill again. 

George looked often at his watch, but his vigil did not last an hour. Atten minutes of three, peering through the curtain, he saw an automobilestop in front of the house and Eugene Morgan jump lightly down from it. The car was of a new pattern, low and long, with an ample seat in thetonneau, facing forward; and a professional driver sat at the wheel, astrange figure in leather, goggled out of all personality and seeminglypart of the mechanism. 

Eugene himself, as he came up the cement path to the house, was a figureof the new era which was in time to be so disastrous to stiff hats andskirted coats; and his appearance afforded a debonair contrast to thatof the queer-looking duck capering: at the Amberson Ball in an old dresscoat, and chugging up National Avenue through the snow in his nightmareof a sewing-machine. Eugene, this afternoon, was richly in the newoutdoor mode: motoring coat was soft gray fur; his cap and gloves wereof gray suede; and though Lucy's hand may have shown itself in theselection of these garnitures, he wore them easily, even with becominghint of jauntiness. Some change might be his face, too, for a successfulman is seldom to be mistaken, especially if his temper be genial. Eugenehad begun to look like a millionaire. 

But above everything else, what was most evident about him, as he cameup the path, was confidence in the happiness promised by his errand; theanticipation in his eyes could have been read by a stranger. His lookat the door of Isabel's house was the look of a man who is quitecertain that the next moment will reveal something ineffably charming, inexpressibly dear. 

When the bell rang, George waited at the entrance of the "receptionroom" until a housemaid came through the hall on her way to answer thesummons. 

"You needn't mind, Mary, " he told her. "I'll see who it is and what theywant. Probably it's only a pedlar. "

"Thank you, sir, Mister George, " said Mary; and returned to the rear ofthe house. 

George went slowly to the front door, and halted, regarding the mistysilhouette of the caller upon the ornamental frosted glass. After aminute of waiting, this silhouette changed outline so that an armcould be distinguished--an arm outstretched toward the bell, as if thegentleman outside doubted whether or not it had sounded, and were mindedto try again. But before the gesture was completed George abruptly threwopen the door, and stepped squarely upon the middle of the threshold. 

A slight change shadowed the face of Eugene; his look of happyanticipation gave way to something formal and polite. "How do youdo, George, " he said. "Mrs. Minafer expects to go driving with me, Ibelieve--if you'll be so kind as to send her word that I'm here. "

George made not the slightest movement. 

"No, " he said. 

Eugene was incredulous, even when his second glance revealed how hot ofeye was the haggard young man before him. "I beg your pardon. I said--"

"I heard you, " said George. "You said you had an engagement with mymother, and I told you, No!"

Eugene gave him a steady look, and then he quietly: "What is the--thedifficulty?"

George kept his own voice quiet enough, but that, did not mitigate thevibrant fury of it. "My--mother will have no interest in knowing thatyou came her to-day, " he said. "Or any other day!"

Eugene continued to look at him with a scrutiny in which began to gleama profound anger, none less powerful because it was so quiet. "I amafraid I do not understand you. "

"I doubt if I could make it much plainer, " George said, raising hisvoice slightly, "but I'll try. You're not wanted in this house, Mr. Morgan, now or at any other time. Perhaps you'll understand--this!"

And with the last word he closed the door in Eugene's face. 

Then, not moving away, he stood just inside door, and noted that themisty silhouette remained upon the frosted glass for several moments, as if the forbidden gentleman debated in his mind what course to pursue. "Let him ring again!" George thought grimly. "Or try the side door--orthe kitchen!"

But Eugene made no further attempt; the silhouette disappeared;footsteps could be heard withdrawing across the floor of the veranda;and George, returning to the window in the "reception room, " wasrewarded by the sight of an automobile manufacturer in baffled retreat, with all his wooing furs and fineries mocking him. Eugene got into hiscar slowly, not looking back at the house which had just taught him sucha lesson; and it was easily visible--even from a window seventy feetdistant--that he was not the same light suitor who had jumped sogallantly from the car only a few minutes earlier. Observing theheaviness of his movements as he climbed into the tonneau, Georgeindulged in a sickish throat rumble which bore a distant cousinship tomirth. 

The car was quicker than its owner; it shot away as soon as he had sunkinto his seat; and George, having watched its impetuous disappearancefrom his field of vision, ceased to haunt the window. He went to thelibrary, and, seating himself beside the table whereon he had placedthe photograph of his father, picked up a book, and pretended to beenengaged in reading it. 

Presently Isabel's buoyant step was heard descending the stairs, and herlow, sweet whistling, renewing the air of "Lord Bateman. " She came intothe library, still whistling thoughtfully, a fur coat over her arm, ready to put on, and two veils round her small black hat, her right handengaged in buttoning the glove upon her left; and, as the large roomcontained too many pieces of heavy furniture, and the inside shuttersexcluded most of the light of day, she did not at once perceive George'spresence. Instead, she went to the bay window at the end of the room, which afforded a view of the street, and glanced out expectantly; thenbent her attention upon her glove; after that, looked out toward thestreet again, ceased to whistle, and turned toward the interior of theroom. 

"Why, Georgie!"

She came, leaned over from behind him, and there was a faint, exquisiteodour as from distant apple blossoms as she kissed his cheek. "Dear, Iwaited lunch almost an hour for you, but you didn't come! Did you lunchout somewhere?"

"Yes. " He did not look up from the book. 

"Did you have plenty to eat?"

"Yes. "

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you like to have Maggie get you something nowin the dining room? Or they could bring it to you here, if you think itwould be cozier. Shan't I--"

A tinkling bell was audible, and she moved to the doorway into the hall. "I'm going out driving, dear. I--" She interrupted herself to addressthe housemaid, who was passing through the hall: "I think it's Mr. Morgan, Mary. Tell him I'll be there at once. "

"Yes, ma'am. "

Mary returned. "Twas a pedlar, ma'am. "

"Another one?" Isabel said, surprised. "I thought you said it was apedlar when the bell rang a little while ago. "

"Mister George said it was, ma'am; he went to the door, " Mary informedher, disappearing. 

"There seem to be a great many of them, " Isabel mused. "What did yourswant to sell, George?"

"He didn't say. "

"You must have cut him off short!" she laughed; and then, still standingin the doorway, she noticed the big silver frame upon the table besidehim. "Gracious, Georgie!" she exclaimed. "You have been investing!" andas she came across the room for a closer view, "Is it--is it Lucy?"she asked half timidly, half archly. But the next instant she saw whoselikeness was thus set forth in elegiac splendour--and she was silent, except for a long, just-audible "Oh!"

He neither looked up nor moved. 

"That was nice of you, Georgie, " she said, in a low voice presently. "Iought to have had it framed, myself, when I gave it to you. "

He said nothing, and, standing beside him, she put her hand gently uponhis shoulder, then as gently withdrew it, and went out of the room. Butshe did not go upstairs; he heard the faint rustle of her dress in thehall, and then the sound of her footsteps in the "reception room. " Aftera time, silence succeeded even these slight tokens of her presence;whereupon George rose and went warily into the hall, taking care to makeno noise, and he obtained an oblique view of her through the open doubledoors of the "reception room. " She was sitting in the chair which he hadoccupied so long; and she was looking out of the window expectantly--alittle troubled. 

He went back to the library, waited an interminable half hour, thenreturned noiselessly to the same position in the hall, where he couldsee her. She was still sitting patiently by the window. 

Waiting for that man, was she? Well, it might be quite a long wait! Andthe grim George silently ascended the stairs to his own room, and beganto pace his suffering floor. 

Chapter XXV

He left his door open, however, and when he heard the front door-bellring, by and by, he went half way down the stairs and stood to listen. He was not much afraid that Morgan would return, but he wished to makesure. 

Mary appeared in the hall below him, but, after a glance toward thefront of the house, turned back, and withdrew. Evidently Isabel had goneto the door. Then a murmur was heard, and George Amberson's voice, quickand serious: "I want to talk to you, Isabel". .. And another murmur; thenIsabel and her brother passed the foot of the broad, dark stairway, butdid not look up, and remained unconscious of the watchful presence abovethem. Isabel still carried her cloak upon her arm, but Amberson hadtaken her hand, and retained it; and as he led her silently into thelibrary there was something about her attitude, and the pose of herslightly bent head, that was both startled and meek. Thus they quicklydisappeared from George's sight, hand in hand; and Amberson at onceclosed the massive double doors of the library. 

For a time all that George could hear was the indistinct sound of hisuncle's voice: what he was saying could not be surmised, thoughthe troubled brotherliness of his tone was evident. He seemed to beexplaining something at considerable length, and there were momentswhen he paused, and George guessed that his mother was speaking, but hervoice must have been very low, for it was entirely inaudible to him. 

Suddenly he did hear her. Through the heavy doors her outcry came, clearand loud:

"Oh, no!"

It was a cry of protest, as if something her brother told her must beuntrue, or, if it were true, the fact he stated must be undone; and itwas a sound of sheer pain. 

Another sound of pain, close to George, followed it; this was a vehementsniffling which broke out just above him, and, looking up, he saw FannyMinafer on the landing, leaning over the banisters and applying herhandkerchief to her eyes and nose. 

"I can guess what that was about, " she whispered huskily. "He's justtold her what you did to Eugene!"

George gave her a dark look over his shoulder. "You go on back to yourroom!" he said; and he began to descend the stairs; but Fanny, guessinghis purpose, rushed down and caught his arm, detaining him. 

"You're not going in there?", she whispered huskily. "You don't--"

"Let go of me!"

But she clung to him savagely. "No, you don't, Georgie Minafer! You'llkeep away from there! You will!"

"You let go of--"

"I won't! You come back here! You'll come upstairs and let them alone;that's what you'll do!" And with such passionate determination did sheclutch and tug, never losing a grip of him somewhere, though Georgetried as much as he could, without hurting her, to wrench away--withsuch utter forgetfulness of her maiden dignity did she assault him, thatshe forced him, stumbling upward, to the landing. 

"Of all the ridiculous--" he began furiously; but she spared one handfrom its grasp of his sleeve and clapped it over his mouth. 

"Hush up!" Never for an instant in this grotesque struggle did Fannyraise her voice above a husky whisper. "Hush up! It's indecent--likesquabbling outside the door of an operating-room! Go on to the top ofthe stairs--go on!"

And when George had most unwillingly obeyed, she planted herself inhis way, on the top step. "There!" she said. "The idea of your going inthere now! I never heard of such a thing!" And with the sudden departureof the nervous vigour she had shown so amazingly, she began to cryagain. "I was an awful fool! I thought you knew what was going on orI never, never would have done it. Do you suppose I dreamed you'd gomaking everything into such a tragedy? Do you?"

"I don't care what you dreamed, " George muttered. 

But Fanny went on, always taking care to keep her voice from getting tooloud, in spite of her most grievous agitation. "Do you dream I thoughtyou'd go making such a fool of yourself at Mrs. Johnson's? Oh, I saw herthis morning! She wouldn't talk to me, but I met George Amberson on myway back, and he told me what you'd done over there! And do you dream Ithought you'd do what you've done here this afternoon to Eugene? Oh, Iknew that, too! I was looking out of the front bedroom window, and I sawhim drive up, and then go away again, and I knew you'd been to the door. Of course he went to George Amberson about it, and that's why George ishere. He's got to tell Isabel the whole thing now, and you wanted to goin there interfering--God knows what! You stay here and let her brothertell her; he's got some consideration for her!"

"I suppose you think I haven't!" George said, challenging her, and atthat Fanny laughed witheringly. 

"You! Considerate of anybody!"

"I'm considerate of her good name!" he said hotly. "It seems to methat's about the first thing to be considerate of, in being considerateof a person! And look here: it strikes me you're taking a prettydifferent tack from what you did yesterday afternoon!"

Fanny wrung her hands. "I did a terrible thing!" she lamented. "Now thatit's done and too late I know what it was! I didn't have sense enoughjust to let things go on. I didn't have any business to interfere, and Ididn't mean to interfere--I only wanted to talk, and let out a little! Idid think you already knew everything I told you. I did! And I'd ratherhave cut my hand off than stir you up to doing what you have done! I wasjust suffering so that I wanted to let out a little--I didn't mean anyreal harm. But now I see what's happened--oh, I was a fool! I hadn't anybusiness interfering. Eugene never would have looked at me, anyhow, and, oh, why couldn't I have seen that before! He never came here a singletime in his life except on her account, never! and I might have let themalone, because he wouldn't have looked at me even if he'd never seenIsabel. And they haven't done any harm: she made Wilbur happy, and shewas a true wife to him as long as he lived. It wasn't a crime for her tocare for Eugene all the time; she certainly never told him she did--andshe gave me every chance in the world! She left us alone together everytime she could--even since Wilbur died--but what was the use? And hereI go, not doing myself a bit of good by it, and just"--Fanny wrung herhands again--"just ruining them!"

"I suppose you mean I'm doing that, " George said bitterly. 

"Yes, I do!" she sobbed, and drooped upon the stairway railing, exhausted. 

"On the contrary, I mean to save my mother from a calamity. "

Fanny looked at him wanly, in a tired despair; then she stepped by himand went slowly to her own door, where she paused and beckoned to him. 

"What do you want?"

"Just come here a minute. "

"What for?" he asked impatiently. 

"I just wanted to say something to you. "

"Well, for heaven's sake, say it! There's nobody to hear. " Nevertheless, after a moment, as she beckoned him again, he went to her, profoundlyannoyed. "Well, what is it?"

"George, " she said in a low voice, "I think you ought to be toldsomething. If I were you, I'd let my mother alone. "

"Oh, my Lord!" he groaned. "I'm doing these things for her, not againsther!"

A mildness had come upon Fanny, and she had controlled her weeping. Sheshook her head gently. "No, I'd let her alone if I were you. I don'tthink she's very well, George. "

"She! I never saw a healthier person in my life. "

"No. She doesn't let anybody know, but she goes to the doctorregularly. "

"Women are always going to doctors regularly. "

"No. He told her to. "

George was not impressed. "It's nothing at all; she spoke of it to meyears ago--some kind of family failing. She said grandfather had it, too; and look at him! Hasn't proved very serious with him! You act as ifI'd done something wrong in sending that man about his business, and asif I were going to persecute my mother, instead of protecting her. ByJove, it's sickening! You told me how all the riffraff in town were busywith her name, and then the minute I lift my hand to protect her, youbegin to attack me and--"

"Sh!" Fanny checked him, laying her hand on his arm. "Your uncle isgoing. "

The library doors were heard opening, and a moment later there came thesound of the front door closing. 

George moved toward the head of the stairs, then stood listening; butthe house was silent. 

Fanny made a slight noise with her lips to attract his attention, and, when he glanced toward her, shook her head at him urgently. "Let heralone, " she whispered. "She's down there by herself. Don't go down. Lether alone. "

She moved a few steps toward him and halted, her face pallid andawestruck, and then both stood listening for anything that might breakthe silence downstairs. No sound came to them; that poignant silence wascontinued throughout long, long minutes, while the two listenersstood there under its mysterious spell; and in its plaintiveeloquence--speaking, as it did, of the figure alone in the big, dark library, where dead Wilbur's new silver frame gleamed in thedimness--there was something that checked even George. 

Above the aunt and nephew, as they kept this strange vigil, there wasa triple window of stained glass, to illumine the landing and upperreaches of the stairway. Figures in blue and amber garments posedgracefully in panels, conceived by some craftsman of the Eighties torepresent Love and Purity and Beauty, and these figures, leaded tounalterable attitudes, were little more motionless than the two humanbeings upon whom fell the mottled faint light of the window. The colourswere growing dull; evening was coming on. 

Fanny Minafer broke the long silence with a sound from her throat, astilled gasp; and with that great companion of hers, her handkerchief, retired softly to the loneliness of her own chamber. After she had goneGeorge looked about him bleakly, then on tiptoe crossed the hall andwent into his own room, which was filled with twilight. Still tiptoeing, though he could not have said why, he-went across the room and sat downheavily in a chair facing the window. Outside there was nothing but thedarkening air and the wall of the nearest of the new houses. He hadnot slept at all, the night before, and he had eaten nothing since thepreceding day at lunch, but he felt neither drowsiness nor hunger. Hisset determination filled him, kept him but too wide awake, and his gazeat the grayness beyond the window was wide--eyed and bitter. 

Darkness had closed in when there was a step in the room behind him. Then someone knelt beside the chair, two arms went round him withinfinite compassion, a gentle head rested against his shoulder, andthere came the faint scent as of apple-blossoms far away. 

"You mustn't be troubled, darling, " his mother whispered. 

Chapter XXVI

George choked. For an instant he was on the point of breaking down, buthe commanded himself, bravely dismissing the self-pity roused by hercompassion. "How can I help but be?" he said. 

"No, no. " She soothed him. "You mustn't. You mustn't be troubled, nomatter what happens. "

"That's easy enough to say!" he protested; and he moved as if to rise. 

"Just let's stay like this a little while, dear. Just a minute or two. I want to tell you: brother George has been here, and he told meeverything about--about how unhappy you'd been--and how you went sogallantly to that old woman with the operaglasses. " Isabel gave a sadlittle laugh. "What a terrible old woman she is! What a really terriblething a vulgar old woman can be!"

"Mother, I--" And again he moved to rise. 

"Must you? It seemed to me such a comfortable way to talk. Well--" Sheyielded; he rose, helped her to her feet, and pressed the light intobeing. 

As the room took life from the sudden lines of fire within the bulbsIsabel made a deprecatory gesture, and, with a faint laugh of apologeticprotest, turned quickly away from George. What she meant was: "Youmustn't see my face until I've made it nicer for you. " Then she turnedagain to him, her eyes downcast, but no sign of tears in them, and shecontrived to show him that there was the semblance of a smile upon herlips. She still wore her hat, and in her unsteady fingers she held awhite envelope, somewhat crumpled. 

"Now, mother--"

"Wait, dearest, " she said; and though he stood stone cold, she liftedher arms, put them round him again, and pressed her cheek lightly tohis. "Oh, you do look so troubled, poor dear! One thing you couldn'tdoubt, beloved boy: you know I could never care for anything in theworld as I care for you--never, never!"

"Now, mother--"

She released him, and stepped back. "Just a moment more, dearest. I wantyou to read this first. We can get at things better. " She pressed intohis hand the envelope she had brought with her, and as he opened it, andbegan to read the long enclosure, she walked slowly to the other end ofthe room; then stood there, with her back to him, and her head droopinga little, until he had finished. 

The sheets of paper were covered with Eugene's handwriting. 

George Amberson will bring you this, dear Isabel. He is waiting while Iwrite. He and I have talked things over, and before he gives this to youhe will tell you what has happened. Of course I'm rather confused, andhaven't had time to think matters out very definitely, and yet I believeI should have been better prepared for what took place to-day--I oughtto have known it was coming, because I have understood for quite a longtime that young George was getting to dislike me more and more. Somehow, I've never been able to get his friendship; he's always had a latentdistrust of me--or something like distrust--and perhaps that's made mesometimes a little awkward and diffident with him. I think it may behe felt from the first that I cared a great deal about you, and henaturally resented it. I think perhaps he felt this even during all thetime when I was so careful--at least I thought I was--not to show, evento you, how immensely I did care. And he may have feared that you werethinking too much about me--even when you weren't and only liked me asan old friend. It's perfectly comprehensible to me, also, that at hisage one gets excited about gossip. Dear Isabel, what I'm trying toget at, in my confused way, is that you and I don't care about thisnonsensical gossip, ourselves, at all. Yesterday I thought the time hadcome when I could ask you to marry me, and you were dear enough to tellme "sometime it might come to that. " Well, you and I, left to ourselves, and knowing what we have been and what we are, we'd pay as muchattention to "talk" as we would to any other kind of old cats' mewing!We'd not be very apt to let such things keep us from the plenty of lifewe have left to us for making up to ourselves for old unhappinesses andmistakes. But now we're faced with--not the slander and not our ownfear of it, because we haven't any, but someone else's fear of it--yourson's. And, oh, dearest woman in the world, I know what your son is toyou, and it frightens me! Let me explain a little: I don't think he'llchange--at twenty-one or twenty-two so many things appear solid andpermanent and terrible which forty sees are nothing but disappearingmiasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this; that's the pity of it!Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty. And so we come to this, dear: Will you live your own life your way, or George's way? I'm goinga little further, because it would be fatal not to be wholly franknow. George will act toward you only as your long worship of him, yoursacrifices--all the unseen little ones every day since he was born--willmake him act. Dear, it breaks my heart for you, but what you have tooppose now is the history of your own selfless and perfect motherhood. Iremember saying once that what you worshipped in your son was the angelyou saw in him--and I still believe that is true of every mother. But ina mother's worship she may not see that the Will in her son should notalways be offered incense along with the angel. I grow sick with fearfor you--for both you and me--when I think how the Will against us twohas grown strong through the love you have given the angel--and howlong your own sweet Will has served that other. Are you strong enough, Isabel? Can you make the fight? I promise you that if you will takeheart for it, you will find so quickly that it has all amountedto nothing. You shall have happiness, and, in a little while, onlyhappiness. You need only to write me a line--I can't come to yourhouse--and tell me where you will meet me. We will come back in a month, and the angel in your son will bring him to you; I promise it. Whatis good in him will grow so fine, once you have beaten the turbulentWill--but it must be beaten!

Your brother, that good friend, is waiting with such patience; I shouldnot keep him longer--and I am saying too much for wisdom, I fear. But, oh, my dear, won't you be strong--such a little short strength it wouldneed! Don't strike my life down twice, dear--this time I've not deservedit. Eugene. 

Concluding this missive, George tossed it abruptly from him so that onesheet fell upon his bed and the others upon the floor; and at the faintnoise of their falling Isabel came, and, kneeling, began to gather themup. 

"Did you read it, dear?"

George's face was pale no longer, but pink with fury. "Yes, I did. "

"All of it?" she asked gently, as she rose. 

"Certainly!"

She did not look at him, but kept her eyes downcast upon the letter inher hands, tremulously rearranging the sheets in order as she spoke--andthough she smiled, her smile was as tremulous as her hands. Nervousnessand an irresistible timidity possessed her. "I--I wanted to say, George, " she faltered. "I felt that if--if some day it should happen--Imean, if you came to feel differently about it, and Eugene and I--thatis if we found that it seemed the most sensible thing to do--I wasafraid you might think it would be a little queer about--Lucy, I meanif--if she were your step-sister. Of course, she'd not be even legallyrelated to you, and if you--if you cared for her--"

Thus far she got stumblingly with what she wanted to say, while Georgewatched her with a gaze that grew harder and hotter; but here he cut heroff. "I have already given up all idea of Lucy, " he said. "Naturally, I couldn't have treated her father as I deliberately did treat him--Icould hardly have done that and expected his daughter ever to speak tome again. "

Isabel gave a quick cry of compassion, but he allowed her no opportunityto speak. "You needn't think I'm making any particular sacrifice, " hesaid sharply, "though I would, quickly enough, if I thought it necessaryin a matter of honour like this. I was interested in her, and I couldeven say I did care for her; but she proved pretty satisfactorily thatshe cared little enough about me! She went away right in the midst ofa--of a difference of opinion we were having; she didn't even let meknow she was going, and never wrote a line to me, and then came backtelling everybody she'd had 'a perfectly gorgeous time!' That's quiteenough for me. I'm not precisely the sort to arrange for that kind ofthing to be done to me more than once! The truth is, we're not congenialand we'd found that much out, at least, before she left. We shouldnever have been happy; she was 'superior' all the time, and critical ofme--not very pleasant, that! I was disappointed in her, and I might aswell say it. I don't think she has the very deepest nature in the world, and--"

But Isabel put her hand timidly on his arm. "Georgie, dear, this is onlya quarrel: all young people have them before they get adjusted, and youmustn't let--"

"If you please!" he said emphatically, moving back from her. "This isn'tthat kind. It's all over, and I don't care to speak of it again. It'ssettled. Don't you understand?"

"But, dear--"

"No. I want to talk to you about this letter of her father's. "

"Yes, dear, that's why--"

"It's simply the most offensive piece of writing that I've ever held inmy hands!"

She stepped back from him, startled. "But, dear, I thought--"

"I can't understand your even showing me such a thing!" he cried. "Howdid you happen to bring it to me?"

"Your uncle thought I'd better. He thought it was the simplest thing todo, and he said that he'd suggested it to Eugene, and Eugene had agreed. They thought--"

"Yes!" George said bitterly. "I should like to hear what they thought!"

"They thought it would be the most straightforward thing. "

George drew a long breath. "Well, what do you think, mother?"

"I thought it would be the simplest and most straightforward thing; Ithought they were right. "

"Very well! We'll agree it was simple and straightforward. Now, what doyou think of that letter itself?"

She hesitated, looking away. "I--of course I don't agree with him in theway he speaks of you, dear--except about the angel! I don't agree withsome of the things he implies. You've always been unselfish--nobodyknows that better than your mother. When Fanny was left with nothing, you were so quick and generous to give up what really should have cometo you, and--"

"And yet, " George broke in, "you see what he implies about me. Don't youthink, really, that this was a pretty insulting letter for that man tobe asking you to hand your son?"

"Oh, no!" she cried. "You can see how fair he means to be, and he didn'task for me to give it to you. It was brother George who--"

"Never mind that, now! You say he tries to be fair, and yet do yousuppose it ever occurs to him that I'm doing my simple duty? That I'mdoing what my father would do if he were alive? That I'm doing what myfather would ask me to do if he could speak from his grave out yonder?Do you suppose it ever occurs to that man for one minute that I'mprotecting my mother?" George raised his voice, advancing upon thehelpless lady fiercely; and she could only bend her head before him. "Hetalks about my 'Will'--how it must be beaten down; yes, and he asks mymother to do that little thing to please him! What for? Why does he wantme 'beaten' by my mother? Because I'm trying to protect her name! He'sgot my mother's name bandied up and down the streets of this town till Ican't step in those streets without wondering what every soul I meet isthinking of me and of my family, and now he wants you to marry him sothat every gossip in town will say 'There! What did I tell you? I guessthat proves it's true!' You can't get away from it; that's exactly whatthey'd say, and this man pretends he cares for you, and yet asks you tomarry him and give them the right to say it. He says he and you don'tcare what they say, but I know better! He may not care-probably he'sthat kind--but you do. There never was an Amberson yet that would letthe Amberson name go trailing in the dust like that! It's the proudestname in this town and it's going to stay the proudest; and I tell youthat's the deepest thing in my nature-not that I'd expect Eugene Morganto understand--the very deepest thing in my nature is to protect thatname, and to fight for it to the last breath when danger threatens it, as it does now--through my mother!" He turned from her, striding upand down and tossing his arms about, in a tumult of gesture. "I can'tbelieve it of you, that you'd think of such a sacrilege! That's what itwould be--sacrilege! When he talks about your unselfishness toward me, he's right--you have been unselfish and you have been a perfect mother. But what about him? Is it unselfish of him to want you to throw awayyour good name just to please him? That's all he asks of you--and toquit being my mother! Do you think I can believe you really care forhim? I don't! You are my mother and you're an Amberson--and I believeyou're too proud! You're too proud to care for a man who could writesuch a letter as that!" He stopped, faced her, and spoke with moreself-control: "Well, what are you going to do about it, mother?"

George was right about his mother's being proud. And even when shelaughed with a negro gardener, or even those few times in her lifewhen people saw her weep, Isabel had a proud look--something that wasindependent and graceful and strong. But she did not have it now: sheleaned against the wall, beside his dressing-table, and seemed besetwith humility and with weakness. Her head drooped. 

"What answer are you going to make to such a letter?" George demanded, like a judge on the bench. 

"I--I don't quite know, dear, " she murmured. 

"Wait, " she begged him. "I'm so--confused. "

"I want to know what you're going to write him. Do you think if youdid what he wants you to I could bear to stay another day in this town, mother? Do you think I could ever bear even to see you again if youmarried him? I'd want to, but you surely know I just--couldn't!"

She made a futile gesture, and seemed to breathe with difficulty. "I--Iwasn't--quite sure, " she faltered, "about--about it's being wise for usto be married--even before knowing how you feel about it. I wasn't evensure it was quite fair to--to Eugene. I have--I seem to have that familytrouble--like father's--that I spoke to you about once. " She managed adeprecatory little dry laugh. "Not that it amounts to much, but I wasn'tat all sure that it would be fair to him. Marrying doesn't mean so much, after all--not at my age. It's enough to know that--that people thinkof you--and to see them. I thought we were all--oh, pretty happy the waythings were, and I don't think it would mean giving up a great dealfor him or me, either, if we just went on as we have been. I--I see himalmost every day, and--"

"Mother!" George's voice was loud and stern. "Do you think you could goon seeing him after this!"

She had been talking helplessly enough before; her tone was little morebroken now. "Not--not even--see him?"

"How could you?" George cried. "Mother, it seems to me that if he everset foot in this house again--oh! I can't speak of it! Could you seehim, knowing what talk it makes every time he turns into this street, and knowing what that means to me? Oh, I don't understand all this--Idon't! If you'd told me, a year ago, that such things were going tohappen, I'd have thought you were insane--and now I believe I am!"

Then, after a preliminary gesture of despair, as though he meant harm tothe ceiling, he flung himself heavily, face downward, upon the bed. Hisanguish was none the less real for its vehemence; and the stricken ladycame to him instantly and bent over him, once more enfolding him in herarms. She said nothing, but suddenly her tears fell upon his head; shesaw them, and seemed to be startled. 

"Oh, this won't do!" she said. "I've never let you see me cry before, except when your father died. I mustn't!"

And she ran from the room. 

. .. A little while after she had gone, George rose and began solemnly todress for dinner. At one stage of these conscientious proceedings he puton, temporarily, his long black velvet dressing-gown, and, happeningto catch sight in his pier glass of the picturesque and medievalfigure thus presented, he paused to regard it; and something profoundlytheatrical in his nature came to the surface. 

His lips moved; he whispered, half-aloud, some famous fragments:

"Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemnblack. .. "

For, in truth, the mirrored princely image, with hair dishevelled on thewhite brow, and the long tragic fall of black velvet from the shoulders, had brought about (in his thought at least) some comparisons of his owntimes, so out of joint, with those of that other gentle prince and heirwhose widowed mother was minded to marry again. 

"But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings andthe suits of Woe. "

Not less like Hamlet did he feel and look as he sat gauntly at thedinner table with Fanny to partake of a meal throughout which neitherspoke. Isabel had sent word "not to wait" for her, an injunction it wasas well they obeyed, for she did not come at all. But with the renewalof sustenance furnished to his system, some relaxation must haveoccurred within the high-strung George. Dinner was not quite finishedwhen, without warning, sleep hit him hard. His burning eyes could nolonger restrain the lids above them; his head sagged beyond control; andhe got to his feet, and went lurching upstairs, yawning with exhaustion. From the door of his room, which he closed mechanically, with his eyesshut, he went blindly to his bed, fell upon it soddenly, and slept--withhis face full upturned to the light. 

It was after midnight when he woke, and the room was dark. He had notdreamed, but he woke with the sense that somebody or something had beenwith him while he slept--somebody or something infinitely compassionate;somebody or something infinitely protective, that would let him come tono harm and to no grief. 

He got up, and pressed the light on. Pinned to the cover of hisdressing-table was a square envelope, with the words, "For you, dear, "written in pencil upon it. But the message inside was in ink, a littlesmudged here and there. 

I have been out to the mail-box, darling, with a letter I've written toEugene, and he'll have it in the morning. It would be unfair not to lethim know at once, and my decision could not change if I waited. It wouldalways be the same. I think it, is a little better for me to write toyou, like this, instead of waiting till you wake up and then tellingyou, because I'm foolish and might cry again, and I took a vow once, long ago, that you should never see me cry. Not that I'll feel likecrying when we talk things over tomorrow. I'll be "all right and fine"(as you say so often) by that time--don't fear. I think what makes memost ready to cry now is the thought of the terrible suffering in yourpoor face, and the unhappy knowledge that it is I, your mother who putit there. It shall never come again! I love you better than anythingand everything else on earth. God gave you to me--and oh! how thankfulI have been every day of my life for that sacred gift--and nothing canever come between me and God's gift. I cannot hurt you, and I cannot letyou stay hurt as you have been--not another instant after you wake up, my darling boy! It is beyond my power. And Eugene was right--I know youcouldn't change about this. Your suffering shows how deep-seated thefeeling is within you. So I've written him just about what I think youwould like me to--though I told him I would always be fond of him andalways his best friend, and I hoped his dearest friend. He'll understandabout not seeing him. He'll understand that, though I didn't say itin so many words. You mustn't trouble about that--he'll understand. Good-night, my darling, my beloved, my beloved! You mustn't be troubled. I think I shouldn't mind anything very much so long as I have you "allto myself"--as people say--to make up for your long years away from meat college. We'll talk of what's best to do in the morning, shan't we?And for all this pain you'll forgive your loving and devoted mother. 

Isabel. 

Chapter XXVII

Having finished some errands downtown, the next afternoon, GeorgeAmberson Minafer was walking up National Avenue on his homeward way whenhe saw in the distance, coming toward him, upon the same side of thestreet, the figure of a young lady--a figure just under the middleheight, comely indeed, and to be mistaken for none other in theworld--even at two hundred yards. To his sharp discomfiture his heartimmediately forced upon him the consciousness of its acceleration; asudden warmth about his neck made him aware that he had turned red, and then, departing, left him pale. For a panicky moment he thought offacing about in actual flight; he had little doubt that Lucy wouldmeet him with no token of recognition, and all at once this probabilitystruck him as unendurable. And if she did not speak, was it the properpart of chivalry to lift his hat and take the cut bareheaded? Or shouldthe finer gentleman acquiesce in the lady's desire for no furtheracquaintance, and pass her with stony mien and eyes constrained forward?George was a young man badly flustered. 

But the girl approaching him was unaware of his trepidation, beingperhaps somewhat preoccupied with her own. She saw only that he waspale, and that his eyes were darkly circled. But here he was advantagedwith her, for the finest touch to his good looks was given by thistoning down; neither pallor nor dark circles detracting from them, butrather adding to them a melancholy favour of distinction. George hadretained his mourning, a tribute completed down to the final details ofblack gloves and a polished ebony cane (which he would have been painedto name otherwise than as a "walking-stick") and in the aura of thissombre elegance his straight figure and drawn face were not without atristful and appealing dignity. 

In everything outward he was cause enough for a girl's cheek to flush, her heart to beat faster, and her eyes to warm with the soft light thatcame into Lucy's now, whether she would or no. If his spirit had beenwhat his looks proclaimed it, she would have rejoiced to let the lightglow forth which now shone in spite of her. For a long time, thinking ofthat spirit of his, and what she felt it should be, she had a persistentsense: "It must be there!" but she had determined to believe this follyno longer. Nevertheless, when she met him at the Sharons', she had beenfar less calm than she seemed. 

People speaking casually of Lucy were apt to define her as "a littlebeauty, " a definition short of the mark. She was "a little beauty, " butan independent, masterful, sell-reliant little American, of whom herfather's earlier gipsyings and her own sturdiness had made a woman eversince she was fifteen. But though she was the mistress of her own waysand no slave to any lamp save that of her own conscience, she had aweakness: she had fallen in love with George Amberson Minafer at firstsight, and no matter how she disciplined herself, she had never beenable to climb out. The thing had happened to her; that was all. Georgehad looked just the way she had always wanted someone to look--theriskiest of all the moonshine ambushes wherein tricky romance snarescredulous young love. But what was fatal to Lucy was that this thinghaving happened to her, she could not change it. No matter what shediscovered in George's nature she was unable to take away what she hadgiven him; and though she could think differently about him, she couldnot feel differently about him, for she was one of those too faithfulvictims of glamour. When she managed to keep the picture of George awayfrom her mind's eye, she did well enough; but when she let him becomevisible, she could not choose but love what she disdained. She was alittle angel who had fallen in love with high-handed Lucifer; quite anexperience, and not apt to be soon succeeded by any falling in love witha tamer party--and the unhappy truth was that George did make better menseem tame. But though she was a victim, she was a heroic one, anythingbut helpless. 

As they drew nearer, George tried to prepare himself to meet her withsome remnants of aplomb. He decided that he would keep on lookingstraight ahead, and lift his hand toward his hat at the very last momentwhen it would be possible for her to see him out of the corner of hereye: then when she thought it over later, she would not be sure whetherhe had saluted her or merely rubbed his forehead. And there was theadded benefit that any third person who might chance to look froma window, or from a passing carriage, would not think that he wasreceiving a snub, because he did not intend to lift his hat, but, timingthe gesture properly, would in fact actually rub his forehead. Thesewere the hasty plans which occupied his thoughts until he was withinabout fifty feet of her--when he ceased to have either plans orthoughts, he had kept his eyes from looking full at her until then, andas he saw her, thus close at hand, and coming nearer, a regret that wasdumfounding took possession of him. For the first time he had the senseof having lost something of overwhelming importance. 

Lucy did not keep to the right, but came straight to meet him, smiling, and with her hand offered to him. 

"Why--you--" he stammered, as he took it. "Haven't you--" What he meantto say was, "Haven't you heard?"

"Haven't I what?" she asked; and he saw that Eugene had not yet toldher. 

"Nothing!" he gasped. "May I--may I turn and walk with you a littleway?"

"Yes, indeed!" she said cordially. 

He would not have altered what had been done: he was satisfied with allthat--satisfied that it was right, and that his own course was right. But he began to perceive a striking inaccuracy in some remarks he hadmade to his mother. Now when he had put matters in such shape that evenby the relinquishment of his "ideals of life" he could not have Lucy, knew that he could never have her, and knew that when Eugene toldher the history of yesterday he could not have a glance or word evenfriendly from her--now when he must in good truth "give up all ideaof Lucy, " he was amazed that he could have used such words as "noparticular sacrifice, " and believed them when he said them! She hadlooked never in his life so bewitchingly pretty as she did today; and ashe walked beside her he was sure that she was the most exquisite thingin the world. 

"Lucy, " he said huskily, "I want to tell you something. Something thatmatters. "

"I hope it's a lively something then, " she said; and laughed. "Papa'sbeen so glum to-day he's scarcely spoken to me. Your Uncle GeorgeAmberson came to see him an hour ago and they shut themselves up in thelibrary, and your uncle looked as glum as papa. I'd be glad if you'lltell me a funny story, George. "

"Well, it may seem one to you, " he said bitterly, "Just to begin with:when you went away you didn't let me know; not even a word--not aline--"

Her manner persisted in being inconsequent. "Why, no, " she said. "I justtrotted off for some visits. "

"Well, at least you might have--"

"Why, no, " she said again briskly. "Don't you remember, George? We'd hada grand quarrel, and didn't speak to each other all the way home from along, long drive! So, as we couldn't play together like good children, of course it was plain that we oughtn't to play at all. "

"Play!" he cried. 

"Yes. What I mean is that we'd come to the point where it was time toquit playing--well, what we were playing. "

"At being lovers, you mean, don't you?"

"Something like that, " she said lightly. "For us two, playing at beinglovers was just the same as playing at cross-purposes. I had all thepurposes, and that gave you all the crossness: things weren't gettingalong at all. It was absurd!"

"Well, have it your own way, " he said. "It needn't have been absurd. "

"No, it couldn't help but be!" she informed him cheerfully. "The way Iam and the way you are, it couldn't ever be anything else. So what wasthe use?"

"I don't know, " he sighed, and his sigh was abysmal. "But what I wantedto tell you is this: when you went away, you didn't let me know anddidn't care how or when I heard it, but I'm not like that with you. Thistime, I'm going away. That's what I wanted to tell you. I'm going awaytomorrow night--indefinitely. "

She nodded sunnily. "That's nice for you. I hope you'll have ever sojolly a time, George. "

"I don't expect to have a particularly jolly time. "

"Well, then, " she laughed, "if I were you I don't think I'd go. "

It seemed impossible to impress this distracting creature, to make herserious. "Lucy, " he said desperately, "this is our last walk together. "

"Evidently!" she said, "if you're going away tomorrow night. "

"Lucy--this may be the last time I'll see you--ever--ever in my life. "

At that she looked at him quickly, across her shoulder, but she smiledas brightly as before, and with the same cordial inconsequence: "Oh, Ican hardly think that!" she said. "And of course I'd be awfully sorry tothink it. You're not moving away, are you, to live?"

"No. "

"And even if you were, of course you'd be coming back to visit yourrelatives every now and then. "

"I don't know when I'm coming back. Mother and I are starting to-morrownight for a trip around the world. "

At this she did look thoughtful. "Your mother is going with you?"

"Good heavens!" he groaned. "Lucy, doesn't it make any difference to youthat I am going?"

At this her cordial smile instantly appeared again. "Yes, of course, "she said. "I'm sure I'll miss you ever so much. Are you to be gonelong?"

He stared at her wanly. "I told you indefinitely, " he said. "We've madeno plans--at all--for coming back. "

"That does sound like a long trip!" she exclaimed admiringly. "Do youplan to be travelling all the time, or will you stay in some one placethe greater part of it? I think it would be lovely to--"

"Lucy!"

He halted; and she stopped with him. They had come to a corner at theedge of the "business section" of the city, and people were everywhereabout them, brushing against them, sometimes, in passing. 

"I can't stand this, " George said, in a low voice. "I'm just about readyto go in this drug-store here, and ask the clerk for something to keepme from dying in my tracks! It's quite a shock, you see, Lucy!"

"What is?"

"To find out certainly, at last, how deeply you've cared for me! To seehow much difference this makes to you! By Jove, I have mattered to you!"

Her cordial smile was tempered now with good-nature. "George!" Shelaughed indulgently. "Surely you don't want me to do pathos on adowntown corner!"

"You wouldn't 'do pathos' anywhere!"

"Well--don't you think pathos is generally rather fooling?"

"I can't stand this any longer, " he said. "I can't! Good-bye, Lucy!" Hetook her hand. "It's good-bye--I think it's good-bye for good, Lucy!"

"Good-bye! I do hope you'll have the most splendid trip. " She gave hishand a cordial little grip, then released it lightly. "Give my love toyour mother. Good-bye!"

He turned heavily away, and a moment later glanced back over hisshoulder. She had not gone on, but stood watching him, that same casual, cordial smile on her face to the very last; and now, as he looked back, she emphasized her friendly unconcern by waving her small hand to himcheerily, though perhaps with the slightest hint of preoccupation, as ifshe had begun to think of the errand that brought her downtown. 

In his mind, George had already explained her to his own poignantdissatisfaction--some blond pup, probably, whom she had met during that"perfectly gorgeous time!" And he strode savagely onward, not lookingback again. 

But Lucy remained where she was until he was out of sight. Then she wentslowly into the drugstore which had struck George as a possible sourceof stimulant for himself. 

"Please let me have a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia in aglass of water, " she said, with the utmost composure. 

"Yes, ma'am!" said the impressionable clerk, who had been looking at herthrough the display window as she stood on the corner. 

But a moment later, as he turned from the shelves of glass jars againstthe wall, with the potion she had asked for in his hand, he uttered anexclamation: "For goshes' sake, Miss!" And, describing this adventure tohis fellow-boarders, that evening, "Sagged pretty near to the counter, she was, " he said. "If I hadn't been a bright, quick, ready-for-anythingyoung fella she'd 'a' flummixed plum! I was watchin' her out thewindow--talkin' to some young s'iety fella, and she was all rightthen. She was all right when she come in the store, too. Yes, sir; theprettiest girl that ever walked in our place and took one good look atme. I reckon it must be the truth what some you town wags say about myface!"

Chapter XXVIII

At that hour the heroine of the susceptible clerk's romance was engagedin brightening the rosy little coal fire under the white mantelpiecein her pretty white-and-blue boudoir. Four photographs all framedin decorous plain silver went to the anthracite's fiercedestruction--frames and all--and three packets of letters and notes ina charming Florentine treasure-box of painted wood; nor was the box, anymore than the silver frames, spared this rousing finish. Thrown heartilyupon live coal, the fine wood sparkled forth in stars, then burst intoan alarming blaze which scorched the white mantelpiece, but Lucy stoodand looked on without moving. 

It was not Eugene who told her what had happened at Isabel's door. When she got home, she found Fanny Minafer waiting for her--a secretexcursion of Fanny's for the purpose, presumably, of "letting out"again; because that was what she did. She told Lucy everything (excepther own lamentable part in the production of the recent miseries) andconcluded with a tribute to George: "The worst of it is, he thinks he'sbeen such a hero, and Isabel does, too, and that makes him more thantwice as awful. It's been the same all his life: everything he did wasnoble and perfect. He had a domineering nature to begin with, and shelet it go on, and fostered it till it absolutely ruled her. I never sawa plainer case of a person's fault making them pay for having it! Shegoes about, overseeing the packing and praising George and pretendingto be perfectly cheerful about what he's making her do and about thedreadful things he's done. She pretends he did such a fine thing--somanly and protective--going to Mrs. Johnson. And so heroic--doing whathis 'principles' made him--even though he knew what it would cost himwith you! And all the while it's almost killing her--what he said toyour father! She's always been lofty enough, so to speak, and had thegreatest idea of the Ambersons being superior to the rest of the world, and all that, but rudeness, or anything like a 'scene, ' or any badmanners--they always just made her sick! But she could never see whatGeorge's manners were--oh, it's been a terrible adulation!. .. It's goingto be a task for me, living in that big house, all alone: you must comeand see me--I mean after they've gone, of course. I'll go crazy if Idon't see something of people. I'm sure you'll come as often as you can. I know you too well to think you'll be sensitive about coming there, orbeing reminded of George. Thank heaven you're too well-balanced, " MissFanny concluded, with a profound fervour, "you're too well-balanced tolet anything affect you deeply about that--that monkey!"

The four photographs and the painted Florentine box went to theircremation within the same hour that Miss Fanny spoke; and a little laterLucy called her father in, as he passed her door, and pointed to theblackened area on the underside of the mantelpiece, and to the burntheap upon the coal, where some metallic shapes still retained outline. She flung her arms about his neck in passionate sympathy, tellinghim that she knew what had happened to him; and presently he began tocomfort her and managed an embarrassed laugh. 

"Well, well--" he said. "I was too old for such foolishness to begetting into my head, anyhow. "

"No, no!" she sobbed. "And if you knew how I despise myself for--forever having thought one instant about--oh, Miss Fanny called him theright name: that monkey! He is!"

"There, I think I agree with you, " Eugene said grimly, and in his eyesthere was a steady light of anger that was to last. "Yes, I think Iagree with you about that!"

"There's only one thing to do with such a person, " she said vehemently. "That's to put him out of our thoughts forever--forever!"

And yet, the next day, at six o'clock, which was the hour, Fanny hadtold her, when George and his mother were to leave upon their longjourney, Lucy touched that scorched place on her mantel with herhand just as the little clock above it struck. Then, after thisodd, unconscious gesture, she went to a window and stood between thecurtains, looking out into the cold November dusk; and in spite of everyreasoning and reasonable power within her, a pain of loneliness struckthrough her heart. The dim street below her window, the dark housesacross the way, the vague air itself--all looked empty, and cold and(most of all) uninteresting. Something more sombre than November dusktook the colour from them and gave them that air of desertion. 

The light of her fire, flickering up behind her showed suddenly a flyinggroup of tiny snowflakes nearing the window-pane; and for an instant shefelt the sensation of being dragged through a snows drift under abroken cutter, with a boy's arms about her--an arrogant, handsome, too-conquering boy, who nevertheless did his best to get hurt himself, keeping her from any possible harm. 

She shook the picture out of her eyes indignantly, then came and satbefore her fire, and looked long and long at the blackened mantelpiece. She did not have the mantelpiece repainted--and, since she did not, might as well have kept his photographs. One forgets what made the scarupon his hand but not what made the scar upon his wall. 

She played no marche funebre upon her piano, even though Chopin'sromantic lamentation was then at the top of nine-tenths of themusic-racks in the country, American youth having recently discoveredthe distinguished congeniality between itself and this deathless bit ofdeathly gloom. She did not even play "Robin Adair"; she played "Bedelia"and all the new cake-walks, for she was her father's housekeeper, and rightly looked upon the office as being the same as that of hisheart-keeper. Therefore it was her affair to keep both house and heartin what state of cheerfulness might be contrived. She made him "go out"more than ever; made him take her to all the gayeties of that winter, declining to go herself unless he took her, and, though Eugene dancedno more, and quoted Shakespeare to prove all lightfoot caperings beneaththe dignity of his age, she broke his resolution for him at the NewYear's Eve "Assembly" and half coaxed, half dragged him forth upon thefloor, and made him dance the New Year in with her. 

New faces appeared at the dances of the winter; new faces hadbeen appearing everywhere, for that matter, and familiar ones weredisappearing, merged in the increasing crowd, or gone forever and misseda little and not long; for the town was growing and changing as it neverhad grown and changed before. 

It was heaving up in the middle incredibly; it was spreading incredibly;and as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its sky. Its boundary was mere shapelessness on the run; a raw, new house wouldappear on a country road; four or five others would presently be builtat intervals between it and the outskirts of the town; the country roadwould turn into an asphalt street with a brick-faced drugstore and aframe grocery at a corner; then bungalows and six-room cottages wouldswiftly speckle the open green spaces--and a farm had become a suburbwhich would immediately shoot out other suburbs into the country, onone side, and, on the other, join itself solidly to the city. You drovebetween pleasant fields and woodland groves one spring day; and in theautumn, passing over the same ground, you were warned off the tracks byan interurban trolley-car's gonging, and beheld, beyond cement sidewalksjust dry, new house-owners busy "moving in. " Gasoline and electricitywere performing the miracles Eugene had predicted. 

But the great change was in the citizenry itself. What was left ofthe patriotic old-stock generation that had fought the Civil War, andsubsequently controlled politics, had become venerable and was littleheeded. The descendants of the pioneers and early settlers were merginginto the new crowd, becoming part of it, little to be distinguished fromit. What happened to Boston and to Broadway happened in degree to theMidland city; the old stock became less and less typical, and of thegrown people who called the place home, less than a third had been bornin it. There was a German quarter; there was a Jewish quarter; there wasa negro quarter--square miles of it--called "Bucktown"; there were manyIrish neighbourhoods; and there were large settlements of Italians, and of Hungarians, and of Rumanians, and of Serbians and other Balkanpeoples. But not the emigrants, themselves, were the almost dominanttype on the streets downtown. That type was the emigrant's prosperousoffspring: descendant of the emigrations of the Seventies and Eightiesand Nineties, those great folk-journeyings in search not so directlyof freedom and democracy as of more money for the same labour. A newMidlander--in fact, a new American--was beginning dimly to emerge. 

A new spirit of citizenship had already sharply defined itself. It wasidealistic, and its ideals were expressed in the new kind of young menin business downtown. They were optimists--optimists to the point ofbelligerence--their motto being "Boost! Don't Knock!" And they werehustlers, believing in hustling and in honesty because both paid. Theyloved their city and worked for it with a plutonic energy which wasalways ardently vocal. They were viciously governed, but they sometimeswent so far to struggle for better government on account of the helpfuleffect of good government on the price of real estate and "betterment"generally; the politicians could not go too far with them, and knewit. The idealists planned and strove and shouted that their city shouldbecome a better, better, and better city--and what they meant, when theyused the word "better, " was "more prosperous, " and the core of theiridealism was this: "The more prosperous my beloved city, the moreprosperous beloved I!" They had one supreme theory: that the perfectbeauty and happiness of cities and of human life was to be brought aboutby more factories; they had a mania for factories; there was nothingthey would not do to cajole a factory away from another city; and theywere never more piteously embittered than when another city cajoled oneaway from them. 

What they meant by Prosperity was credit at the bank; but in exchangefor this credit they got nothing that was not dirty, and, therefore, to a sane mind, valueless; since whatever was cleaned was dirty againbefore the cleaning was half done. For, as the town grew, it grewdirty with an incredible completeness. The idealists put up magnificentbusiness buildings and boasted of them, but the buildings were begrimedbefore they were finished. They boasted of their libraries, of theirmonuments and statues; and poured soot on them. They boasted of theirschools, but the schools were dirty, like the children within them. Thiswas not the fault of the children or their mothers. It was the fault ofthe idealists, who said: "The more dirt, the more prosperity. " Theydrew patriotic, optimistic breaths of the flying powdered filth ofthe streets, and took the foul and heavy smoke with gusto into theprofundities of their lungs. "Boost! Don't knock!" they said. Andevery year or so they boomed a great Clean-up Week, when everybody wassupposed to get rid of the tin cans in his backyard. 

They were happiest when the tearing down and building up were mostriotous, and when new factory districts were thundering into life. Intruth, the city came to be like the body of a great dirty man, skinned, to show his busy works, yet wearing a few barbaric ornaments; and sucha figure carved, coloured, and discoloured, and set up in themarket-place, would have done well enough as the god of the new people. Such a god they had indeed made in their own image, as all peoples makethe god they truly serve; though of course certain of the idealistswent to church on Sunday, and there knelt to Another, considered tobe impractical in business. But while the Growing went on, this godof their market-place was their true god, their familiar andspirit-control. They did not know that they were his helplessly obedientslaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their serfdom (as the firststep toward becoming free men) until they should make the strange andhard discovery that matter should serve man's spirit. 

"Prosperity" meant good credit at the bank, black lungs, and housewives'Purgatory. The women fought the dirt all they could; but if they let theair into their houses they let in the dirt. It shortened their lives, and kept them from the happiness of ever seeing anything white. Andthus, as the city grew, the time came when Lucy, after a hard struggle, had to give up her blue-and-white curtains and her white walls. Indoors, she put everything into dull gray and brown, and outside had the littlehouse painted the dark green nearest to black. Then she knew, of course, that everything was as dirty as ever, but was a little less distressedbecause it no longer looked so dirty as it was. 

These were bad times for Amberson Addition. This quarter, already old, lay within a mile of the centre of the town, but business moved in otherdirections; and the Addition's share of Prosperity was only the smokeand dirt, with the bank credit left out. The owners of the originalbig houses sold them, or rented them to boarding-house keepers, and thetenants of the multitude of small houses moved "farther out" (where thesmoke was thinner) or into apartment houses, which were built by dozensnow. Cheaper tenants took their places, and the rents were lower andlower, and the houses shabbier and shabbier--for all these shabbyhouses, burning soft coal, did their best to help in the destruction oftheir own value. They helped to make the quarter so dingy and the air sofoul to breathe that no one would live there who had money enough to get"farther out" where there were glimpses of ungrayed sky and breaths ofcleaner winds. And with the coming of the new speed, "farther out" wasnow as close to business as the Addition had been in the days of itsprosperity. Distances had ceased to matter. 

The five new houses, built so closely where had been the fine lawn ofthe Amberson Mansion, did not look new. When they were a year old theylooked as old as they would ever look; and two of them were vacant, having never been rented, for the Major's mistake about apartment houseshad been a disastrous one. "He guessed wrong, " George Amberson said. . "He guessed wrong at just the wrong time! Housekeeping in a house isharder than in an apartment; and where the smoke and dirt are as thickas they are in the Addition, women can't stand it. People were crazy forapartments--too bad he couldn't have seen it in time. Poor man! hedigs away at his ledgers by his old gas drop-light lamp almost everynight--he still refuses to let the Mansion be torn up for wiring, youknow. But he had one painful satisfaction this spring: he got his taxeslowered!"

Amberson laughed ruefully, and Fanny Minafer asked how the Major couldhave managed such an economy. They were sitting upon the veranda atIsabel's one evening during the third summer of the absence of theirnephew and his mother; and the conversation had turned toward Ambersonfinances. 

"I said it was a 'painful satisfaction, ' Fanny, " he explained. "Theproperty has gone down in value, and they assessed it lower than theydid fifteen years ago. "

"But farther out--"

"Oh, yes, 'farther out!' Prices are magnificent 'farther out, ' andfarther in, too! We just happen to be the wrong spot, that's all. Notthat I don't think something could be done if father would let me havea hand; but he won't. He can't, I suppose I ought to say. He's 'alwaysdone his own figuring, ' he says; and it's his lifelong habit to keep hisaffairs: and even his books, to himself, and just hand us out the money. Heaven knows he's done enough of that!"

He sighed; and both were silent, looking out at the long flares of theconstantly passing automobile headlights, shifting in vast geometricdemonstrations against the darkness. Now and then a bicycle wound itsnervous way among these portents, or, at long intervals, a surrey orbuggy plodded forlornly by. 

"There seem to be so many ways of making money nowadays, " Fanny saidthoughtfully. "Every day I hear of a new fortune some person has gothold of, one way or another--nearly always it's somebody you never heardof. It doesn't seem all to be in just making motor cars; I hear there'sa great deal in manufacturing these things that motor cars use--newinventions particularly. I met dear old Frank Bronson the other day, andhe told me--"

"Oh, yes, even dear old Frank's got the fever, " Amberson laughed. "He'sas wild as any of them. He told me about this invention he's gone into, too. 'Millions in it!' Some new electric headlight better than anythingyet--'every car in America can't help but have 'em, ' and all that. He'sputting half he's laid by into it, and the fact is, he almost talked meinto getting father to 'finance me' enough for me to go into it. Poorfather! he's financed me before! I suppose he would again if I had theheart to ask him; and this seems to be a good thing, though probablyold Frank is a little too sanguine. At any rate, I've been thinking itover. "

"So have I, " Fanny admitted. "He seemed to be certain it would paytwenty-five per cent. The first year, and enormously more after that;and I'm only getting four on my little principal. People are making suchenormous fortunes out of everything to do with motor cars, it does seemas if--" She paused. "Well, I told him I'd think it over seriously. "

"We may turn out to be partners and millionaires then, " Ambersonlaughed. "I thought I'd ask Eugene's advice. "

"I wish you would, " said Fanny. "He probably knows exactly how muchprofit there would be in this. "

Eugene's advice was to "go slow": he thought electric lights forautomobiles were "coming--someday but probably not until certaindifficulties could be overcome. " Altogether, he was discouraging, butby this time his two friends "had the fever" as thoroughly as old FrankBronson himself had it; for they had been with Bronson to see the lightworking beautifully in a machine shop. They were already enthusiastic, and after asking Eugene's opinion they argued with him, telling him howthey had seen with their own eyes that the difficulties he mentioned hadbeen overcome. "Perfectly!" Fanny cried. "And if it worked in the shopit's bound to work any place else, isn't it?"

He would not agree that it was "bound to"--yet, being pressed, wasdriven to admit that "it might, " and, retiring from what was developinginto an oratorical contest, repeated a warning about not "putting toomuch into it. "

George Amberson also laid stress on this caution later, though the Majorhad "financed him" again, and he was "going in. " "You must be carefulto leave yourself a 'margin of safety, ' Fanny, " he said. "I'm confidentthat is a pretty conservative investment of its kind, and all thechances are with us, but you must be careful to leave yourself enough tofall back on, in case anything should go wrong. "

Fanny deceived him. In the impossible event of "anything going wrong"she would have enough left to "live on, " she declared, and laughedexcitedly, for she was having the best time that had come to her sinceWilbur's death. Like so many women for whom money has always beenprovided without their understanding how, she was prepared to be athorough and irresponsible plunger. 

Amberson, in his wearier way, shared her excitement, and in the winter, when the exploiting company had been formed, and he brought Fanny, herimportantly engraved shares of stock, he reverted to his prediction ofpossibilities, made when they first spoke of the new light. 

"We seem to be partners, all right, " he laughed. "Now let's go ahead andbe millionaires before Isabel and young George come home. "

"When they come home!" she echoed sorrowfully--and it was a phrase whichfound an evasive echo in Isabel's letters. In these letters Isabel wasalways planning pleasant things that she and Fanny and the Major andGeorge and "brother George" would do--when she and her son came home. "They'll find things pretty changed, I'm afraid, " Fanny said. "If theyever do come home!"

Amberson went over, the next summer, and joined his sister and nephew inParis, where they were living. "Isabel does want to come home, " he toldFanny gravely, on the day of his return, in October. "She's wantedto for a long while--and she ought to come while she can stand thejourney--" And he amplified this statement, leaving Fanny lookingstartled and solemn when Lucy came by to drive him out to dinner at thenew house Eugene had just completed. 

This was no white-and-blue cottage, but a great Georgian picture inbrick, five miles north of Amberson Addition, with four acres of itsown hedged land between it and its next neighbour; and Amberson laughedwistfully as they turned in between the stone and brick gate pillars, and rolled up the crushed stone driveway. "I wonder, Lucy, if history'sgoing on forever repeating itself, " he said. "I wonder if this town'sgoing on building up things and rolling over them, as poor father oncesaid it was rolling over his poor old heart. It looks like it: here'sthe Amberson Mansion again, only it's Georgian instead of nondescriptRomanesque; but it's just the same Amberson Mansion that my father builtlong before you were born. The only difference is that it's your fatherwho's built this one now. It's all the same, in the long run. "

Lucy did not quite understand, but she laughed as a friend should, and, taking his arm, showed him through vast rooms where ivory-panelled wallsand trim window hangings were reflected dimly in dark, rugless floors, and the sparse furniture showed that Lucy had been "collecting" with along purse. "By Jove!" he said. "You have been going it! Fanny tells meyou had a great 'house-warming' dance, and you keep right on being thebelle of the ball, not any softer-hearted than you used to be. FredKinney's father says you've refused Fred so often that he got engaged toJanie Sharon just to prove that someone would have him in spite of hishair. Well, the material world do move, and you've got the new kindof house it moves into nowadays--if it has the new price! And even thegrand old expanses of plate glass we used to be so proud of at the otherAmberson Mansion--they've gone, too, with the crowded heavy gold and redstuff. Curious! We've still got the plate glass windows, though all wecan see out of 'em is the smoke and the old Johnson house, which is acounter-jumper's boardinghouse now, while you've got a view, and you cutit all up into little panes. Well, you're pretty refreshingly out of thesmoke up here. "

"Yes, for a while, " Lucy laughed. "Until it comes and we have to moveout farther. "

"No, you'll stay here, " he assured her. "It will be somebody else who'llmove out farther. "

He continued to talk of the house after Eugene arrived, and gave them noaccount of his journey until they had retired from the dinner tableto Eugene's library, a gray and shadowy room, where their coffeewas brought. Then, equipped with a cigar, which seemed to occupy hisattention, Amberson spoke in a casual tone of his sister and her son. 

"I found Isabel as well as usual, " he said, "only I'm afraid 'as usual'isn't particularly well. Sydney and Amelia had been up to Paris in thespring, but she hadn't seen them. Somebody told her they were there, itseems. They'd left Florence and were living in Rome; Amelia's become aCatholic and is said to give great sums to charity and to go aboutwith the gentry in consequence, but Sydney's ailing and lives in awheel-chair most of the time. It struck me Isabel ought to be doing thesame thing. "

He paused, bestowing minute care upon the removal of the little bandfrom his cigar; and as he seemed to have concluded his narrative, Eugenespoke out of the shadow beyond a heavily shaded lamp: "What do you meanby that?" he asked quietly. 

"Oh, she's cheerful enough, " said Amberson, still not looking at eitherhis young hostess or her father. "At least, " he added, "she manages toseem so. I'm afraid she hasn't been really well for several years. Sheisn't stout you know--she hasn't changed in looks much--and she seemsrather alarmingly short of breath for a slender person. Father's beenthat way for years, of course; but never nearly so much as Isabel isnow. Of course she makes nothing of it, but it seemed rather serious tome when I noticed she had to stop and rest twice to get up the one shortflight of stairs in their two-floor apartment. I told her I thought sheought to make George let her come home. "

"Let her?" Eugene repeated, in a low voice. "Does she want to?"

"She doesn't urge it. George seems to like the life there-in his grand, gloomy, and peculiar way; and of course she'll never change about beingproud of him and all that--he's quite a swell. But in spite of anythingshe said, rather than because, I know she does indeed want to come. She'd like to be with father, of course; and I think she's--well, sheintimated one day that she feared it might even happen that she wouldn'tget to see him again. At the time I thought she referred to his age andfeebleness, but on the boat, coming home, I remembered the little lookof wistfulness, yet of resignation, with which she said it, and itstruck me all at once that I'd been mistaken: I saw she was reallythinking of her own state of health. "

"I see, " Eugene said, his voice even lower than it had been before. "Andyou say he won't 'let' her come home?"

Amberson laughed, but still continued to be interested in his cigar. "Oh, I don't think he uses force! He's very gentle with her. I doubtif the subject is mentioned between them, and yet--and yet, knowing myinteresting nephew as you do, wouldn't you think that was about the wayto put it?"

"Knowing him as I do-yes, " said Eugene slowly. "Yes, I should think thatwas about the way to put it. "

A murmur out of the shadows beyond him--a faint sound, musical andfeminine, yet expressive of a notable intensity--seemed to indicate thatLucy was of the same opinion. 

Chapter XXIX

"Let her" was correct; but the time came--and it came in the spring ofthe next year when it was no longer a question of George's letting hismother come home. He had to bring her, and to bring her quickly if shewas to see her father again; and Amberson had been right: her danger ofnever seeing him again lay not in the Major's feebleness of heart but inher own. As it was, George telegraphed his uncle to have a wheeled chairat the station, for the journey had been disasterous, and to this hybridvehicle, placed close to the platform, her son carried her in his armswhen she arrived. She was unable to speak, but patted her brother's andFanny's hands and looked "very sweet, " Fanny found the desperate courageto tell her. She was lifted from the chair into a carriage, and seemeda little stronger as they drove home; for once she took her hand fromGeorge's, and waved it feebly toward the carriage window. 

"Changed, " she whispered. "So changed. "

"You mean the town, " Amberson said. "You mean the old place is changed, don't you, dear?"

She smiled and moved her lips: "Yes. "

"It'll change to a happier place, old dear, " he said, "now that you'reback in it, and going to get well again. "

But she only looked at him wistfully, her eyes a little frightened. 

When the carriage stopped, her son carried her into the house, and upthe stairs to her own room, where a nurse was waiting; and he came outa moment later, as the doctor went in. At the end of the hall a strickengroup was clustered: Amberson, and Fanny, and the Major. George, deathlypale and speechless, took his grandfather's hand, but the old gentlemandid not seem to notice his action. 

"When are they going to let me see my daughter?" he asked querulously. "They told me to keep out of the way while they carried her in, becauseit might upset her. I wish they'd let me go in and speak to my daughter. I think she wants to see me. "

He was right--presently the doctor came out and beckoned to him; and theMajor shuffled forward, leaning on a shaking cane; his figure, after allits Years of proud soldierliness, had grown stooping at last, and hisuntrimmed white hair straggled over the back of his collar. He lookedold--old and divested of the world--as he crept toward his daughter'sroom. Her voice was stronger, for the waiting group heard a low cry oftenderness and welcome as the old man reached the open doorway. Then thedoor was closed. 

Fanny touched her nephew's arm. "George, you must need something toeat--I know she'd want you to. I've had things ready: I knew she'd wantme to. You'd better go down to the dining room: there's plenty on thetable, waiting for you. She'd want you to eat something. "

He turned a ghastly face to her, it was so panic-stricken. "I don'twant anything to eat!" he said savagely. And he began to pace the floor, taking care not to go near Isabel's door, and that his footsteps weremuffled by the long, thick hall rug. After a while he went to whereAmberson, with folded arms and bowed head, had seated himself near thefront window. "Uncle George, " he said hoarsely. "I didn't--"

"Well?"

"Oh, my God, I didn't think this thing the matter with her could ever beserious! I--" He gasped. "When that doctor I had meet us at the boat--"He could not go on. 

Amberson only nodded his head, and did not otherwise change hisattitude. 

Isabel lived through the night. At eleven O'clock Fanny came timidly toGeorge in his room. "Eugene is here, " she whispered. "He's downstairs. He wants--" She gulped. "He wants to know if he can't see her. I didn'tknow what to say. I said I'd see. I didn't know--the doctor said--"

"The doctor said we 'must keep her peaceful, '" George said sharply. "Doyou think that man's coming would be very soothing? My God! if it hadn'tbeen for him this mightn't have happened: we could have gone on livinghere quietly, and--why, it would be like taking a stranger into herroom! She hasn't even spoken of him more than twice in all the timewe've been away. Doesn't he know how sick she is? You tell him thedoctor said she had to be quiet and peaceful. That's what he did say, isn't it?"

Fanny acquiesced tearfully. "I'll tell him. I'll tell him the doctorsaid she was to be kept very quiet. I--I didn't know--" And she potteredout. 

An hour later the nurse appeared in George's doorway; she camenoiselessly, and his back was toward her; but he jumped as if he hadbeen shot, and his jaw fell, he so feared what she was going to say. 

"She wants to see you. "

The terrified mouth shut with a click; and he nodded and followed her;but she remained outside his mother's room while he went in. 

Isabel's eyes were closed, and she did not open them or move her head, but she smiled and edged her hand toward him as he sat on a stool besidethe bed. He took that slender, cold hand, and put it to his cheek. 

"Darling, did you--get something to eat?" She could only whisper, slowlyand with difficulty. It was as if Isabel herself were far away, and onlyable to signal what she wanted to say. 

"Yes, mother. "

"All you--needed?"

"Yes, mother. "

She did not speak again for a time; then, "Are you sure youdidn't--didn't catch cold coming home?"

"I'm all right, mother. "

"That's good. It's sweet--it's sweet--"

"What is, mother darling?"

"To feel--my hand on your cheek. I--I can feel it. "

But this frightened him horribly--that she seemed so glad she could feelit, like a child proud of some miraculous seeming thing accomplished. Itfrightened him so that he could not speak, and he feared that she wouldknow how he trembled; but she was unaware, and again was silent. Finallyshe spoke again:

"I wonder if--if Eugene and Lucy know that we've come--home. "

"I'm sure they do. "

"Has he--asked about me?"

"Yes, he was here. "

"Has he--gone?"

"Yes, mother. "

She sighed faintly. "I'd like--"

"What, mother?"

"I'd like to have--seen him. " It was just audible, this little regretfulmurmur. Several minutes passed before there was another. "Just--justonce, " she whispered, and then was still. 

She seemed to have fallen asleep, and George moved to go, but a faintpressure upon his fingers detained him, and he remained, with her handstill pressed against his cheek. After a while he made sure she wasasleep, and moved again, to let the nurse come in, and this time therewas no pressure of the fingers to keep him. She was not asleep, butthinking that if he went he might get some rest, and be better preparedfor what she knew was coming, she commanded those longing fingers ofhers--and let him go. 

He found the doctor standing with the nurse in the hall; and, tellingthem that his mother was drowsing now, George went back to his own room, where he was startled to find his grandfather lying on the bed, and hisuncle leaning against the wall. They had gone home two hours before, andhe did not know they had returned. 

"The doctor thought we'd better come over, " Amberson said, then wassilent, and George, shaking violently, sat down on the edge of the bed. His shaking continued, and from time to time he wiped heavy sweat fromhis forehead. 

The hours passed, and sometimes the old man upon the bed would snore alittle, stop suddenly, and move as if to rise, but George Amberson wouldset a hand upon his shoulder, and murmur a reassuring word or two. Nowand then, either uncle or nephew would tiptoe into the hall and looktoward Isabel's room, then come tiptoeing back, the other watching himhaggardly. 

Once George gasped defiantly: "That doctor in New York said she mightget better! Don't you know he did? Don't you know he said she might?"

Amberson made no answer. 

Dawn had been murking through the smoky windows, growing stronger forhalf an hour, when both men started violently at a sound in the hall;and the Major sat up on the bed, unchecked. It was the voice of thenurse speaking to Fanny Minafer, and the next moment, Fanny appeared inthe doorway, making contorted efforts to speak. 

Amberson said weakly: "Does she want us--to come in?"

But Fanny found her voice, and uttered a long, loud cry. She threw herarms about George, and sobbed in an agony of loss and compassion:

"She loved you!" she wailed. "She loved you! She loved you! Oh, how shedid love you!"

Isabel had just left them. 

Chapter XXX

Major Amberson remained dry-eyed through the time that followed: heknew that this separation from his daughter would be short, that theseparation which had preceded it was the long one. He worked at hisledgers no more under his old gas drop-light, but would sit all eveningstaring into the fire, in his bedroom, and not speaking unless someoneasked him a question. He seemed almost unaware of what went on aroundhim, and those who were with him thought him dazed by Isabel's death, guessing that he was lost in reminiscences and vague dreams. "Probablyhis mind is full of pictures of his youth, or the Civil War, and thedays when he and mother were young married people and all of us childrenwere jolly little things--and the city was a small town with one cobbledstreet and the others just dirt roads with board sidewalks. " This wasGeorge Amberson's conjecture, and the others agreed; but they weremistaken. The Major was engaged in the profoundest thinking of hislife. No business plans which had ever absorbed him could compare inmomentousness with the plans that absorbed him now, for he had to planhow to enter the unknown country where he was not even sure of beingrecognized as an Amberson--not sure of anything, except that Isabelwould help him if she could. His absorption produced the outward effectof reverie, but of course it was not. The Major was occupied with thefirst really important matter that had taken his attention since he camehome invalided, after the Gettysburg campaign, and went into business;and he realized that everything which had worried him or delightedhim during this lifetime between then and to-day--all his buying andbuilding and trading and banking--that it all was trifling and wastebeside what concerned him now. 

He seldom went out of his room, and often left untouched the meals theybrought to him there; and this neglect caused them to shake their headsmournfully, again mistaking for dazedness the profound concentration ofhis mind. Meanwhile, the life of the little bereft group still forlornlycentering upon him began to pick up again, as life will, and to emergefrom its own period of dazedness. It was not Isabel's father but her sonwho was really dazed. 

A month after her death he walked abruptly into Fanny's room, one night, and found her at her desk, eagerly adding columns of figures with whichshe had covered several sheets of paper. This mathematical computationwas concerned with her future income to be produced by the electricheadlight, now just placed on the general market; but Fanny was ashamedto be discovered doing anything except mourning, and hastily pushedthe sheets aside, even as she looked over her shoulder to greet herhollow-eyed visitor. 

"George! You startled me. "

"I beg your pardon for not knocking, " he said huskily. "I didn't think. "

She turned in her chair and looked at him solicitously. "Sit down, George, won't you?"

"No. I just wanted--"

"I could hear you walking up and down in your room, " said Fanny. "Youwere doing it ever since dinner, and it seems to me you're at it almostevery evening. I don't believe it's good for you--and I know it wouldworry your mother terribly if she--" Fanny hesitated. 

"See here, " George said, breathing fast, "I want to tell you once morethat what I did was right. How could I have done anything else but whatI did do?"

"About what, George?"

"About everything!" he exclaimed; and he became vehement. "I did theright thing, I tell you! In heaven's name, I'd like to know whatelse there was for anybody in my position to do! It would have been adreadful thing for me to just let matters go on and not interfere--itwould have been terrible! What else on earth was there for me to do? Ihad to stop that talk, didn't I? Could a son do less than I did? Didn'tit cost me something to do it? Lucy and I'd had a quarrel, but thatwould have come round in time--and it meant the end forever when Iturned her father back from our door. I knew what it meant, yet I wentahead and did it because knew it had to be done if the talk was to bestopped. I took mother away for the same reason. I knew that would helpto stop it. And she was happy over there--she was perfectly happy. Itell you, I think she had a happy life, and that's my only consolation. She didn't live to be old; she was still beautiful and young looking, and I feel she'd rather have gone before she got old. She'd had a goodhusband, and all the comfort and luxury that anybody could have--and howcould it be called anything but a happy life? She was always cheerful, and when I think of her I can always see her laughing--I can always hearthat pretty laugh of hers. When I can keep my mind off of the trip home, and that last night, I always think of her gay and laughing. So how onearth could she have had anything but a happy life? People that aren'thappy don't look cheerful all the time, do they? They look unhappyif they are unhappy; that's how they look! See here"--he faced herchallengingly--"do you deny that I did the right thing?"

"Oh, I don't pretend to judge, " Fanny said soothingly, for his voice andgesture both partook of wildness. "I know you think you did, George. "

"Think I did!" he echoed violently. "My God in heaven!" And he began towalk up and down the floor. "What else was there to do? What, choice didI have? Was there any other way of stopping the talk?" He stopped, closein front of her, gesticulating, his voice harsh and loud: "Don't youhear me? I'm asking you: Was there any other way on earth of protectingher from the talk?"

Miss Fanny looked away. "It died down before long, I think, " she saidnervously. 

"That shows I was right, doesn't it?" he cried. "If I hadn't acted asI did, that slanderous old Johnson woman would have kept on with herslanders--she'd still be--"

"No, " Fanny interrupted. "She's dead. She dropped dead with apoplexy oneday about six weeks after you left. I didn't mention it in my lettersbecause I didn't want--I thought--"

"Well, the other people would have kept on, then. They'd have--"

"I don't know, " said Fanny, still averting her troubled eyes. "Thingsare so changed here, George. The other people you speak of--one hardlyknows what's become of them. Of course not a great many were doing thetalking, and they--well, some of them are dead, and some might as wellbe--you never see them any more--and the rest, whoever they were, areprobably so mixed in with the crowds of new people that seem never evento have heard of us--and I'm sure we certainly never heard of them--andpeople seem to forget things so soon--they seem to forget anything. Youcan't imagine how things have changed here!"

George gulped painfully before he could speak. "You--you mean to sitthere and tell me that if I'd just let things go on--Oh!" He swung away, walking the floor again. "I tell you I did the only right thing! Ifyou don't think so, why in the name of heaven can't you say what elseI should have done? It's easy enough to criticize, but the person whocriticizes a man ought at least to tell him what else he should havedone! You think I was wrong!"

"I'm not saying so, " she said. 

"You did at the time!" he cried. "You said enough then, I think! Well, what have you to say now, if you're so sure I was wrong?"

"Nothing, George. "

"It's only because you're afraid to!" he said, and he went on with asudden bitter divination: "You're reproaching yourself with what you hadto do with all that; and you're trying to make up for it by doing andsaying what you think mother would want you to, and you think I couldn'tstand it if I got to thinking I might have done differently. Oh, I know!That's exactly what's in your mind: you do think I was wrong! So doesUncle George. I challenged him about it the other day, and he answeredjust as you're answering--evaded, and tried to be gentler I don't careto be handled with gloves! I tell you I was right, and I don't need anycoddling by people that think I wasn't! And I suppose you believe I waswrong not to let Morgan see her that last night when he came here, andshe--she was dying. If you do, why in the name of God did you come andask me? You could have taken him in! She did want to see him. She--"

Miss Fanny looked startled. "You think--"

"She told me so!" And the tortured young man choked. "She said--'justonce. ' She said 'I'd like to have seen him--just once!' She meant--totell him good-bye! That's what she meant! And you put this on me, too;you put this responsibility on me! But I tell you, and I told UncleGeorge, that the responsibility isn't all mine! If you were so sure Iwas wrong all the time--when I took her away, and when I turned Morganout--if you were so sure, what did you let me do it for? You and UncleGeorge were grown people, both of you, weren't you? You were older thanI, and if you were so sure you were wiser than I, why did you just standaround with your hands hanging down, and let me go ahead? You could havestopped it if it was wrong, couldn't you?"

Fanny shook her head. "No, George, " she said slowly. "Nobody could havestopped you. You were too strong, and--"

"And what?" he demanded loudly. 

"And she loved you--too well. "

George stared at her hard, then his lower lip began to moveconvulsively, and he set his teeth upon it but could not check itsfrantic twitching. 

He ran out of the room. 

She sat still, listening. He had plunged into his mother's room, butno sound came to Fanny's ears after the sharp closing of the door;and presently she rose and stepped out into the hall--but could hearnothing. The heavy black walnut door of Isabel's room, as Fanny'stroubled eyes remained fixed upon it, seemed to become darker andvaguer; the polished wood took the distant ceiling light, at the endof the hall, in dim reflections which became mysterious; and to Fanny'sdisturbed mind the single sharp point of light on the bronze door-knobwas like a continuous sharp cry in the stillness of night. Whatinterview was sealed away from human eye and ear within the lonelydarkness on the other side of that door--in that darkness where Isabel'sown special chairs were, and her own special books, and the two greatwalnut wardrobes filled with her dresses and wraps? What tragic argumentmight be there vainly striving to confute the gentle dead? "In God'sname, what else could I have done?" For his mother's immutable silencewas surely answering him as Isabel in life would never have answeredhim, and he was beginning to understand how eloquent the dead can be. They cannot stop their eloquence, no matter how they have loved theliving: they cannot choose. And so, no matter in what agony Georgeshould cry out, "What else could I have done?" and to the end of hislife no matter how often he made that wild appeal, Isabel was doomed toanswer him with the wistful, faint murmur:

"I'd like to have-seen him. Just--just once. "

A cheerful darkey went by the house, loudly and tunelessly whistlingsome broken thoughts upon women, fried food and gin; then a group ofhigh school boys, returning homeward after important initiations, wereheard skylarking along the sidewalk, rattling sticks on the fences, squawking hoarsely, and even attempting to sing in the shocking newvoices of uncompleted adolescence. For no reason, and just as a poultryyard falls into causeless agitation, they stopped in front of the house, and for half an hour produced the effect of a noisy multitude in fullriot. 

To the woman standing upstairs in the hall, this was almost unbearable;and she felt that she would have to go down and call to them to stop;but she was too timid, and after a time went back to her room, and satat her desk again. She left the door open, and frequently glanced outinto the hall, but gradually became once more absorbed in the figureswhich represented her prospective income from her great plunge inelectric lights for automobiles. She did not hear George return to hisown room. 

A superstitious person might have thought it unfortunate that herpartner in this speculative industry (as in Wilbur's disastrousrolling-mills) was that charming but too haphazardous man of the world, George Amberson. He was one of those optimists who believe that if youput money into a great many enterprises one of them is sure to turn outa fortune, and therefore, in order to find the lucky one, it is onlynecessary to go into a large enough number of them. Altogether gallantin spirit, and beautifully game under catastrophe, he had gone into agreat many, and the unanimity of their "bad luck, " as he called it, gave him one claim to be a distinguished person, if he had no other. In business he was ill fated with a consistency which made him, in thatalone, a remarkable man; and he declared, with some earnestness, thatthere was no accounting for it except by the fact that there had beenso much good luck in his family before he was born that something had tobalance it. 

"You ought to have thought of my record and stayed out, " he told Fanny, one day the next spring, when the affairs of the headlight company hadbegun to look discouraging. "I feel the old familiar sinking that'sattended all my previous efforts to prove myself a business genius. Ithink it must be something like the feeling an aeronaut has when hisballoon bursts, and, looking down, he sees below him the old home farmwhere he used to live--I mean the feeling he'd have just before heflattened out in that same old clay barnyard. Things do look bleak, andI'm only glad you didn't go into this confounded thing to the extent Idid. "

Miss Fanny grew pink. "But it must go right!" she protested. "We sawwith our own eyes how perfectly it worked in the shop. The light was sobright no one could face it, and so there can't be any reason for it notto work. It simply--"

"Oh, you're right about that, " Amberson said. "It certainly was aperfect thing--in the shop! The only thing we didn't know was how fastan automobile had to go to keep the light going. It appears that thiswas a matter of some importance. "

"Well, how fast does one have to--"

"To keep the light from going entirely out, " he informed her withelaborate deliberation, "it is computed by those enthusiasts who havebought our product--and subsequently returned it to us and got theirmoney back--they compute that a motor car must maintain a speed oftwenty-five miles an hour, or else there won't be any light at all. To make the illumination bright enough to be noticed by an approachingautomobile, they state the speed must be more than thirty miles anhour. At thirty-five, objects in the path of the light begin to becomevisible; at forty they are revealed distinctly; and at fifty and abovewe have a real headlight. Unfortunately many people don't care to drivethat fast at all times after dusk, especially in the traffic, or wherepolicemen are likely to become objectionable. "

"But think of that test on the road when we--"

"That test was lovely, " he admitted. "The inventor made us happy withhis oratory, and you and Frank Bronson and I went whirling through thenight at a speed that thrilled us. It was an intoxicating sensation: wewere intoxicated by the lights, the lights and the music. We must neverforget that drive, with the cool wind kissing our cheeks and the roadlit up for miles ahead. We must never forget it and we never shall. Itcost--"

"But something's got to be done. "

"It has, indeed! My something would seem to be leaving my watch at myuncle's. Luckily, you--"

The pink of Fanny's cheeks became deeper. "But isn't that man going todo anything to remedy it? can't he try to--"

"He can try, " said Amberson. "He is trying, in fact. I've sat in theshop watching him try for several beautiful afternoons, while outsidethe windows all Nature was fragrant with spring and smoke. He humsragtime to himself as he tries, and I think his mind is wandering tosomething else less tedious--to some new invention in which he'd takemore interest. "

"But you mustn't let him, " she cried. "You must make him keep ontrying!"

"Oh, yes. He understands that's what I sit there for. I'll keepsitting!"

However, in spite of the time he spent sitting in the shop, worryingthe inventor of the fractious light, Amberson found opportunity to worryhimself about another matter of business. This was the settlement ofIsabel's estate. 

"It's curious about the deed to her house, " he said to his nephew. "You're absolutely sure it wasn't among her papers?"

"Mother didn't have any papers, " George told him. "None at all. All sheever had to do with business was to deposit the cheques grandfather gaveher and then write her own cheques against them. "

"The deed to the house was never recorded, " Amberson said thoughtfully. "I've been over to the courthouse to see. I asked father if he nevergave her one, and he didn't seem able to understand me at first. Then hefinally said he thought he must have given her a deed long ago; but hewasn't sure. I rather think he never did. I think it would be just aswell to get him to execute one now in your favour. I'll speak to himabout it. "

George sighed. "I don't think I'd bother him about it: the house ismine, and you and I understand that it is. That's enough for me, andthere isn't likely to be much trouble between you and me when we come tosettling poor grandfather's estate. I've just been with him, and I thinkit would only confuse him for you to speak to him about it again. Inotice he seems distressed if anybody tries to get his attention--he's along way off, somewhere, and he likes to stay that way. I think--I thinkmother wouldn't want us to bother him about it; I'm sure she'd tell usto let him alone. He looks so white and queer. "

Amberson shook his head. "Not much whiter and queerer than you do, youngfellow! You'd better begin to get some air and exercise and quit hangingabout in the house all day. I won't bother him any more than I can help;but I'll have the deed made out ready for his signature. "

"I wouldn't bother him at all. I don't see--"

"You might see, " said his uncle uneasily. "The estate is just aboutas involved and mixed-up as an estate can well get, to the best of myknowledge; and I haven't helped it any by what he let me have for thisinfernal headlight scheme which has finally gone trolloping forever towhere the woodbine twineth. Leaves me flat, and poor old Frank Bronsonjust half flat, and Fanny--well, thank heaven! I kept her from goingin so deep that it would leave her flat. It's rough on her as it is, Isuspect. You ought to have that deed. "

"No. Don't bother him. "

"I'll bother him as little as possible. I'll wait till some day when heseems to brighten up a little. "

But Amberson waited too long. The Major had already taken eleven monthssince his daughter's death to think important things out. He had got asfar with them as he could, and there was nothing to detain him longerin the world. One evening his grandson sat with him--the Major seemedto like best to have young George with him, so far as they were able toguess his preferences--and the old gentleman made a queer gesture:he slapped his knee as if he had made a sudden discovery, or elseremembered that he had forgotten something. 

George looked at him with an air of inquiry, but said nothing. He hadgrown to be almost as silent as his grandfather. However, the Majorspoke without being questioned. 

"It must be in the sun, " he said. "There wasn't anything here but thesun in the first place, and the earth came out of the sun, and we cameout of the earth. So, whatever we are, we must have been in the sun. Wego back to the earth we came out of, so the earth will go back to thesun that it came out of. And time means nothing--nothing at all--so in alittle while we'll all be back in the sun together. I wish--"

He moved his hand uncertainly as if reaching for something, and Georgejumped up. "Did you want anything, grandfather?"

"What?"

"Would you like a glass of water?"

"No--no. No; I don't want anything. " The reaching hand dropped back uponthe arm of his chair, and he relapsed into silence; but a few minuteslater he finished the sentence he had begun:

"I wish--somebody could tell me!"

The next day he had a slight cold, but he seemed annoyed when his sonsuggested calling the doctor, and Amberson let him have his own wayso far, in fact, that after he had got up and dressed, the followingmorning, he was all alone when he went away to find out what he hadn'tbeen able to think out--all those things he had wished "somebody" wouldtell him. 

Old Sam, shuffling in with the breakfast tray, found the Major in hisaccustomed easy-chair by the fireplace--and yet even the old darkeycould see instantly that the Major was not there. 

Chapter XXXI

When the great Amberson Estate went into court for settlement, "therewasn't any, " George Amberson said--that is, when the settlement wasconcluded there was no estate. "I guessed it, " Amberson went on. "Asan expert on prosperity, my career is disreputable, but as a prophetof calamity I deserve a testimonial banquet. " He reproached himselfbitterly for not having long ago discovered that his father had nevergiven Isabel a deed to her house. "And those pigs, Sydney and Amelia!"he added, for this was another thing he was bitter about. "They won'tdo anything. I'm sorry I gave them the opportunity of making a polishedrefusal. Amelia's letter was about half in Italian; she couldn'tremember enough ways of saying no in English. One has to live quite along while to realize there are people like that! The estate was badlycrippled, even before they took out their 'third, ' and the 'third' theytook was the only good part of the rotten apple. Well, I didn't ask themfor restitution on my own account, and at least it will save you sometrouble, young George. Never waste any time writing to them; you mustn'tcount on them. "

"I don't, " George said quietly. "I don't count on anything. "

"Oh, we'll not feel that things are quite desperate, " Amberson laughed, but not with great cheerfulness. "We'll survive, Georgie--you will, especially. For my part I'm a little too old and too accustomed to fallback on somebody else for supplies to start a big fight with life:I'll be content with just surviving, and I can do it on aneighteen-hundred-dollar--a-year consulship. An ex-congressman can alwaysbe pretty sure of getting some such job, and I hear from Washington thematter's about settled. I'll live pleasantly enough with a pitcher ofice under a palm tree, and black folks to wait on me--that part of itwill be like home--and I'll manage to send you fifty dollars every nowand then, after I once get settled. So much for me! But you--of courseyou've had a poor training for making your own way, but you're only aboy after all, and the stuff of the old stock is in you. It'll come outand do something. I'll never forgive myself about that deed: it wouldhave given you something substantial to start with. Still, you havea little tiny bit, and you'll have a little tiny salary, too; and ofcourse your Aunt Fanny's here, and she's got something you can fall backon if you get too pinched, until I can begin to send you a dribble nowand then. "

George's "little tiny bit" was six hundred dollars which had come to himfrom the sale of his mother's furniture; and the "little tiny salary"was eight dollars a week which old Frank Bronson was to pay him forservices as a clerk and student-at-law. Old Frank would have offeredmore to the Major's grandson, but since the death of that best ofclients and his own experience with automobile headlights, he was notcertain of being able to pay more and at the same time settle his ownsmall bills for board and lodging. George had accepted haughtily, andthereby removed a burden from his uncle's mind. 

Amberson himself, however, had not even a "tiny bit"; though he got hisconsular appointment; and to take him to his post he found it necessaryto borrow two hundred of his nephew's six hundred dollars. "It makes mesick, George, " he said. "But I'd better get there and get that salarystarted. Of course Eugene would do anything in the world, and the factis he wanted to, but I felt that--ah--under the circumstances--"

"Never!" George exclaimed, growing red. "I can't imagine one of thefamily--" He paused, not finding it necessary to explain that "thefamily" shouldn't turn a man from the door and then accept favours fromhim. "I wish you'd take more. "

Amberson declined. "One thing I'll say for you, young George; youhaven't a stingy bone in your body. That's the Amberson stock inyou--and I like it!"

He added something to this praise of his nephew on the day he left forWashington. He was not to return, but to set forth from the capital onthe long journey to his post. George went with him to the station, andtheir farewell was lengthened by the train's being several minutes late. 

"I may not see you again, Georgie, " Amberson said; and his voice was alittle husky as he set a kind hand on the young man's shoulder. "It'squite probable that from this time on we'll only know each other byletter--until you're notified as my next of kin that there's an oldvalise to be forwarded to you, and perhaps some dusty curios fromthe consulate mantelpiece. Well, it's an odd way for us to be sayinggood-bye: one wouldn't have thought it, even a few years ago, but herewe are, two gentlemen of elegant appearance in a state of bustitude. We can't ever tell what will happen at all, can we? Once I stood wherewe're standing now, to say good-bye to a pretty girl--only it was in theold station before this was built, and we called it the 'depot. ' She'dbeen visiting your mother, before Isabel was married, and I was wildabout her, and she admitted she didn't mind that. In fact, we decided wecouldn't live without each other, and we were to be married. But she hadto go abroad first with her father, and when we came to say good-byewe knew we wouldn't see each other again for almost a year. I thought Icouldn't live through it--and she stood here crying. Well, I don't evenknow where she lives now, or if she is living--and I only happen tothink of her sometimes when I'm here at the station waiting for a train. If she ever thinks of me she probably imagines I'm still dancing in theballroom at the Amberson Mansion, and she probably thinks of the Mansionas still beautiful--still the finest house in town. Life and money bothbehave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. And when they're gonewe can't tell where--or what the devil we did with 'em! But I believeI'll say now--while there isn't much time left for either of us to getembarrassed about it--I believe I'll say that I've always been fond ofyou, Georgie, but I can't say that I always liked you. Sometimes I'vefelt you were distinctly not an acquired taste. Until lately, one had tobe fond of you just naturally--this isn't very 'tactful, ' of course--forif he didn't, well, he wouldn't! We all spoiled you terribly when youwere a little boy and let you grow up en prince--and I must say you tookto it! But you've received a pretty heavy jolt, and I had enough ofyour disposition, myself, at your age, to understand a little of whatcocksure youth has to go through inside when it finds that it canmake terrible mistakes. Poor old fellow! You get both kinds of joltstogether, spiritual and material--and you've taken them pretty quietlyand--well, with my train coming into the shed, you'll forgive mefor saying that there have been times when I thought you ought to behanged--but I've always been fond of you, and now I like you! And justfor a last word: there may be somebody else in this town who's alwaysfelt about you like that--fond of you, I mean, no matter how much itseemed you ought to be hanged. You might try--Hello, I must run. I'llsend back the money as fast as they pay me--so, good-bye and God blessyou, Georgie!"

He passed through the gates, waved his hat cheerily from the other sideof the iron screen, and was lost from sight in the hurrying crowd. And as he disappeared, an unexpected poignant loneliness fell upon hisnephew so heavily and so suddenly that he had no energy to recoil fromthe shock. It seemed to him that the last fragment of his familiar worldhad disappeared, leaving him all alone forever. 

He walked homeward slowly through what appeared to be the strangestreets of a strange city; and, as a matter of fact, the city wasstrange to him. He had seen little of it during his years in college, and then had followed the long absence and his tragic return. Since thathe had been "scarcely outdoors at all, " as Fanny complained, warning himthat his health would suffer, and he had been downtown only in a closedcarriage. He had not realized the great change. 

The streets were thunderous; a vast energy heaved under the universalcoating of dinginess. George walked through the begrimed crowds ofhurrying strangers and saw no face that he remembered. Great numbersof the faces were even of a kind he did not remember ever to have seen;they were partly like the old type that his boyhood knew, and partlylike types he knew abroad. He saw German eyes with American wrinkles attheir corners; he saw Irish eyes and Neapolitan eyes, Roman eyes, Tuscan eyes, eyes of Lombardy, of Savoy, Hungarian eyes, Balkan eyes, Scandinavian eyes--all with a queer American look in them. He saw Jewswho had been German Jews, Jews who had been Russian Jews, Jews who hadbeen Polish Jews but were no longer German or Russian or Polish Jews. All the people were soiled by the smoke-mist through which they hurried, under the heavy sky that hung close upon the new skyscrapers; and nearlyall seemed harried by something impending, though here and there a womenwith bundles would be laughing to a companion about some adventure ofthe department stores, or perhaps an escape from the charging trafficof the streets--and not infrequently a girl, or a free-and-easy youngmatron, found time to throw an encouraging look to George. 

He took no note of these, and, leaving the crowded sidewalks, turnednorth into National Avenue, and presently reached the quieter but noless begrimed region of smaller shops and old-fashioned houses. Thoselatter had been the homes of his boyhood playmates; old friends of hisgrandfather had lived here;--in this alley he had fought with two boysat the same time, and whipped them; in that front yard he had beensuccessfully teased into temporary insanity by a. Sunday-school class ofpinky little girls. On that sagging porch a laughing woman had fedhim and other boys with doughnuts and gingerbread; yonder he saw thestaggered relics of the iron picket fence he had made his white ponyjump, on a dare, and in the shabby, stone-faced house behind the fencehe had gone to children's parties, and, when he was a little older hehad danced there often, and fallen in love with Mary Sharon, and kissedher, apparently by force, under the stairs in the hall. The double frontdoors, of meaninglessly carved walnut, once so glossily varnished, hadbeen painted smoke gray, but the smoke grime showed repulsively, even onthe smoke gray; and over the doors a smoked sign proclaimed the place tobe a "Stag Hotel. "

Other houses had become boarding-houses too genteel for signs, but manywere franker, some offering "board by the day, week or meal, " and some, more laconic, contenting themselves with the label: "Rooms. " One, having torn out part of an old stone-trimmed bay window for purposes ofcommercial display, showed forth two suspended petticoats and a pairof oyster-coloured flannel trousers to prove the claims of itsblack-and-gilt sign: "French Cleaning and Dye House. " Its next neighbouralso sported a remodelled front and permitted no doubt that its missionin life was to attend cosily upon death: "J. M. Rolsener. Caskets. The Funeral Home. " And beyond that, a plain old honest four-squaregray-painted brick house was flamboyantly decorated with a great giltscroll on the railing of the old-fashioned veranda: "Mutual Benev'tOrder Cavaliers and Dames of Purity. " This was the old Minafer house. 

George passed it without perceptibly wincing; in fact, he held his headup, and except for his gravity of countenance and the prison pallor hehad acquired by too constantly remaining indoors, there was little towarn an acquaintance that he was not precisely the same George AmbersonMinafer known aforetime. He was still so magnificent, indeed, that therecame to his ears a waft of comment from a passing automobile. This was afearsome red car, glittering in brass, with half-a-dozen young peoplein it whose motorism had reached an extreme manifestation in dress. Theladies of this party were favourably affected at sight of the pedestrianupon the sidewalk, and, as the machine was moving slowly, and close tothe curb, they had time to observe him in detail, which they did with afrankness not pleasing to the object of their attentions. "One sees somany nice-looking people one doesn't know nowadays, " said the youngestof the young ladies. "This old town of ours is really getting enormous. I shouldn't mind knowing who he is. "

"I don't know, " the youth beside her said, loudly enough to be heard ata considerable distance. "I don't know who he is, but from his looks Iknow who he thinks he is: he thinks he's the Grand Duke Cuthbert!" Therewas a burst of tittering as the car gathered speed and rolled away, withthe girl continuing to look back until her scandalized companions forcedher to turn by pulling her hood over her face. She made an impressionupon George, so deep a one, in fact, that he unconsciously put hisemotion into a muttered word:

Riffraff!

This was the last "walk home" he was ever to take by the route he wasnow following: up National Avenue to Amberson Addition and the two bigold houses at the foot of Amberson Boulevard; for tonight would be thelast night that he and Fanny were to spend in the house which the Majorhad forgotten to deed to Isabel. To-morrow they were to "move out, " andGeorge was to begin his work in Bronson's office. He had not come tothis collapse without a fierce struggle--but the struggle was inward, and the rolling world was not agitated by it, and rolled calmly on. For of all the "ideals of life" which the world, in its rolling, inconsiderately flattens out to nothingness, the least likely to retaina profile is that ideal which depends upon inheriting money. GeorgeAmberson, in spite of his record of failures in business, had spokenshrewdly when he realized at last that money, like life, was "likequicksilver in a nest of cracks. " And his nephew had the awakeningexperience of seeing the great Amberson Estate vanishing into sucha nest--in a twinkling, it seemed, now that it was indeed so utterlyvanished. 

His uncle had suggested that he might write to college friends; perhapsthey could help him to something better than the prospect offeredby Bronson's office; but George flushed and shook his head, withoutexplaining. In that small and quietly superior "crowd" of his he had tooemphatically supported the ideal of being rather than doing. He couldnot appeal to one of its members now to help him to a job. Besides, theywere not precisely the warmest-hearted crew in the world, and he hadlong ago dropped the last affectation of a correspondence with any ofthem. He was as aloof from any survival of intimacy with his boyhoodfriends in the city, and, in truth, had lost track of most of them. "TheFriends of the Ace, " once bound by oath to succour one another in perilor poverty, were long ago dispersed; one or two had died; one or twohad gone to live elsewhere; the others were disappeared into the smokybigness of the heavy city. Of the brethren, there remained withinhis present cognizance only his old enemy, the red-haired Kinney, nowmarried to Janie Sharon, and Charlie Johnson, who, out of deferenceto his mother's memory, had passed the Amberson Mansion one day, whenGeorge stood upon the front steps, and, looking in fiercely, had lookedaway with continued fierceness--his only token of recognition. 

On this last homeward walk of his, when George reached the entranceto Amberson Addition--that is, when he came to where the entrance hadformerly been--he gave a little start, and halted for a moment to stare. This was the first time he had noticed that the stone pillars, markingthe entrance, had been removed. Then he realized that for a long time hehad been conscious of a queerness about this corner without being awareof what made the difference. National Avenue met Amberson Boulevard hereat an obtuse angle, and the removal of the pillars made the Boulevardseem a cross-street of no overpowering importance--certainly it did notseem to be a boulevard!

At the next corner Neptune's Fountain remained, and one could stilldetermine with accuracy what its designer's intentions had been. Itstood in sore need of just one last kindness; and if the thing hadpossessed any friends they would have done that doleful shovelling afterdark. 

George did not let his eyes linger upon the relic; nor did he looksteadfastly at the Amberson Mansion. Massive as the old house was, itmanaged to look gaunt: its windows stared with the skull emptiness ofall windows in empty houses that are to be lived in no more. Of coursethe rowdy boys of the neighbourhood had been at work: many of thesehaggard windows were broken; the front door stood ajar, forced open; andidiot salacity, in white chalk, was smeared everywhere upon the pillarsand stonework of the verandas. 

George walked by the Mansion hurriedly, and came home to his mother'shouse for the last time. 

Emptiness was there, too, and the closing of the door resounded throughbare rooms; for downstairs there was no furniture in the house except akitchen table in the dining room, which Fanny had kept "for dinner, " shesaid, though as she was to cook and serve that meal herself George hadhis doubts about her name for it. Upstairs, she had retained her ownfurniture, and George had been living in his mother's room, having senteverything from his own to the auction. Isabel's room was still as ithad been, but the furniture would be moved with Fanny's to new quartersin the morning. Fanny had made plans for her nephew as well as herself;she had found a three-room "kitchenette apartment" in an apartment housewhere several old friends of hers had established themselves--elderlywidows of citizens once "prominent" and other retired gentry. Peopleused their own "kitchenettes" for breakfast and lunch, but there wasa table-d'hote arrangement for dinner on the ground floor; and afterdinner bridge was played all evening, an attraction powerful withFanny. She had "made all the arrangements, " she reported, and nervouslyappealed for approval, asking if she hadn't shown herself "prettypractical" in such matters. George acquiesced absent-mindedly, notthinking of what she said and not realizing to what it committed him. 

He began to realize it now, as he wandered about the dismantled house;he was far from sure that he was willing to go and live in a "three-roomapartment" with Fanny and eat breakfast and lunch with her (prepared byherself in the "kitchenette") and dinner at the table d'hote in "such apretty Colonial dining room" (so Fanny described it) at a little roundtable they would have all to themselves in the midst of a dozen littleround tables which other relics of disrupted families would have all tothemselves. For the first time, now that the change was imminent, Georgebegan to develop before his mind's eye pictures of what he was in for;and they appalled him. He decided that such a life verged upon thesheerly unbearable, and that after all there were some things left thathe just couldn't stand. So he made up his mind to speak to his auntabout it at "dinner, " and tell her that he preferred to ask Bronson tolet him put a sofa-bed, a trunk, and a folding rubber bathtub behind ascreen in the dark rear room of the office. George felt that thiswould be infinitely more tolerable; and he could eat at restaurants, especially as about all he ever wanted nowadays was coffee. 

But at "dinner" he decided to put off telling Fanny of his plan untillater: she was so nervous, and so distressed about the failure of herefforts with sweetbreads and macaroni; and she was so eager in her talkof how comfortable they would be "by this time to-morrow night. " Shefluttered on, her nervousness increasing, saying how "nice" it wouldbe for him, when he came from work in the evenings, to be among "nicepeople--people who know who we are, " and to have a pleasant game ofbridge with "people who are really old friends of the family?"

When they stopped probing among the scorched fragments she had setforth, George lingered downstairs, waiting for a better opportunity tointroduce his own subject, but when he heard dismaying sounds from thekitchen he gave up. There was a crash, then a shower of crashes; fallingtin clamoured to be heard above the shattering of porcelain; and overall rose Fanny's wail of lamentation for the treasures saved from thesale, but now lost forever to the "kitchenette. " Fanny was nervousindeed; so nervous that she could not trust her hands. 

For a moment George thought she might have been injured, but, before hereached the kitchen, he heard her sweeping at the fragments, and turnedback. He put off speaking to Fanny until morning. 

Things more insistent than his vague plans for a sofa-bed in Bronson'soffice had possession of his mind as he went upstairs, moving his handslowly along the smooth walnut railing of the balustrade. Half way tothe landing he stopped, turned, and stood looking down at the heavydoors masking the black emptiness that had been the library. Here hehad stood on what he now knew was the worst day of his life; here he hadstood when his mother passed through that doorway, hand-in-hand with herbrother, to learn what her son had done. 

He went on more heavily, more slowly; and, more heavily and slowlystill, entered Isabel's room and shut the door. He did not come forthagain, and bade Fanny good-night through the closed door when shestopped outside it later. 

"I've put all the lights out, George, " she said. "Everything's allright. "

"Very well, " he called. "Good-night. "

She did not go. "I'm sure we're going to enjoy the new little home, George, " she said timidly. "I'll try hard to make things nice for you, and the people really are lovely. You mustn't feel as if things arealtogether gloomy, George. I know everything's going to turn out allright. You're young and strong and you have a good mind and I'm sure--"she hesitated--"I'm sure your mother's watching over you, Georgie. Good-night, dear. "

"Good-night, Aunt Fanny. "

His voice had a strangled sound in spite of him; but she seemed not tonotice it, and he heard her go to her own room and lock herself in withbolt and key against burglars. She had said the one thing she shouldnot have said just then: "I'm sure your mother's watching over you, Georgie. " She had meant to be kind, but it destroyed his last chance forsleep that night. He would have slept little if she had not said it, butsince she had said it, he could not sleep at all. For he knew that itwas true--if it could be true--and that his mother, if she still livedin spirit, would be weeping on the other side of the wall of silence, weeping and seeking for some gate to let her through so that she couldcome and "watch over him. "

He felt that if there were such gates they were surely barred: theywere like those awful library doors downstairs, which had shut her in tobegin the suffering to which he had consigned her. 

The room was still Isabel's. Nothing had been changed: even thephotographs of George, of the Major, and of "brother George" still stoodon her dressing-table, and in a drawer of her desk was an old picture ofEugene and Lucy, taken together, which George had found, but had slowlyclosed away again from sight, not touching it. To-morrow everythingwould be gone; and he had heard there was not long to wait before thehouse itself would be demolished. The very space which tonight was stillIsabel's room would be cut into new shapes by new walls and floors andceilings; yet the room would always live, for it could not die out ofGeorge's memory. It would live as long as he did, and it would always bemurmurous with a tragic, wistful whispering. 

And if space itself can be haunted, as memory is haunted, then sometime, when the space that was Isabel's room came to be made into thesmall bedrooms and "kitchenettes" already designed as its destiny, thatspace might well be haunted and the new occupants come to feel that someseemingly causeless depression hung about it--a wraith of the passionthat filled it throughout the last night that George Minafer spentthere. 

Whatever remnants of the old high-handed arrogance were still withinhim, he did penance for his deepest sin that night--and it may be thatto this day some impressionable, overworked woman in a "kitchenette, "after turning out the light will seem to see a young man kneeling in thedarkness, shaking convulsively, and, with arms outstretched through thewall, clutching at the covers of a shadowy bed. It may seem to her thatshe hears the faint cry, over and over:

"Mother, forgive me! God, forgive me!"

Chapter XXXII

At least, it may be claimed for George that his last night in the housewhere he had been born was not occupied with his own dishearteningfuture, but with sorrow for what sacrifices his pride and youth haddemanded of others. And early in the morning he came downstairs andtried to help Fanny make coffee on the kitchen range. 

"There was something I wanted to say to you last night, Aunt Fanny, " hesaid, as she finally discovered that an amber fluid, more like tea thancoffee, was as near ready to be taken into the human system as it wouldever be. "I think I'd better do it now. "

She set the coffee-pot back upon the stove with a little crash, and, looking at him in a desperate anxiety, began to twist her dainty apronbetween her fingers without any consciousness of what she was doing. 

"Why--why--" she stammered; but she knew what he was going tosay, and that was why she had been more and more nervous. "Hadn't--perhaps--perhaps we'd better get the--the things moved to thelittle new home first, George. Let's--"

He interrupted quietly, though at her phrase, "the little new home, " hispungent impulse was to utter one loud shout and run. "It was about thisnew place that I wanted to speak. I've been thinking it over, and I'vedecided. I want you to take all the things from mother's room and usethem and keep them for me, and I'm sure the little apartment will bejust what you like; and with the extra bedroom probably you could findsome woman friend to come and live there, and share the expense withyou. But I've decided on another arrangement for myself, and so I'm notgoing with you. I don't suppose you'll mind much, and I don't see whyyou should mind--particularly, that is. I'm not very lively companythese days, or any days, for that matter. I can't imagine you, or anyone else, being much attached to me, so--"

He stopped in amazement: no chair had been left in the kitchen, butFanny gave a despairing glance around her, in search of one, then sankabruptly, and sat flat upon the floor. 

"You're going to leave me in the lurch!" she gasped. 

"What on earth--" George sprang to her. "Get up, Aunt Fanny!"

"I can't. I'm too weak. Let me alone, George!" And as he released thewrist he had seized to help her, she repeated the dismal prophecy whichfor days she had been matching against her hopes: "You're going to leaveme--in the lurch!"

"Why no, Aunt Fanny!" he protested. "At first I'd have been somethingof a burden on you. I'm to get eight dollars a week; about thirty-twoa month. The rent's thirty-six dollars a month, and the table-d'hotedinner runs up to over twenty-two dollars apiece, so with my half of therent--eighteen dollars--I'd have less than nothing left out of my salaryto pay my share of the groceries for all the breakfasts and luncheons. You see you'd not only be doing all the housework and cooking, but you'dbe paying more of the expenses than I would. "

She stared at him with such a forlorn blankness as he had never seen. "I'd be paying--" she said feebly. "I'd be paying--"

"Certainly you would. You'd be using more of your money than--"

"My money!" Fanny's chin drooped upon her thin chest, and she laughedmiserably. "I've got twenty-eight dollars. That's all. "

"You mean until the interest is due again?"

"I mean that's all, " Fanny said. "I mean that's all there is. Therewon't be any more interest because there isn't any principal. "

"Why, you told--"

She shook her head. "No, I haven't told you anything. "

"Then it was Uncle George. He told me you had enough to fall back on. That's just what he said: 'to fall back on. ' He said you'd lost morethan you should, in the headlight company, but he'd insisted that youshould hold out enough to live on, and you'd very wisely followed hisadvice. "

"I know, " she said weakly. "I told him so. He didn't know, or else he'dforgotten, how much Wilbur's insurance amounted to, and I--oh, it seemedsuch a sure way to make a real fortune out of a little--and I thought Icould do something for you, George, if you ever came to need it--and itall looked so bright I just thought I'd put it all in. I did--every centexcept my last interest payment--and it's gone. "

"Good Lord!" George began to pace up and down on the worn planks of thebare floor. "Why on earth did you wait till now to tell such a thing asthis?"

"I couldn't tell till I had to, " she said piteously. "I couldn't tillGeorge Amberson went away. He couldn't do anything to help, anyhow, andI just didn't want him to talk to me about it--he's been at me so muchabout not putting more in than I could afford to lose, and said heconsidered he had my--my word I wasn't putting more than that in it. SoI thought: What was the use? What was the use of going over it allwith him and having him reproach me, and probably reproach himself?It wouldn't do any good--not any good on earth. " She got out her lacehandkerchief and began to cry. "Nothing does any good, I guess, in thisold world. Oh, how tired of this old world I am! I didn't know what todo. I just tried to go ahead and be as practical as I could, and arrangesome way for us to live. Oh, I knew you didn't want me, George! Youalways teased me and berated me whenever you had a chance from the timeyou were a little boy--you did so! Later, you've tried to be kinder tome, but you don't want me around--oh, I can see that much! You don'tsuppose I want to thrust myself on you, do you? It isn't very pleasantto be thrusting yourself on a person you know doesn't want you--but Iknew you oughtn't to be left all alone in the world; it isn't good. Iknew your mother'd want me to watch over you and try to have somethinglike a home for you--I know she'd want me to do what I tried to do!"Fanny's tears were bitter now, and her voice, hoarse and wet, wastragically sincere. "I tried--I tried to be practical--to look afteryour interests--to make things as nice for you as I could--I walked myheels down looking for a place for us to live--I walked and walked overthis town--I didn't ride one block on a street-car--I wouldn't use fivecents no matter how tired I--Oh!" She sobbed uncontrollably. "Oh! andnow--you don't want--you want--you want to leave me in the lurch! You--"

George stopped walking. "In God's name, Aunt Fanny, " he said, "quitspreading out your handkerchief and drying it and then getting it allwet again! I mean stop crying! Do! And for heaven's sake, get up. Don'tsit there with your back against the boiler and--"

"It's not hot, " Fanny sniffled. "It's cold; the plumbers disconnectedit. I wouldn't mind if they hadn't. I wouldn't mind if it burned me, George. "

"Oh, my Lord!" He went to her, and lifted her. "For God's sake, get up!Come, let's take the coffee into the other room, and see what's to bedone. "

He got her to her feet; she leaned upon him, already somewhat comforted, and, with his arm about her, he conducted her to the dining room andseated her in one of the two kitchen chairs which had been placed atthe rough table. "There!" he said, "get over it!" Then he brought thecoffee-pot, some lumps of sugar in a tin pan, and, finding that all thecoffee-cups were broken, set water glasses upon the table, and pouredsome of the pale coffee into them. By this time Fanny's spirits hadrevived appreciably: she looked up with a plaintive eagerness. "I hadbought all my fall clothes, George, " she said; "and I paid every bill Iowed. I don't owe a cent for clothes, George. "

"That's good, " he said wanly, and he had a moment of physical dizzinessthat decided him to sit down quickly. For an instant it seemed to himthat he was not Fanny's nephew, but married to her. He passed his palehand over his paler forehead. "Well, let's see where we stand, " he saidfeebly. "Let's see if we can afford this place you've selected. "

Fanny continued to brighten. "I'm sure it's the most practical plan wecould possibly have worked out, George--and it is a comfort to be amongnice people. I think we'll both enjoy it, because the truth is we'vebeen keeping too much to ourselves for a long while. It isn't good forpeople. "

"I was thinking about the money, Aunt Fanny. You see--"

"I'm sure we can manage it, " she interrupted quickly. "There reallyisn't a cheaper place in town that we could actually live in and be--"Here she interrupted herself. "Oh! There's one great economy I forgot totell you, and it's especially an economy for you, because you're alwaystoo generous about such things: they don't allow any tipping. They havesigns that prohibit it. "

"That's good, " he said grimly. "But the rent is thirty-six dollars amonth; the dinner is twenty-two and a half for each of us, and we've gotto have some provision for other food. We won't need any clothes for ayear, perhaps--"

"Oh, longer!" she exclaimed. "So you see--"

"I see that forty-five and thirty-six make eighty-one, " he said. "Atthe lowest, we need a hundred dollars a month--and I'm going to makethirty-two. "

"I thought of that, George, " she said confidently, "and I'm sure it willbe all right. You'll be earning a great deal more than that very soon. "

"I don't see any prospect of it--not till I'm admitted to the bar, andthat will be two years at the earliest. "

Fanny's confidence was not shaken. "I know you'll be getting on fasterthan--"

"Faster?" George echoed gravely. "We've got to have more than that tostart with. "

"Well, there's the six hundred dollars from the sale. Six hundred andtwelve dollars it was. "

"It isn't six hundred and twelve now, " said George. "It's about onehundred and sixty. "

Fanny showed a momentary dismay. "Why, how--"

"I lent Uncle George two hundred; I gave fifty apiece to old Sam andthose two other old darkies that worked for grandfather so long, and tento each of the servants here--"

"And you gave me thirty-six, " she said thoughtfully, "for the firstmonth's rent, in advance. "

"Did I? I'd forgotten. Well, with about a hundred and sixty in bank andour expenses a hundred a month, it doesn't seem as if this new place--"

"Still, " she interrupted, "we have paid the first month's rent inadvance, and it does seem to be the most practical--"

George rose. "See here, Aunt Fanny, " he said decisively. "You stay hereand look after the moving. Old Frank doesn't expect me until afternoon, this first day, but I'll go and see him now. "

It was early, and old Frank, just established at his big, flat-toppeddesk, was surprised when his prospective assistant and pupil walkedin. He was pleased, as well as surprised, however, and rose, offeringa cordial old hand. "The real flare!" he said. "The real flare for thelaw. That's right! Couldn't wait till afternoon to begin! I'm delightedthat you--"

"I wanted to say--" George began, but his patron cut him off. 

"Wait just a minute, my boy. I've prepared a little speech of welcome, and even though you're five hours ahead of time, I mean to deliverit. First of all, your grandfather was my old war-comrade and my bestclient; for years I prospered through my connection with his business, and his grandson is welcome in my office and to my best efforts in hisbehalf. But I want to confess, Georgie, that during your earlier youth Imay have had some slight feeling of--well, prejudice, not altogether inyour favour; but whatever slight feeling it was, it began to vanish onthat afternoon, a good while ago, when you stood up to your Aunt AmeliaAmberson as you did in the Major's library, and talked to her as a manand a gentleman should. I saw then what good stuff was in you--and Ialways wanted to mention it. If my prejudice hadn't altogether vanishedafter that, the last vestiges disappeared during these trying times thathave come upon you this past year, when I have been a witness to thedepth of feeling you've shown and your quiet consideration for yourgrandfather and for everyone else around you. I just want to add that Ithink you'll find an honest pleasure now in industry and frugalitythat wouldn't have come to you in a more frivolous career. The law is ajealous mistress and a stern mistress, but a--"

George had stood before him in great and increasing embarrassment; andhe was unable to allow the address to proceed to its conclusion. 

"I can't do it!" he burst out. "I can't take her for my mistress. "

"What?"

"I've come to tell you, I've got to find something that's quicker. Ican't--"

Old Frank got a little red. "Let's sit down, " he said. "What's thetrouble?"

George told him. 

The old gentleman listened sympathetically, only murmuring: "Well, well!" from time to time, and nodding acquiescence. 

"You see she's set her mind on this apartment, " George explained. "She'sgot some old cronies there, and I guess she's been looking forward tothe games of bridge and the kind of harmless gossip that goes on in suchplaces. Really, it's a life she'd like better than anything else--betterthan that she's lived at home, I really believe. It struck me she'sjust about got to have it, and after all she could hardly have anythingless. "

"This comes pretty heavily upon me, you know, " said old Frank. "I gother into that headlight company, and she fooled me about her resourcesas much as she did your Uncle George. I was never your father's adviser, if you remember, and when the insurance was turned over to her someother lawyer arranged it--probably your father's. But it comes prettyheavily on me, and I feel a certain responsibility. "

"Not at all. I'm taking the responsibility. "

And George smiled with one corner of his mouth. "She's not your aunt, you know, sir. "

"Well, I'm unable to see, even if she's yours, that a young man ismorally called upon to give up a career at the law to provide his auntwith a favourable opportunity to play bridge whist!"

"No, " George agreed. "But I haven't begun my 'career at the law' so itcan't be said I'm making any considerable sacrifice. I'll tell you howit is, sir. " He flushed, and, looking out of the streaked and smokywindow beside which he was sitting, spoke with difficulty. "I feel asif--as if perhaps I had one or two pretty important things in my lifeto make up for. Well, I can't. I can't make them up to--to whom Iwould. It's struck me that, as I couldn't, I might be a little decentto somebody else, perhaps--if I could manage it! I never have beenparticularly decent to poor old Aunt Fanny. "

"Oh, I don't know: I shouldn't say that. A little youthful teasing--Idoubt if she's minded so much. She felt your father's deathterrifically, of course, but it seems to me she's had a fairlycomfortable life-up to now--if she was disposed to take it that way. "

"But 'up to now' is the important thing, " George said. "Now is now--andyou see I can't wait two years to be admitted to the bar and begin topractice. I've got to start in at something else that pays from thestart, and that's what I've come to you about. I have an idea, you see. "

"Well, I'm glad of that!" said old Frank, smiling. "I can't think ofanything just at this minute that pays from the start. "

"I only know of one thing, myself. "

"What is it?"

George flushed again, but managed to laugh at his own embarrassment. "Isuppose I'm about as ignorant of business as anybody in the world, " hesaid. "But I've heard they pay very high wages to people in dangeroustrades; I've always heard they did, and I'm sure it must be true. I meanpeople that handle touchy chemicals or high explosives--men in dynamitefactories, or who take things of that sort about the country in wagons, and shoot oil wells. I thought I'd see if you couldn't tell me somethingmore about it, or else introduce me to someone who could, and then Ithought I'd see if I couldn't get something of the kind to do as soon aspossible. My nerves are good; I'm muscular, and I've got a steady hand;it seemed to me that this was about the only line of work in the worldthat I'm fitted for. I wanted to get started to-day if I could. "

Old Frank gave him a long stare. At first this scrutiny was sharplyincredulous; then it was grave; finally it developed into a threat ofoverwhelming laughter; a forked vein in his forehead became more visibleand his eyes seemed about to protrude. 

But he controlled his impulse; and, rising, took up his hat andovercoat. "All right, " he said. "If you'll promise not to get blown up, I'll go with you to see if we can find the job. " Then, meaning what hesaid, but amazed that he did mean it, he added: "You certainly are themost practical young man I ever met!"

Chapter XXXIII

They found the job. It needed an apprenticeship of only six weeks, during which period George was to receive fifteen dollars a week; afterthat he would get twenty-eight. This settled the apartment question, andFanny was presently established in a greater contentment than she hadknown for a long time. Early every morning she made something she called(and believed to be) coffee for George, and he was gallant enough notto undeceive her. She lunched alone in her "kitchenette, " for George'splace of employment was ten miles out of town on an interurbantrolley-line, and he seldom returned before seven. Fanny found partnersfor bridge by two o'clock almost every afternoon, and she played untilabout six. Then she got George's "dinner clothes" out for him--hemaintained this habit--and she changed her own dress. When he arrivedhe usually denied that he was tired, though he sometimes looked tired, particularly during the first few months; and he explained to herfrequently--looking bored enough with her insistence--that his work was"fairly light, and fairly congenial, too. " Fanny had the foggiest ideaof what it was, though she noticed that it roughened his hands andstained them. "Something in those new chemical works, " she explained tocasual inquirers. It was not more definite in her own mind. 

Respect for George undoubtedly increased within her, however, andshe told him she'd always had a feeling he might "turn out to be amechanical genius, or something. " George assented with a nod, as theeasiest course open to him. He did not take a hand at bridge afterdinner: his provisions' for Fanny's happiness refused to extend thatfar, and at the table d'hote he was a rather discouraging boarder. Hewas considered "affected" and absurdly "up-stage" by the one or twoyoung men, and the three or four young women, who enlivened the elderlyretreat; and was possibly less popular there than he had been elsewhereduring his life, though he was now nothing worse than a coldly politeyoung man who kept to himself. After dinner he would escort his auntfrom the table in some state (not wholly unaccompanied by a leerish winkor two from the wags of the place) and he would leave her at the doorof the communal parlours and card rooms, with a formality in his bow offarewell which afforded an amusing contrast to Fanny's always volubleprotests. (She never failed to urge loudly that he really must come andplay, just this once, and not go hiding from everybody in his room everyevening like this!) At least some of the other inhabitants found thecontrast amusing, for sometimes, as he departed stiffly toward theelevator, leaving her still entreating in the doorway (though with oneeye already on her table, to see that it was not seized) a titter wouldfollow him which he was no doubt meant to hear. He did not care whetherthey laughed or not. 

And once, as he passed the one or two young men of the placeentertaining the three or four young women, who were elbowing andjerking on a settee in the lobby, he heard a voice inquiring quickly, ashe passed:

"What makes people tired?"

"Work?"

"No. "

"Well, what's the answer?"

Then, with an intentional outbreak of mirth, the answer was given by twoloudly whispering voices together:

"A stuck-up boarder!"

George didn't care. 

On Sunday mornings Fanny went to church and George took long walks. Heexplored the new city, and found it hideous, especially in the earlyspring, before the leaves of the shade trees were out. Then the town wasfagged with the long winter and blacked with the heavier smoke that hadbeen held close to the earth by the smoke-fog it bred. Every-thing wasdamply streaked with the soot: the walls of the houses, inside and out, the gray curtains at the windows, the windows themselves, the dirtycement and unswept asphalt underfoot, the very sky overhead. Throughoutthis murky season he continued his explorations, never seeing a face heknew--for, on Sunday, those whom he remembered, or who might rememberhim, were not apt to be found within the limits of the town, but werecongenially occupied with the new outdoor life which had come to be themode since his boyhood. He and Fanny were pretty thoroughly buried awaywithin the bigness of the city. 

One of his Sunday walks, that spring, he made into a sour pilgrimage. It was a misty morning of belated snow slush, and suited him to aperfection of miserableness, as he stood before the great drippingdepartment store which now occupied the big plot of ground where oncehad stood both the Amberson Hotel and the Amberson Opera House. Fromthere he drifted to the old "Amberson Block, " but this was fallen into aback-water; business had stagnated here. The old structure had notbeen replaced, but a cavernous entryway for trucks had been torn in itsfront, and upon the cornice, where the old separate metal lettershad spelt "Amberson Block, " there was a long billboard sign: "DooganStorage. "

To spare himself nothing, he went out National Avenue and saw the pilesof slush-covered wreckage where the Mansion and his mother's house hadbeen, and where the Major's ill-fated five "new" houses had stood; forthese were down, too, to make room for the great tenement already shapedin unending lines of foundation. But the Fountain of Neptune was gone atlast--and George was glad that it was!

He turned away from the devastated site, thinking bitterly that theonly Amberson mark still left upon the town was the name of theboulevard--Amberson Boulevard. But he had reckoned without the citycouncil of the new order, and by an unpleasant coincidence, while thethought was still in his mind, his eye fell upon a metal oblong signupon the lamppost at the corner. There were two of these little signsupon the lamp-post, at an obtuse angle to each other, one to givepassers-by the name of National Avenue, the other to acquaint them withAmberson Boulevard. But the one upon which should have been stenciled"Amberson Boulevard" exhibited the words "Tenth Street. "

George stared at it hard. Then he walked quickly along the boulevard tothe next corner and looked at the little sign there. "Tenth Street. "

It had begun to rain, but George stood unheeding, staring at the littlesign. "Damn them!" he said finally, and, turning up his coat-collar, plodded back through the soggy streets toward "home. "

The utilitarian impudence of the city authorities put a thought into hismind. A week earlier he had happened to stroll into the large parlourof the apartment house, finding it empty, and on the center table henoticed a large, red-bound, gilt-edged book, newly printed, bearingthe title: "A Civic History, " and beneath the title, the rubric, "Biographies of the 500 Most Prominent Citizens and Families in theHistory of the City. " He had glanced at it absently, merely noticingthe title and sub-title, and wandered out of the room, thinking of otherthings and feeling no curiosity about the book. But he had thought ofit several times since with a faint, vague uneasiness; and now when heentered the lobby he walked directly into the parlour where he had seenthe book. The room was empty, as it always was on Sunday mornings, andthe flamboyant volume was still upon the table--evidently a fixture asa sort of local Almanach de Gotha, or Burke, for the enlightenment oftenants and boarders. 

He opened it, finding a few painful steel engravings of placid, chin-bearded faces, some of which he remembered dimly; but much morenumerous, and also more unfamiliar to him, were the pictures ofneat, aggressive men, with clipped short hair and clipped shortmoustaches--almost all of them strangers to him. He delayed not longwith these, but turned to the index where the names of the five hundredMost Prominent Citizens and Families in the History of the City werearranged in alphabetical order, and ran his finger down the column ofA's:

Abbett Abbott Abrams Adam Adams Adler Akers Albertsmeyer AlexanderAllen Ambrose Ambuhl Anderson Andrews Appenbasch Archer Arszman AshcraftAustin Avey

George's eyes remained for some time fixed on the thin space between thenames "Allen" and "Ambrose. " Then he closed the book quietly, and wentup to his own room, agreeing with the elevator boy, on the way, that itwas getting to be a mighty nasty wet and windy day outside. 

The elevator boy noticed nothing unusual about him and neither didFanny, when she came in from church with her hat ruined, an hour later. And yet something had happened--a thing which, years ago, had been theeagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. They had thoughtof it, longed for it, hoping acutely that they might live to see theday when it would come to pass. And now it had happened at last: GeorgieMinafer had got his come-upance. 

He had got it three times filled and running over. The city had rolledover his heart, burying it under, as it rolled over the Major's andburied it under. The city had rolled over the Ambersons and buried themunder to the last vestige; and it mattered little that George guessedeasily enough that most of the five hundred Most Prominent had paidsomething substantial "to defray the cost of steel engraving, etc. "--theFive Hundred had heaved the final shovelful of soot upon that heapof obscurity wherein the Ambersons were lost forever from sight andhistory. "Quicksilver in a nest of cracks!"

Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance, but the people who had solonged for it were not there to see it, and they never knew it. Thosewho were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him. 

Chapter XXXIV

There was one border section of the city which George never explored inhis Sunday morning excursions. This was far out to the north where laythe new Elysian Fields of the millionaires, though he once went as farin that direction as the white house which Lucy had so admired longago--her "Beautiful House. " George looked at it briefly and turned back, rumbling with an interior laugh of some grimness. The house was white nolonger; nothing could be white which the town had reached, and the townreached far beyond the beautiful white house now. The owners had givenup and painted it a despairing chocolate, suitable to the freight-yardlife it was called upon to endure. 

George did not again risk going even so far as that, in the directionof the millionaires, although their settlement began at least two milesfarther out. His thought of Lucy and her father was more a sensationthan a thought, and may be compared to that of a convicted cashier besetby recollections of the bank he had pillaged--there are some thoughts towhich one closes the mind. George had seen Eugene only once since theircalamitous encounter. They had passed on opposite sides of the street, downtown; each had been aware of the other, and each had been aware thatthe other was aware of him, and yet each kept his eyes straight forward, and neither had shown a perceptible alteration of countenance. It seemedto George that he felt emanating from the outwardly imperturbable personof his mother's old friend a hate that was like a hot wind. 

At his mother's funeral and at the Major's he had been conscious thatEugene was there: though he had afterward no recollection of seeing him, and, while certain of his presence, was uncertain how he knew of it. Fanny had not told him, for she understood George well enough not tospeak to him of Eugene or Lucy. Nowadays Fanny almost never saw eitherof them and seldom thought of them--so sly is the way of time with life. She was passing middle age, when old intensities and longings grow thinand flatten out, as Fanny herself was thinning and flattening out; andshe was settling down contentedly to her apartment house intimacies. She was precisely suited by the table-d'hote life, with its bridge, its variable alliances and shifting feuds, and the long whisperingsof elderly ladies at corridor corners--those eager but suppressedconversations, all sibilance, of which the elevator boy declared heheard the words "she said" a million times and the word "she, " fivemillion. The apartment house suited Fanny and swallowed her. 

The city was so big, now, that people disappeared into it unnoticed, andthe disappearance of Fanny and her nephew was not exceptional. People nolonger knew their neighbours as a matter of course; one lived for yearsnext door to strangers--that sharpest of all the changes since the olddays--and a friend would lose sight of a friend for a year, and not knowit. 

One May day George thought he had a glimpse of Lucy. He was not certain, but he was sufficiently disturbed, in spite of his uncertainty. Apromotion in his work now frequently took him out of town for a week, or longer, and it was upon his return from one of these absences that hehad the strange experience. He had walked home from the station, and ashe turned the corner which brought him in sight of the apartment houseentrance, though two blocks distant from it, he saw a charming littlefigure come out, get into a shiny landaulet automobile, and drive away. Even at that distance no one could have any doubt that the little figurewas charming; and the height, the quickness and decision of motion, even the swift gesture of a white glove toward the chauffeur--all werecharacteristic of Lucy. George was instantly subjected to a shock ofindefinable nature, yet definitely a shock: he did not know what hefelt--but he knew that he felt. Heat surged over him: probably hewould not have come face to face with her if the restoration of all theancient Amberson magnificence could have been his reward. He went onslowly, his knees shaky. 

But he found Fanny not at home; she had been out all afternoon; andthere was no record of any caller--and he began to wonder, then to doubtif the small lady he had seen in the distance was Lucy. It might as wellhave been, he said to himself--since any one who looked like her couldgive him "a jolt like that!"

Lucy had not left a card. She never left one when she called on Fanny;though she did not give her reasons a quite definite form in her ownmind. She came seldom; this was but the third time that year, and, when she did come, George was not mentioned either by her hostess or byherself--an oddity contrived between the two ladies without either ofthem realizing how odd it was. For, naturally, while Fanny was withLucy, Fanny thought of George, and what time Lucy had George'saunt before her eyes she could not well avoid the thought of him. Consequently, both looked absent-minded as they talked, and each oftengave a wrong answer which the other consistently failed to notice. 

At other times Lucy's thoughts of George were anything but continuous, and weeks went by when he was not consciously in her mind at all. Herlife was a busy one: she had the big house "to keep up"; she had agarden to keep up, too, a large and beautiful garden; she representedher father as a director for half a dozen public charity organizations, and did private charity work of her own, being a proxy mother of severallarge families; and she had "danced down, " as she said, groups fromeight or nine classes of new graduates returned from the universities, without marrying any of them, but she still danced--and still did notmarry. 

Her father, observing this circumstance happily, yet with somehypocritical concern, spoke of it to her one day as they stood in hergarden. "I suppose I'd want to shoot him, " he said, with attemptedlightness. "But I mustn't be an old pig. I'd build you a beautiful houseclose by--just over yonder. "

"No, no! That would be like--" she began impulsively; then checkedherself. George Amberson's comparison of the Georgian house to theAmberson Mansion had come into her mind, and she thought that anothernew house, built close by for her, would be like the house the Majorbuilt for Isabel. 

"Like what?"

"Nothing. " She looked serious, and when he reverted to his idea of "someday" grudgingly surrendering her up to a suitor, she invented a legend. "Did you ever hear the Indian name for that little grove of beech treeson the other side of the house?" she asked him. 

"No--and you never did either!" he laughed. 

"Don't be so sure! I read a great deal more than I used to--gettingready for my bookish days when I'll have to do something solid in theevenings and won't be asked to dance any more, even by the very youngestboys who think it's a sporting event to dance with the oldest of the'older girls'. The name of the grove was 'Loma-Nashah' and it means'They-Couldn't-Help-It'. "

"Doesn't sound like it. "

"Indian names don't. There was a bad Indian chief lived in the grovebefore the white settlers came. He was the worst Indian thatever lived, and his name was--it was 'Vendonah. ' That means'Rides-Down-Everything'. "

"What?"

"His name was Vendonah, the same thing as Rides-Down-Everything. "

"I see, " said Eugene thoughtfully. He gave her a quick look and thenfixed his eyes upon the end of the garden path. "Go on. "

"Vendonah was an unspeakable case, " Lucy continued. "He was so proudthat he wore iron shoes and he walked over people's faces with them. He was always killing people that way, and so at last the tribe decidedthat it wasn't a good enough excuse for him that he was young andinexperienced--he'd have to go. They took him down to the river, and puthim in a canoe, and pushed him out from shore; and then they ran alongthe bank and wouldn't let him land, until at last the current carriedthe canoe out into the middle, and then on down to the ocean, and henever got back. They didn't want him back, of course, and if he'd beenable to manage it, they'd have put him in another canoe and shoved himout into the river again. But still, they didn't elect another chief inhis place. Other tribes thought that was curious, and wondered aboutit a lot, but finally they came to the conclusion that the beech grovepeople were afraid a new chief might turn out to be a bad Indian, too, and wear iron shoes like Vendonah. But they were wrong, because the realreason was that the tribe had led such an exciting life under Vendonahthat they couldn't settle down to anything tamer. He was awful, but healways kept things happening--terrible things, of course. They batedhim, but they weren't able to discover any other warrior that theywanted to make chief in his place. I suppose it was a little likedrinking a glass of too strong wine and then trying to take the tasteout of your mouth with barley water. They couldn't help feeling thatway. "

"I see, " said Eugene. "So that's why they named the place'They-Couldn't-Help-It'!"

"It must have been. "

"And so you're going to stay here in your garden, " he said musingly. "You think it's better to keep on walking these sunshiny gravel pathsbetween your flower-beds, and growing to look like a pensive garden ladyin a Victorian engraving. "

"I suppose I'm like the tribe that lived here, papa. I had too muchunpleasant excitement. It was unpleasant--but it was excitement. I don'twant any more; in fact, I don't want anything but you. "

"You don't?" He looked at her keenly, and she laughed and shook herhead; but he seemed perplexed, rather doubtful. "What was the name ofthe grove?" he asked. "The Indian name, I mean. "

"Mola-Haha. "

"No, it wasn't; that wasn't the name you said. "

"I've forgotten. "

"I see you have, " he said, his look of perplexity remaining. "Perhapsyou remember the chief's name better. "

She shook her head again. "I don't!"

At this he laughed, but not very heartily, and walked slowly to thehouse, leaving her bending over a rose-bush, and a shade more pensivethan the most pensive garden lady in any Victorian engraving. 

. .. Next day, it happened that this same "Vendonah" or"Rides-Down-Everything" became the subject of a chance conversationbetween Eugene and his old friend Kinney, father of the fire-toppedFred. The two gentlemen found themselves smoking in neighbouring leatherchairs beside a broad window at the club, after lunch. 

Mr. Kinney had remarked that he expected to get his family establishedat the seashore by the Fourth of July, and, following a train ofthought, he paused and chuckled. "Fourth of July reminds me, " he said. "Have you heard what that Georgie Minafer is doing?"

"No, I haven't, " said Eugene, and his friend failed to notice thecrispness of the utterance. 

"Well, sir, " Kinney chuckled again, "it beats the devil! My boy Fredtold me about it yesterday. He's a friend of this young Henry Akers, sonof F. P. Akers of the Akers Chemical Company. It seems this young Akersasked Fred if he knew a fellow named Minafer, because he knew Fred hadalways lived here, and young Akers had heard some way that Minafer usedto be an old family name here, and was sort of curious about it. Well, sir, you remember this young Georgie sort of disappeared, after hisgrandfather's death, and nobody seemed to know much what had becomeof him--though I did hear, once or twice, that he was still aroundsomewhere. Well, sir, he's working for the Akers Chemical Company, outat their plant on the Thomasvile Road. "

He paused, seeming to reserve something to be delivered only uponinquiry, and Eugene offered him the expected question, but only after acold glance through the nose-glasses he had lately found it necessary toadopt. "What does he do?"

Kinney laughed and slapped the arm of his chair. 

"He's a nitroglycerin expert!"

He was gratified to see that Eugene was surprised, if not, indeed, alittle startled. 

"He's what?"

"He's an expert on nitroglycerin. Doesn't that beat the devil! Yes, sir! Young Akers told Fred that this George Minafer had worked likea houn'-dog ever since he got started out at the works. They havea special plant for nitroglycerin, way off from the main plant, o'course--in the woods somewhere--and George Minafer's been working there, and lately they put him in charge of it. He oversees shooting oil-wells, too, and shoots 'em himself, sometimes. They aren't allowed to carryit on the railroads, you know--have to team it. Young Akers says Georgerides around over the bumpy roads, sitting on as much as three hundredquarts of nitroglycerin! My Lord! Talk about romantic tumbles! If hegets blown sky-high some day he won't have a bigger drop, when he comesdown, than he's already had! Don't it beat the devil! Young Akers saidhe's got all the nerve there is in the world. Well, he always did haveplenty of that--from the time he used to ride around here on his whitepony and fight all the Irish boys in Can-Town, with his long curls allhandy to be pulled out. Akers says he gets a fair salary, and I shouldthink he ought to! Seems to me I've heard the average life in thatsort of work is somewhere around four years, and agents don't write anyinsurance at all for nitroglycerin experts. Hardly!"

"No, " said Eugene. "I suppose not. "

Kinney rose to go. "Well, it's a pretty funny thing--pretty odd, Imean--and I suppose it would be pass-around-the-hat for old FannyMinafer if he blew up. Fred told me that they're living in someapartment house, and said Georgie supports her. He was going to studylaw, but couldn't earn enough that way to take care of Fanny, so he gaveit up. Fred's wife told him all this. Says Fanny doesn't do anything butplay bridge these days. Got to playing too high for awhile and lost morethan she wanted to tell Georgie about, and borrowed a little from oldFrank Bronson. Paid him back, though. Don't know how Fred's wife heardit. Women do' hear the darndest things!"

"They do, " Eugene agreed. 

"I thought you'd probably heard about it--thought most likely Fred'swife might have said something to your daughter, especially as they'recousins. "

"I think not. "

"Well, I'm off to the store, " said Mr. Kinney briskly; yet he lingered. "I suppose we'll all have to club in and keep old Fanny out of thepoorhouse if he does blow up. From all I hear it's usually only aquestion of time. They say she hasn't got anything else to depend on. "

"I suppose not. "

"Well--I wondered--" Kinney hesitated. "I was wondering why you hadn'tthought of finding something around your works for him. They say he'san all-fired worker and he certainly does seem to have hid some decentstuff in him under all his damfoolishness. And you used to be such atremendous friend of the family--I thought perhaps you--of course I knowhe's a queer lot--I know--"

"Yes, I think he is, " said Eugene. "No. I haven't anything to offerhim. "

"I suppose not, " Kinney returned thoughtfully, as he went out. "I don'tknow that I would myself. Well, we'll probably see his name in thepapers some day if he stays with that job!"

However, the nitroglycerin expert of whom they spoke did not get intothe papers as a consequence of being blown up, although his daily lifewas certainly a continuous exposure to that risk. Destiny has a constantpassion for the incongruous, and it was George's lot to manipulatewholesale quantities of terrific and volatile explosives in safety, andto be laid low by an accident so commonplace and inconsequent that itwas a comedy. Fate had reserved for him the final insult of riding himdown under the wheels of one of those juggernauts at which he had onceshouted "Git a hoss!" Nevertheless, Fate's ironic choice for Georgie'sundoing was not a big and swift and momentous car, such as Eugenemanufactured; it was a specimen of the hustling little type that wasflooding the country, the cheapest, commonest, hardiest little car evermade. 

The accident took place upon a Sunday morning, on a downtown crossing, with the streets almost empty, and no reason in the world for such athing to happen. He had gone out for his Sunday morning walk, and he wasthinking of an automobile at the very moment when the little car struckhim; he was thinking of a shiny landaulet and a charming figure steppinginto it, and of the quick gesture of a white glove toward the chauffeur, motioning him to go on. George heard a shout but did not look up, for hecould not imagine anybody's shouting at him, and he was too engrossedin the question "Was it Lucy?" He could not decide, and his lack ofdecision in this matter probably superinduced a lack of decision inanother, more pressingly vital. At the second and louder shout he didlook up; and the car was almost on him; but he could not make up hismind if the charming little figure he had seen was Lucy's and he couldnot make up his mind whether to go backward or forward: these questionsbecame entangled in his mind. Then, still not being able to decide whichof two ways to go, he tried to go both--and the little car ran him down. It was not moving very rapidly, but it went all the way over George. 

He was conscious of gigantic violence; of roaring and jolting andconcussion; of choking clouds of dust, shot with lightning, about hishead; he heard snapping sounds as loud as shots from a small pistol, andwas stabbed by excruciating pains in his legs. Then he became awarethat the machine was being lifted off of him. People were gathering in acircle round him, gabbling. 

His forehead was bedewed with the sweat of anguish, and he tried to wipeoff this dampness, but failed. He could not get his arm that far. 

"Nev' mind, " a policeman said; and George could see above his eyes theskirts of the blue coat, covered with dust and sunshine. "Amb'lance behere in a minute. Nev' mind tryin' to move any. You want 'em to send forsome special doctor?"

"No. " George's lips formed the word. 

"Or to take you to some private hospital?"

"Tell them to take me, " he said faintly, "to the City Hospital. "

"A' right. "

A smallish young man in a duster fidgeted among the crowd, explainingand protesting, and a strident voiced girl, his companion, supported hisargument, declaring to everyone her willingness to offer testimony inany court of law that every blessed word he said was the God's truth. 

"It's the fella that hit you, " the policeman said, looking down onGeorge. "I guess he's right; you must of been thinkin' about somep'm'or other. It's wunnerful the damage them little machines can do--you'dnever think it--but I guess they ain't much case ag'in this fella thatwas drivin' it. "

"You bet your life they ain't no case on me!" the young man in theduster agreed, with great bitterness. He came and stood at George'sfeet, addressing him heatedly: "I'm sorry fer you all right, and I don'tsay I ain't. I hold nothin' against you, but it wasn't any more my faultthan the statehouse! You run into me, much as I run into you, and if youget well you ain't goin' to get not one single cent out o' me! This ladyhere was settin' with me and we both yelled at you. Wasn't goin' a stepover eight mile an hour! I'm perfectly willing to say I'm sorry for youthough, and so's the lady with me. We're both willing to say that much, but that's all, understand!"

George's drawn eyelids twitched; his misted glance rested fleetinglyupon the two protesting motorists, and the old imperious spirit withinhim flickered up in a single word. Lying on his back in the middle ofthe street, where he was regarded an increasing public as an unpleasantcuriosity, he spoke this word clearly from a mouth filled with dust, andfrom lips smeared with blood. 

It was a word which interested the policeman. When the ambulance clangedaway, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him. "Funny whathe says to the little cuss that done the damage. That's all he did callhim--'nothin' else at all--and the cuss had broke both his legs fer himand God-knows-what-all!"

"I wasn't here then. What was it?"

"Riffraff!"

Chapter XXXV

Eugene's feeling about George had not been altered by his talk withKinney in the club window, though he was somewhat disturbed. He was notdisturbed by Kinney's hint that Fanny Minafer might be left on the handsof her friends through her nephew's present dealings with nitroglycerin, but he was surprised that Kinney had "led up" with intentional tact tothe suggestion that a position might be made for George in the Morganfactory. Eugene did not care to have any suggestions about GeorgieMinafer made to him. Kinney had represented Georgie as a new Georgie--atleast in spots--a Georgie who was proving that decent stuff had beenhid in him; in fact, a Georgie who was doing rather a handsome thingin taking a risky job for the sake of his aunt, poor old silly FannyMinafer! Eugene didn't care what risks Georgie took, or how much decentstuff he had in him: nothing that Georgie would ever do in this world orthe next could change Eugene Morgan's feeling toward him. 

If Eugene could possibly have brought himself to offer Georgie aposition in the automobile business, he knew full well the proud devilwouldn't have taken it from him; though Georgie's proud reason would nothave been the one attributed to him by Eugene. George would neverreach the point where he could accept anything material from Eugene andpreserve the self-respect he had begun to regain. 

But if Eugene had wished, he could easily have taken George out ofthe nitroglycerin branch of the chemical works. Always interestedin apparent impossibilities of invention, Eugene had encouraged manyexperiments in such gropings as those for the discovery of substitutesfor gasoline and rubber; and, though his mood had withheld theinformation from Kinney, he had recently bought from the elder Akers asubstantial quantity of stock on the condition that the chemical companyshould establish an experimental laboratory. He intended to buy more;Akers was anxious to please him; and a word from Eugene would haveplaced George almost anywhere in the chemical works. George need neverhave known it, for Eugene's purchases of stock were always quiet ones:the transaction remained, so far, between him and Akers, and could bekept between them. 

The possibility just edged itself into Eugene's mind; that is, he let itbecome part of his perceptions long enough for it to prove to him thatit was actually a possibility. Then he half started with disgust that heshould be even idly considering such a thing over his last cigar forthe night, in his library. "No!" And he threw the cigar into the emptyfireplace and went to bed. 

His bitterness for himself might have worn away, but never hisbitterness for Isabel. He took that thought to bed with him--and it wastrue that nothing George could do would ever change this bitterness ofEugene. Only George's mother could have changed it. 

And as Eugene fell asleep that night, thinking thus bitterly of Georgie, Georgie in the hospital was thinking of Eugene. He had come "out ofether" with no great nausea, and had fallen into a reverie, though nowand then a white sailboat staggered foolishly into the small ward wherehe lay. After a time he discovered that this happened only when he triedto open his eyes and look about him; so he kept his eyes shut, and histhoughts were clearer. 

He thought of Eugene Morgan and of the Major; they seemed to be thesame person for awhile, but he managed to disentangle them and even tounderstand why he had confused them. Long ago his grandfather had beenthe most striking figure of success in the town: "As rich as MajorAmberson!" they used to say. Now it was Eugene. "If I had EugeneMorgan's money, " he would hear the workmen day-dreaming at the chemicalworks; or, "If Eugene Morgan had hold of this place you'd see thingshum!" And the boarders at the table d'hôte spoke of "the Morgan Place"as an eighteenth-century Frenchman spoke of Versailles. Like his uncle, George had perceived that the "Morgan Place" was the new AmbersonMansion. His reverie went back to the palatial days of the Mansion, inhis boyhood, when he would gallop his pony up the driveway and orderthe darkey stable-men about, while they whooped and obeyed, and hisgrandfather, observing from a window, would laugh and call out to him, "That's right, Georgie. Make those lazy rascals jump!" He remembered hisgay young uncles, and how the town was eager concerning everything aboutthem, and about himself. What a clean, pretty town it had been! And inhis reverie be saw like a pageant before him the magnificence of theAmbersons--its passing, and the passing of the Ambersons themselves. They had been slowly engulfed without knowing how to prevent it, andalmost without knowing what was happening to them. The family lot, inthe shabby older quarter, out at the cemetery, held most of them now;and the name was swept altogether from the new city. But the newgreat people who had taken their places--the Morgans and Akerses andSheridans--they would go, too. George saw that. They would pass, as theAmbersons had passed, and though some of them might do better thanthe Major and leave the letters that spelled a name on a hospital or astreet, it would be only a word and it would not stay forever. Nothingstays or holds or keeps where there is growth, he somehow perceivedvaguely but truly. Great Caesar dead and turned to clay stopped no holeto keep the wind away dead Caesar was nothing but a tiresome bit ofprint in a book that schoolboys study for awhile and then forget. TheAmbersons had passed, and the new people would pass, and the new peoplethat came after them, and then the next new ones, and the next--and thenext--

He had begun to murmur, and the man on duty as night nurse for the wardcame and bent over him. 

"Did you want something?"

"There's nothing in this family business, " George told himconfidentially. "Even George Washington is only something in a book. "

Eugene read a report of the accident in the next morning's paper. He wason the train, having just left for New York, on business, and with lessleisure would probably have overlooked the obscure item:

LEGS BROKEN

G. A. Minafer, an employee of the Akers Chemical Co. , was run down byan automobile yesterday at the corner of Tennessee and Main and hadboth legs broken. Minafer was to blame for the accident according topatrolman F. A. Kax, who witnessed the affair. The automobile was asmall one driven by Herbert Cottleman of 9173 Noble Avenue who statedthat he was making less than 4 miles an hour. Minafer is said to belongto a family formerly of considerable prominence in the city. He wastaken to the City Hospital where physicians stated later that he wassuffering from internal injuries besides the fracture of his legs butmight recover. 

Eugene read the item twice, then tossed the paper upon the oppositeseat of his compartment, and sat looking out of the window. His feelingtoward Georgie was changed not a jot by his human pity for Georgie'shuman pain and injury. He thought of Georgie's tall and graceful figure, and he shivered, but his bitterness was untouched. He had never blamedIsabel for the weakness which had cost them the few years of happinessthey might have had together; he had put the blame all on the son, andit stayed there. 

He began to think poignantly of Isabel: he had seldom been able to "see"her more clearly than as he sat looking out of his compartment window, after reading the account of this accident. She might have been just onthe other side of the glass, looking in at him--and then he thought ofher as the pale figure of a woman, seen yet unseen, flying through theair, beside the train, over the fields of springtime green and throughthe woods that were just sprouting out their little leaves. He closedhis eyes and saw her as she had been long ago. He saw the brown-eyed, brown-haired, proud, gentle, laughing girl he had known when first hecame to town, a boy just out of the State College. He remembered--as hehad remembered ten thousand times before--the look she gave him whenher brother George introduced him to her at a picnic; it was "like hazelstarlight" he had written her, in a poem, afterward. He rememberedhis first call at the Amberson Mansion, and what a great personage sheseemed, at home in that magnificence; and yet so gay and friendly. Heremembered the first time he had danced with her--and the old waltz songbegan to beat in his ears and in his heart. They laughed and sang ittogether as they danced to it:

"Oh, love for a year, a week, a day, But alas for the love that lastsalways--"

Most plainly of all he could see her dancing; and he became articulatein the mourning whisper: "So graceful--oh, so graceful--"

All the way to New York it seemed to him that Isabel was near him, andhe wrote of her to Lucy from his hotel the next night:

I saw an account of the accident to George Minafer. I'm sorry, thoughthe paper states that it was plainly his own fault. I suppose it mayhave been as a result of my attention falling upon the item that Ithought of his mother a great deal on the way here. It seemed to me thatI had never seen her more distinctly or so constantly, but, as you know, thinking of his mother is not very apt to make me admire him! Of course, however, he has my best wishes for his recovery. 

He posted the letter, and by the morning's mail he received one fromLucy written a few hours after his departure from home. She enclosed theitem he had read on the train. 

I thought you might not see it. 

I have seen Miss Fanny and she has got him put into a room by himself. Oh, poor Rides-Down-Everything I have been thinking so constantly of hismother and it seemed to me that I have never seen her more distinctly. How lovely she was--and how she loved him!

If Lucy had not written this letter Eugene might not have done the oddthing he did that day. Nothing could have been more natural than thatboth he and Lucy should have thought intently of Isabel after readingthe account of George's accident, but the fact that Lucy's letter hadcrossed his own made Eugene begin to wonder if a phenomenon of telepathymight not be in question, rather than a chance coincidence. Thereference to Isabel in the two letters was almost identical: he andLucy, it appeared, had been thinking of Isabel at the same time--bothsaid "constantly" thinking of her--and neither had ever "seen her moredistinctly. " He remembered these phrases in his own letter accurately. 

Reflection upon the circumstance stirred a queer spot in Eugene'sbrain--he had one. He was an adventurer; if he had lived in thesixteenth century he would have sailed the unknown new seas, but havingbeen born in the latter part of the nineteenth, when geography was afairly well-settled matter, he had become an explorer in mechanics. But the fact that he was a "hard-headed business man" as well as anadventurer did not keep him from having a queer spot in his brain, because hard-headed business men are as susceptible to such spots asadventurers are. Some of them are secretly troubled when they do not seethe new moon over the lucky shoulder; some of them have strange, secretincredulities--they do not believe in geology, for instance; and some ofthem think they have had supernatural experiences. "Of course there wasnothing in it--still it was queer!" they say. 

Two weeks after Isabel's death, Eugene had come to New York on urgentbusiness and found that the delayed arrival of a steamer gave him aday with nothing to do. His room at the hotel had become intolerable;outdoors was intolerable; everything was intolerable. It seemed to himthat he must see Isabel once more, hear her voice once more; that hemust find some way to her, or lose his mind. Under this pressure hehad gone, with complete scepticism, to a "trance-medium" of whom he hadheard wild accounts from the wife of a business acquaintance. He thoughtdespairingly that at least such an excursion would be "trying to dosomething!" He remembered the woman's name; found it in the telephonebook, and made an appointment. 

The experience had been grotesque, and he came away with anencouraging message from his father, who had failed to identify himselfsatisfactorily, but declared that everything was "on a higher plane"in his present state of being, and that all life was "continuous andprogressive. " Mrs. Horner spoke of herself as a "psychic"; but otherwiseshe seemed oddly unpretentious and matter-of-fact; and Eugene hadno doubt at all of her sincerity. He was sure that she was not anintentional fraud, and though he departed in a state of annoyance withhimself, he came to the conclusion that if any credulity were playedupon by Mrs. Horner's exhibitions, it was her own. 

Nevertheless, his queer spot having been stimulated to action bythe coincidence of the letters, he went to Mrs. Horner's after hisdirectors' meeting today. He used the telephone booth in the directors'room to make the appointment; and he laughed feebly at himself, andwondered what the group of men in that mahogany apartment would think ifthey knew what he was doing. Mrs. Horner had changed her address, but hefound the new one, and somebody purporting to be a niece of hers talkedto him and made an appointment for a "sitting" at five o'clock. He wasprompt, and the niece, a dull-faced fat girl with a magazine under herarm, admitted him to Mrs. Horner's apartment, which smelt of camphor;and showed him into a room with gray painted walls, no rug on the floorand no furniture except a table (with nothing on it) and two chairs: onea leather easy-chair and the other a stiff little brute with a woodenseat. There was one window with the shade pulled down to the sill, butthe sun was bright outside, and the room had light enough. 

Mrs. Horner appeared in the doorway, a wan and unenterprising lookingwoman in brown, with thin hair artificially waved--but not recently--andparted in the middle over a bluish forehead. Her eyes were small andseemed weak, but she recognized the visitor. 

"Oh, you been here before, " she said, in a thin voice, not unmusical. "Irecollect you. Quite a time ago, wa'n't it?"

"Yes, quite a long time. "

"I recollect because I recollect you was disappointed. Anyway, you waskind of cross. " She laughed faintly. 

"I'm sorry if I seemed so, " Eugene said. "Do you happen to have foundout my name?"

She looked surprised and a little reproachful. "Why, no. I never tryto find out people's name. Why should I? I don't claim anything forthe power; I only know I have it--and some ways it ain't always such ablessing, neither, I can tell you!"

Eugene did not press an investigation of her meaning, but said vaguely, "I suppose not. Shall we--"

"All right, " she assented, dropping into the leather chair, with herback to the shaded window. "You better set down, too, I reckon. I hopeyou'll get something this time so you won't feel cross, but I dunno. Ican't never tell what they'll do. Well--"

She sighed, closed her eyes, and was silent, while Eugene, seated inthe stiff chair across the table from her, watched her profile, thoughthimself an idiot, and called himself that and other names. And as thesilence continued, and the impassive woman in the easy-chair remainedimpassive, he began to wonder what had led him to be such a fool. Itbecame clear to him that the similarity of his letter and Lucy's neededno explanation involving telepathy, and was not even an extraordinarycoincidence. What, then, had brought him back to this absurd place andcaused him to be watching this absurd woman taking a nap in a chair?In brief: What the devil did he mean by it? He had not the slightestinterest in Mrs. Horner's naps--or in her teeth, which were beingslightly revealed by the unconscious parting of her lips, as herbreathing became heavier. If the vagaries of his own mind had broughthim into such a grotesquerie as this, into what did the vagaries ofother men's minds take them? Confident that he was ordinarily saner thanmost people, he perceived that since he was capable of doing a thinglike this, other men did even more idiotic things, in secret. And hehad a fleeting vision of sober-looking bankers and manufacturers andlawyers, well-dressed church-going men, sound citizens--and all as queeras the deuce inside!

How long was he going to sit here presiding over this unknown woman'sslumbers? It struck him that to make the picture complete he ought to beshooing flies away from her with a palm-leaf fan. 

Mrs. Horner's parted lips closed again abruptly, and became compressed;her shoulders moved a little, then jerked repeatedly; her smallchest heaved; she gasped, and the compressed lips relaxed to aslight contortion, then began to move, whispering and bringing forthindistinguishable mutterings. 

Suddenly she spoke in a loud, husky voice:

"Lopa is here!"

"Yes, " Eugene said dryly. "That's what you said last time. I remember'Lopa. ' She's your 'control' I think you said. "

"I'm Lopa, " said the husky voice. "I'm Lopa herself. "

"You mean I'm to suppose you're not Mrs. Horner now?"

"Never was Mrs. Horner!" the voice declared, speaking undeniably fromMrs. Horner's lips--but with such conviction that Eugene, in spite ofeverything, began to feel himself in the presence of a third party, who was none the less an individual, even though she might be anotheredition of the apparently somnambulistic Mrs. Horner. "Never was Mrs. Horner or anybody but just Lopa. Guide. "

"You mean you're Mrs. Horner's guide?" he asked. 

"Your guide now, " said the voice with emphasis, to which wasincongruously added a low laugh. "You came here once before. Loparemembers. "

"Yes--so did Mrs. Horner. "

Lopa overlooked his implication, and continued, quickly: "You build. Build things that go. You came here once and old gentleman on this side, he spoke to you. Same old gentleman here now. He tell Lopa he's yourgrandfather--no, he says 'father. ' He's your father. "

"What's his appearance?"

"How?"

"What does he look like?"

"Very fine! White beard, but not long beard. He says someone else wantsto speak to you. See here. Lady. Not his wife, though. No. Very finelady! Fine lady, fine lady!"

"Is it my sister?" Eugene asked. 

"Sister? No. She is shaking her head. She has pretty brown hair. She isfond of you. She is someone who knows you very well but she is not yoursister. She is very anxious to say something to you--very anxious. Veryfond of you; very anxious to talk to you. Very glad you came here--oh, very, glad!"

"What is her name?"

"Name, " the voice repeated, and seemed to ruminate. "Name hard toget--always very hard for Lopa. Name. She wants to tell me her name totell you. She wants you to understand names are hard to make. She saysyou must think of something that makes a sound. " Here the voice seemedto put a question to an invisible presence and to receive an answer. "Alittle sound or a big sound? She says it might be a little sound or abig sound. She says a ring--oh, Lopa knows! She means a bell! That's it, a bell. "

Eugene looked grave. "Does she mean her name is Belle?"

"Not quite. Her name is longer. "

"Perhaps, " he suggested, "she means that she was a belle. "

"No. She says she thinks you know what she means. She says you mustthink of a colour. What colour?" Again Lopa addressed the unknown, butthis time seemed to wait for an answer. 

"Perhaps she means the colour of her eyes, " said Eugene. 

"No. She says her colour is light--it's a light colour and you can seethrough it. "

"Amber?" he said, and was startled, for Mrs. Horner, with her eyes stillclosed, clapped her hands, and the voice cried out in delight:

"Yes! She says you know who she is from amber. Amber! Amber! That's it!She says you understand what her name is from a bell and from amber. Sheis laughing and waving a lace handkerchief at me because she is pleased. She says I have made you know who it is. "

This was the strangest moment of Eugene's life, because, while itlasted, he believed that Isabel Amberson, who was dead, had found meansto speak to him. Though within ten minutes he doubted it, he believed itthen. 

His elbows pressed hard upon the table, and, his head between his hands, he leaned forward, staring at the commonplace figure in the easy-chair. "What does she wish to say to me?"

"She is happy because you know her. No--she is troubled. Oh--a greattrouble! Something she wants to tell you. She wants so much to tell you. She wants Lopa to tell you. This is a great trouble. She says--oh, yes, she wants you to be--to be kind! That's what she says. That's it. To bekind. "

"Does she--"

"She wants you to be kind, " said the voice. "She nods when I tell youthis. Yes; it must be right. She is a very fine lady. Very pretty. She is so anxious for you to understand. She hopes and hopes you will. Someone else wants to speak to you. This is a man. He says--"

"I don't want to speak to any one else, " said Eugene quickly. "I want--"

"This man who has come says that he is a friend of yours. He says--"

Eugene struck the table with his fist. "I don't want to speak to anyone else, I tell you!" he cried passionately. "If she is there I--" Hecaught his breath sharply, checked himself, and sat in amazement. Couldhis mind so easily accept so stupendous a thing as true? Evidently itcould!

Mrs. Horner spoke languidly in her own voice: "Did you get anythingsatisfactory?" she asked. "I certainly hope it wasn't like that othertime when you was cross because they couldn't get anything for you. "

"No, no, " he said hastily. "This was different It was very interesting. "

He paid her, went to his hotel, and thence to his train for home. Neverdid he so seem to move through a world of dream-stuff: for he knew thathe was not more credulous than other men, and, if he could believe whathe had believed, though he had believed it for no longer than a momentor two, what hold had he or any other human being on reality?

His credulity vanished (or so he thought) with his recollection that itwas he, and not the alleged "Lopa, " who had suggested the word "amber. "Going over the mortifying, plain facts of his experience, he found thatMrs. Horner, or the subdivision of Mrs. Horner known as "Lopa, " had toldhim to think of a bell and of a colour, and that being furnished withthese scientific data, he had leaped to the conclusion that he spokewith Isabel Amberson!

For a moment he had believed that Isabel was there, believed that shewas close to him, entreating him--entreating him "to be kind. " But withthis recollection a strange agitation came upon him. After all, hadshe not spoken to him? If his own unknown consciousness had told the"psychic's" unknown consciousness how to make the picture of the prettybrown-haired, brown-eyed lady, hadn't the picture been a true one? Andhadn't the true Isabel--oh, indeed her very soul!--called to him out ofhis own true memory of her?

And as the train roared through the darkened evening he looked outbeyond his window, and saw her as he had seen her on his journey, a fewdays ago--an ethereal figure flying beside the train, but now itseemed to him that she kept her face toward his window with an infinitewistfulness. 

"To be kind!" If it had been Isabel, was that what she would have said?If she were anywhere, and could come to him through the invisible wall, what would be the first thing she would say to him?

Ah, well enough, and perhaps bitterly enough, he knew the answer to thatquestion! "To be kind"--to Georgie!

A red-cap at the station, when he arrived, leaped for his bag, abandoning another which the Pullman porter had handed him. "Yessuh, Mist' Morgan. Yessuh. You' car waitin' front the station fer you, Mist'Morgan, suh!"

And people in the crowd about the gates turned to stare, as he passedthrough, whispering, "That's Morgan. "

Outside, the neat chauffeur stood at the door of the touring-car like asoldier in whip-cord. 

"I'll not go home now, Harry, " said Eugene, when he had got in. "Driveto the City Hospital. "

"Yes, sir, " the man returned. "Miss Lucy's there. She said she expectedyou'd come there before you went home. "

"She did?"

"Yes, sir. "

Eugene stared. "I suppose Mr. Minafer must be pretty bad, " he said. 

"Yes, sir. I understand he's liable to get well, though, sir. " He movedhis lever into high speed, and the car went through the heavy trafficlike some fast, faithful beast that knew its way about, and knew itsmaster's need of haste. Eugene did not speak again until they reachedthe hospital. 

Fanny met him in the upper corridor, and took him to an open door. 

He stopped on the threshold, startled; for, from the waxen face on thepillow, almost it seemed the eyes of Isabel herself were looking athim: never before had the resemblance between mother and son been sostrong--and Eugene knew that now he had once seen it thus startlingly, he need divest himself of no bitterness "to be kind" to Georgie. 

George was startled, too. He lifted a white hand in a queer gesture, half forbidding, half imploring, and then let his arm fall back upon thecoverlet. "You must have thought my mother wanted you to come, " he said, "so that I could ask you to--to forgive me. "

But Lucy, who sat beside him, lifted ineffable eyes from him to herfather, and shook her head. "No, just to take his hand--gently!"

She was radiant. 

But for Eugene another radiance filled the room. He knew that he hadbeen true at last to his true love, and that through him she had broughther boy under shelter again. Her eyes would look wistful no more. 

The End