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Title: The Magnificent Ambersons

Author: Booth Tarkington

Release Date: August 2, 2009 [EBook #8867]
Last Updated: February 21, 2020

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger

[Illustration]



      THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

      By Booth Tarkington

        CONTENTS


         Chapter I

         Chapter II

         Chapter III

         Chapter IV

         Chapter V

         Chapter VI

         Chapter VII

         Chapter VIII

         Chapter IX

         Chapter X

         Chapter XI

         Chapter XII

         Chapter XIII

         Chapter XIV

         Chapter XV

         Chapter XVI

         Chapter XVII

         Chapter XVIII

         Chapter XIX

         Chapter XX

         Chapter XXI

         Chapter XXII

         Chapter XXIII

         Chapter XXIV

         Chapter XXV

         Chapter XXVI

         Chapter XXVII

         Chapter XXVIII

         Chapter XXIX

         Chapter XXX

         Chapter XXXI

         Chapter XXXII

         Chapter XXXIII

         Chapter XXXIV

         Chapter XXXV




      Chapter I


      Major Amberson had “made a fortune” in 1873, when other people
      were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began
      then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always
      comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he
      has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons were
      magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted
      throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and
      darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the period
      when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland
      dog.

      In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or
      velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when
      there was a new purchase of sealskin, sick people were got to
      windows to see it go by. Trotters were out, in the winter
      afternoons, racing light sleighs on National Avenue and Tennessee
      Street; everybody recognized both the trotters and the drivers;
      and again knew them as well on summer evenings, when slim buggies
      whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time rivalry. For that matter,
      everybody knew everybody else’s family horse-and-carriage, could
      identify such a silhouette half a mile down the street, and
      thereby was sure who was going to market, or to a reception, or
      coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening
      supper.

      During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal
      appearance was believed to rest more upon the texture of garments
      than upon their shaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when
      it was a year or so old; it remained distinguished by merely
      remaining silk. Old men and governors wore broadcloth; “full
      dress” was broadcloth with “doeskin” trousers; and there were
      seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only that rigid, tall
      silk thing known to impudence as a “stove-pipe.” In town and
      country these men would wear no other hat, and, without
      self-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; the next it would be a spoon.
      Every house still kept its bootjack, but high-topped boots gave
      way to shoes and “congress gaiters”; and these were played
      through fashions that shaped them now with toes like box-ends and
      now with toes like the prows of racing shells.

      Trousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the crease
      proved that the garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was
      “ready-made”; these betraying trousers were called
      “hand-me-downs,” in allusion to the shelf. In the early
      ‘eighties, while bangs and bustles were having their way with
      women, that variation of dandy known as the “dude” was invented:
      he wore trousers as tight as stockings, dagger-pointed shoes, a
      spoon “Derby,” a single-breasted coat called a “Chesterfield,”
      with short flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar,
      laundered to a polish 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 dress he 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 lengthened his overcoat
      till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tight
      trousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently, he was
      seen no more, though the word that had been coined for him
      remained in the vocabularies 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 were commonplace. “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 it was possible for a Senator of the United
      States to wear a mist of white whisker upon his throat only, not
      a newspaper in the land finding the ornament distinguished enough
      to warrant a lampoon. Surely no more is needed 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 of the Midland town were of a pleasant architecture. They
      lacked style, but also lacked pretentiousness, and whatever does
      not pretend at all has style enough. They stood in commodious
      yards, well shaded by leftover forest trees, elm and walnut and
      beech, with here and there a line of tall sycamores where the
      land had been made by filling bayous from the creek. The house of
      a “prominent resident,” facing Military Square, or National
      Avenue, or Tennessee Street, was built of brick upon a stone
      foundation, or of wood upon a brick foundation. Usually it had a
      “front porch” and a “back porch”; often a “side porch,” too.
      There was a “front hall”; there was a “side hall”; and sometimes
      a “back hall.” From the “front hall” opened three rooms, the
      “parlour,” the “sitting room,” and the “library”; and the library
      could show warrant to its title—for some reason these people
      bought books. Commonly, the family sat more in the library than
      in the “sitting room,” while callers, when they came formally,
      were kept to the “parlour,” a place of formidable polish and
      discomfort. The upholstery of the library furniture was a little
      shabby; but the hostile chairs and sofa of the “parlour” always
      looked new. For all the wear and tear they got they should have
      lasted a thousand years.

      Upstairs were the bedrooms; “mother-and-father’s room” the
      largest; a smaller room for one or two sons another for one or
      two daughters; each of these rooms containing a double bed, a
      “washstand,” a “bureau,” a wardrobe, a little table, a
      rocking-chair, and often a chair or two that had been slightly
      damaged downstairs, but not enough to justify either the expense
      of repair or decisive abandonment in the attic. And there was
      always a “spare-room,” for visitors (where the sewing-machine
      usually was kept), and during the ‘seventies there developed an
      appreciation of the necessity for a bathroom. Therefore the
      architects placed bathrooms in the new houses, and the older
      houses tore out a cupboard or two, set up a boiler beside the
      kitchen stove, and sought a new godliness, each with its own
      bathroom. The great American plumber joke, 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 and stable cost seven or eight thousand dollars to
      build, and people with that 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 finally three dollars a week.
      She was Irish, ordinarily, or German or it might be Scandinavian,
      but never native to the land unless she happened to be a person
      of colour. The man or youth who lived in the stable had like
      wages, and sometimes he, too, was lately a steerage voyager, but
      much oftener he was coloured.

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

      They have passed, those darky hired-men of the Midland town; and
      the introspective horses they curried and brushed and whacked and
      amiably cursed—those good old horses switch their tails at flies
      no more. For all their seeming permanence they might as well have
      been buffaloes—or the buffalo laprobes that grew bald in patches
      and used to slide from the careless drivers’ knees and hang
      unconcerned, half way to the ground. The stables have been
      transformed into other likenesses, or swept away, like the
      woodsheds where were kept the stove-wood and kindling that the
      “girl” and the “hired-man” always quarrelled over: who should
      fetch it. Horse and stable and woodshed, and the whole tribe of
      the “hired-man,” all are gone. They went quickly, yet so silently
      that we whom they served have not yet really noticed that they
      are vanished.

      So with other vanishings. There were the little bunty street-cars
      on the long, single track that went its troubled way among the
      cobblestones. At the rear door of the car there was no platform,
      but a step where passengers clung in wet clumps when the weather
      was bad and the car crowded. The patrons—if not too
      absent-minded—put their fares into a slot; and no conductor paced
      the heaving floor, but the driver would rap remindingly with his
      elbow upon the glass of the door to his little open platform if
      the nickels and the passengers did not appear to coincide in
      number. 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 owed it courtesies like this, for the car was
      genially accommodating: a lady could whistle to it from an
      upstairs window, and the car would halt at once and wait for her
      while she shut the window, put on her hat and cloak, went
      downstairs, found an umbrella, told the “girl” what to have for
      dinner, and came forth from the house.

      The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry
      on the part of the car: they were wont to expect as much for
      themselves on like occasion. In good weather the mule pulled the
      car a mile in a little less than twenty minutes, unless the stops
      were too long; but when the trolley-car came, doing its mile in
      five minutes and better, it would wait for nobody. Nor could its
      passengers have endured such a thing, because the faster they
      were carried the less time they had to spare! In the days before
      deathly contrivances hustled them through their lives, and when
      they had no telephones—another ancient vacancy profoundly
      responsible for leisure—they had time for everything: time to
      think, to talk, 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, and such whims as the “Portland Fancy.” They pushed back
      the sliding doors between the “parlour” and the “sitting room,”
      tacked down crash over the carpets, hired a few palms in green
      tubs, stationed three or four Italian musicians under the
      stairway in the “front hall”—and had great nights!

      But these people were gayest on New Year’s Day; they made it a
      true festival—something no longer known. The women gathered to
      “assist” the hostesses who kept “Open House”; and the carefree
      men, dandified and perfumed, went about in sleighs, or in
      carriages and ponderous “hacks,” going from Open House to Open
      House, leaving fantastic cards in fancy baskets as they entered
      each doorway, and emerging a little later, more carefree than
      ever, if the punch had been to their liking. It always was, and,
      as the afternoon wore on, pedestrians saw great gesturing and
      waving of skin-tight lemon gloves, while ruinous fragments of
      song were dropped behind as the carriages rolled up and down the
      streets.

      “Keeping Open House” was a merry custom; it has gone, like the
      all-day picnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all
      vanished customs, the serenade. When a lively girl visited the
      town she did not long go unserenaded, though a visitor was not
      indeed needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, young men
      would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl’s window—or, it
      might be, her father’s, or that of an ailing maiden aunt—and
      flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, and bass viol would presently
      release to the dulcet stars such melodies as sing through “You’ll
      Remember Me,” “I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” “Silver
      Threads Among the Gold,” “Kathleen Mavourneen,” or “The Soldier’s
      Farewell.”

      They had other music to offer, too, for these were the happy days
      of “Olivette” and “The Macotte” and “The Chimes of Normandy” and
      “Girofle-Girofla” and “Fra Diavola.” Better than that, these were
      the days of “Pinafore” and “The Pirates of Penzance” and of
      “Patience.” This last was needed in the Midland town, as
      elsewhere, for the “aesthetic movement” had reached thus far from
      London, and terrible things were being done to honest old
      furniture. Maidens sawed what-nots in two, and gilded the
      remains. They took the rockers from rocking-chairs and gilded the
      inadequate legs; they gilded the easels that supported the crayon
      portraits of their deceased uncles. In the new spirit of art they
      sold old clocks for new, and threw wax flowers and wax fruit, and
      the protecting glass domes, out upon the trash-heap. They filled
      vases with peacock feathers, or cattails, or sumac, or
      sunflowers, and set the vases upon mantelpieces and marble-topped
      tables. They embroidered daisies (which they called
      “marguerites”) and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and owls
      and peacock feathers upon plush screens and upon heavy cushions,
      then strewed these cushions upon floors where fathers fell over
      them in the dark. In the teeth of sinful oratory, the daughters
      went on embroidering: they embroidered daisies and sunflowers and
      sumac and cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon “throws”
      which they had the courage to drape upon horsehair sofas; they
      painted owls and daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails
      and peacock feathers upon tambourines. They hung Chinese
      umbrellas of paper to the chandeliers; they nailed paper fans to
      the walls. They “studied” painting on china, these girls; they
      sang Tosti’s new songs; they sometimes still practiced the old,
      genteel habit of lady-fainting, and were most charming of all
      when they drove forth, three or four in a basket phaeton, on a
      spring morning.

      Croquet and the mildest archery ever known were the sports of
      people still young and active enough for so much exertion;
      middle-age played euchre. There was a theatre, next door to the
      Amberson Hotel, and when Edwin Booth came for a night, everybody
      who could afford to buy a ticket was there, and all the “hacks”
      in town were hired. “The Black Crook” also filled the theatre,
      but the audience then was almost entirely of men who looked
      uneasy as they left for home when the final curtain fell upon the
      shocking girls dressed as fairies. But the theatre did not often
      do so well; the people of the town were still too thrifty.

      They were thrifty because they were the sons or grandsons of the
      “early settlers,” who had opened the wilderness and had reached
      it from the East and the South with wagons and axes and guns, but
      with no money at all. The pioneers were thrifty or they would
      have perished: they had to store away food for the winter, or
      goods to trade for food, and they often feared they had not
      stored enough—they left traces of that fear in their sons and
      grandsons. In the minds of most of these, indeed, their thrift
      was next to their religion: to save, even for the sake of saving,
      was their earliest lesson and discipline. No matter how
      prosperous they were, they could not spend money either upon
      “art,” or upon mere luxury and entertainment, without a sense of
      sin.

      Against so homespun a background the magnificence of the
      Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major
      Amberson bought two hundred acres of land at the end of National
      Avenue; and through this tract he built broad streets and
      cross-streets; paved them with cedar block, and curbed them with
      stone. He set up fountains, here and there, where the streets
      intersected, and at symmetrical intervals placed cast-iron
      statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon the
      pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Emperor
      Augustus, Fisher Boy, Stag-hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn,
      Antelope, Wounded Doe, and Wounded Lion. Most of the forest trees
      had been left to flourish still, and, at some distance, or by
      moonlight, the place was in 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 bright noon, and
      quoting the favourite comparison of the local newspapers, he
      declared Versailles outdone. All this Art showed a profit from
      the start, for the lots sold well and there was something like a
      rush to build in the new Addition. Its main thoroughfare, an
      oblique continuation of National Avenue, was called Amberson
      Boulevard, and here, at the juncture of the new Boulevard and the
      Avenue, Major Amberson reserved four acres for himself, and built
      his new house—the Amberson Mansion, of course.

      This house was the pride of the town. Faced with stone as far
      back as the dining-room windows, it was a house of arches and
      turrets and girdling stone porches: it had the first
      porte-cochere seen in that town. There was a central “front hall”
      with a great black walnut stairway, and open to a green glass
      skylight called the “dome,” three stories above the ground floor.
      A ballroom occupied most of the third story; and at one end of it
      was a carved walnut gallery for the musicians. Citizens told
      strangers that the cost of all this black walnut and wood-carving
      was sixty thousand dollars. “Sixty thousand dollars for the
      wood-work _alone!_ Yes, sir, and hardwood floors all over the
      house! Turkish rugs and no carpets at all, except a Brussels
      carpet in the front parlour—I hear they call it the
      ‘reception-room.’ Hot and cold water upstairs and down, and
      stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place! Their
      sideboard’s built right into the house and goes 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 presume the
      President of the United States would be tickled to swap the White
      House for the new Amberson Mansion, if the Major’d give him the
      chance—but by the Almighty Dollar, you bet your sweet life the
      Major wouldn’t!”

      The visitor to the town was certain to receive further
      enlightenment, for there was one form of entertainment never
      omitted: he was always patriotically taken for “a little drive
      around our city,” even if his host had to hire a hack, and the
      climax of the display was the Amberson Mansion. “Look at that
      greenhouse they’ve put up there in the side yard,” the escort
      would continue. “And look at that brick stable! Most folks would
      think that stable plenty big enough and good enough to live in;
      it’s got running water and four rooms upstairs for two hired men
      and one of ’em’s family to live in. They keep one hired man
      loafin’ in the house, and they got a married hired man out in the
      stable, and his wife does the washing. They got box-stalls for
      four horses, and they keep a 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 for me! I guess they got every
      new kind of fancy rig in there that’s been invented. And
      harness—well, everybody in town can tell when Ambersons are out
      driving after dark, by the jingle. This town never did see so
      much style as Ambersons are putting on, these days; and I guess
      it’s going to be expensive, because a lot of other folks’ll try
      to keep up with ’em. The Major’s wife and the daughter’s been to
      Europe, and my wife tells me since they got back they make tea
      there every afternoon about five o’clock, and drink it. Seems to
      me it would go against a person’s stomach, just before supper
      like that, and anyway tea isn’t fit for much—not unless you’re
      sick or something. My wife says Ambersons don’t make lettuce
      salad the way other people do; they don’t chop it up with sugar
      and vinegar at all. They pour olive oil on it with their vinegar,
      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 a hard plum, but a friend of mine told me they
      tasted a good deal like a bad hickory-nut. My wife says she’s
      going to buy some; you got to eat nine and then you get to like
      ’em, she says. Well, I wouldn’t eat nine bad hickory-nuts to get
      to like _them_, and I’m going to let these olives alone. Kind of
      a woman’s dish, anyway, I suspect, but most everybody’ll be
      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 or not! Looks to me like some people in this city’d be
      willing to go crazy if 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 come in my office the other day, and he
      pretty near had a stroke tellin’ me about his daughter Fanny.
      Seems Miss Isabel Amberson’s got some kind of a 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, and
      finally he said all right she could have one. Then, by George!
      she says Ambersons _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 know if I ever heard of anybody buyin’ a
      dog before, because, of course, even a 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 a quarter, to _drown_ a
      dog for you, but to pay out fifty dollars and maybe more—well,
      sir, he like to choked himself to death, right there in my
      office! Of course everybody realizes that Major Amberson is a
      fine business man, but what with throwin’ money around for dogs,
      and every which and what, some think all this style’s bound to
      break him up, if his family don’t quit!”

      One citizen, having thus discoursed to a visitor, came to a
      thoughtful pause, and then added, “Does seem pretty much like
      squandering, yet when you see that dog out walking with this Miss
      Isabel, he seems worth the money.”

      “What’s she look like?”

      “Well, sir,” said the citizen, “she’s not more than just about
      eighteen or maybe nineteen years old, and I don’t know as I know
      just how to put it—but she’s kind of a _delightful_ lookin’ young
      lady!”




      Chapter II


      Another citizen said an eloquent thing about Miss Isabel
      Amberson’s looks. This was Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster, the
      foremost literary authority and intellectual leader of the
      community—-for both the daily newspapers thus described Mrs.
      Foster when she founded the Women’s Tennyson Club; and her word
      upon art, letters, and the drama was accepted more as law than as
      opinion. Naturally, when “Hazel Kirke” finally reached the town,
      after its long triumph in larger places, many people waited to
      hear what Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster thought of it before they
      felt warranted in expressing any estimate of the play. In fact,
      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 Isabelle
      Amberson. I couldn’t look at anything except her wavy brown hair
      and the wonderful back of her neck.”

      The ineligible young men of the town (they were all ineligible)
      were unable to content themselves with the view that had so
      charmed Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster: they spent their time
      struggling to keep Miss Amberson’s face turned toward them. She
      turned it most often, observers said, toward two: one excelling
      in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that
      winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling
      gentleman “led germans” with her, and sent sonnets to her with
      his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was
      generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was
      one reason why he was always in debt. No one doubted that he
      would be able to persuade Isabel, 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 through the bass viol and
      had to be assisted to a waiting carriage. One of Miss Amberson’s
      brothers was among the serenaders, and, when the party had
      dispersed, remained propped against the front door in a state of
      helpless liveliness; the Major going down in a dressing-gown and
      slippers to bring him in, and scolding mildly, while imperfectly
      concealing strong impulses to laughter. Miss Amberson also
      laughed at this brother, the next day, but for the suitor it was
      a different matter: she refused to see him when he called to
      apologize. “You seem to care a great deal about bass viols!” he
      wrote her. “I promise never to break another.” She made no
      response to the note, unless it was an answer, two weeks later,
      when her engagement was announced. She took the persistent 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 not surprised, because though Wilbur Minafer “might not be
      an Apollo, as it were,” he was “a steady young business man, and
      a good church-goer,” and Isabel Amberson was “pretty sensible—for
      such a showy girl.” But the engagement astounded the young
      people, and most of their fathers and mothers, too; and as a
      topic it supplanted literature at the next meeting of the
      “Women’s Tennyson Club.”

      “Wilbur _Minafer!_” a member cried, her inflection seeming to
      imply that Wilbur’s crime was explained by his surname. “Wilbur
      _Minafer!_ It’s the queerest thing I ever heard! To think of her
      taking Wilbur Minafer, just because a man _any_ woman would like
      a thousand times better was a little wild one night at a
      serenade!”

      “No,” said Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster. “It isn’t that. It isn’t
      even because she’s afraid he’d be a dissipated husband and she
      wants to be safe. It isn’t because she’s religious or hates
      wildness; it isn’t even because 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’t really care much about whether a man’s wild or not,
      if it doesn’t affect herself, and Isabel Amberson doesn’t care a
      thing!”

      “Mrs. _Foster!_”

      “No, she doesn’t. What she minds is his making a clown of himself
      in her front yard! It made her think he didn’t care much about
      _her_. She’s probably mistaken, but that’s what she thinks, and
      it’s too late for her to think anything else now, because she’s
      going to be married right away—the invitations will be out next
      week. It’ll be a big Amberson-style thing, raw oysters floating
      in scooped-out blocks of ice and a band from
      out-of-town—champagne, showy presents; a colossal present from
      the Major. Then Wilbur will take Isabel on the carefulest little
      wedding trip he can manage, and she’ll be a good wife to him, but
      they’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
      no challengers. “Well, it will all go to her children, and she’ll
      ruin ’em!”

      The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely:
      except for that, her foresight was accurate. The wedding was of
      Ambersonian magnificence, even to the floating oysters; and the
      Major’s colossal present was a set of architect’s designs for a
      house almost as elaborate and impressive as the Mansion, the
      house to be built in Amberson Addition by the Major. The
      orchestra was certainly not that local one which had suffered the
      loss of a bass viol; the musicians came, according to the
      prophecy and next morning’s paper, from afar; and at midnight the
      bride was still being toasted in champagne, though she had
      departed upon her wedding journey at ten. Four days later the
      pair had returned to town, which promptness seemed fairly to
      demonstrate that Wilbur had indeed taken Isabel upon the
      carefulest little trip he could manage. According to every
      report, she was from the start “a good wife to 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
      know if 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 many other 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 the man 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 the facts
      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 wipe off your chin!”

      This was stock and stencil: the accustomed argot of street
      badinage of the period; and in such matters Georgie was an
      expert. He had no vest to pull down; the incongruous fact was
      that a fringed sash girdled the juncture of his velvet blouse and
      breeches, for the Fauntleroy period had set in, and Georgie’s
      mother had so poor an eye for appropriate things, where Georgie
      was concerned, that she dressed him according to the doctrine of
      that school in boy decoration. Not only did he wear a silk sash,
      and silk stockings, and a broad lace collar, with his little
      black velvet suit: he had long brown curls, and often came home
      with burrs 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 been difficult to imagine upon the lips
      of Georgie. A month after his ninth birthday anniversary, when
      the Major gave him his pony, he had already become acquainted
      with the toughest boys in various distant parts of the town, and
      had convinced them that the toughness of a rich little boy with
      long curls might be considered in many respects superior to their
      own. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at a certain
      point in a fight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for
      rocks, uttering wailed threats of murder and attempting to fulfil
      them. Fights often led to intimacies, 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 summer afternoon, a strange boy,
      sitting bored upon the gate-post of the Reverend Malloch Smith,
      beheld George Amberson Minafer rapidly approaching on his white
      pony, and was impelled by bitterness to shout: “Shoot the ole
      jackass! Look at the girly curls! Say, bub, where’d you steal
      your mother’s ole sash!”

      “Your sister stole it for me!” Georgie instantly replied,
      checking the pony. “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 got any sister!”

      “I know you haven’t at home,” Georgie responded. “I mean the one
      that’s in jail.”

      “I dare you to get down off that pony!”

      Georgie jumped to the ground, and the other boy descended from
      the Reverend Mr. Smith’s gatepost—but he descended inside the
      gate. “I dare you outside that gate,” said Georgie.

      “Yah! I dare you half way here. I dare you—”

      But these were luckless challenges, for Georgie immediately
      vaulted the fence—and four minutes later Mrs. Malloch Smith,
      hearing strange noises, looked forth from a window; then
      screamed, and dashed for the pastor’s study. Mr. Malloch Smith,
      that grim-bearded Methodist, came to the front yard and found his
      visiting nephew being rapidly prepared by Master Minafer to serve
      as a principal figure in a pageant of massacre. It was with great
      physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to give his nephew a
      chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard and quick,
      and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, after
      a 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 of herself 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 boy like you—”

      But Georgie had reached his pony and mounted. Before setting off
      at his accustomed gallop, he paused to interrupt the Reverend
      Malloch Smith again. “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 most grown people imagine. However, it was a new experience
      for the Reverend Malloch Smith, and left him in a state of
      excitement. He at once wrote a note to Georgie’s mother,
      describing the crime according to his nephew’s testimony; and the
      note reached Mrs. Minafer before Georgie did. When he got home
      she read it to him sorrowfully.

      Dear Madam: Your son has caused a painful distress in my
      household. He made an unprovoked attack upon a little nephew of
      mine who is visiting in my household, insulted him by calling him
      vicious names and falsehoods, stating that ladies of his family
      were in jail. He then tried to make his pony kick him, and when
      the child, who is only eleven years old, while your son is much
      older and stronger, endeavoured to avoid his indignities and
      withdraw quietly, he pursued him into the enclosure of my
      property and brutally assaulted him. When I appeared upon this
      scene he deliberately called insulting words to me, concluding
      with profanity, such as “go to hell,” which was heard not only by
      myself but by my wife and the lady who lives next door. I trust
      such a state of undisciplined behaviour may be remedied for the
      sake of the reputation for propriety, if nothing higher, of the
      family to which this unruly child belongs.

      Georgie had muttered various interruptions, and as she concluded
      the reading 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.
      “Listen here, 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,
      and they never have him come in their house; they wouldn’t ask
      him to, and they 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’ to him he didn’t like? That kind o’ people, I don’t see
      why you can’t say anything you want to, to ’em!”

      “No, Georgie. And you haven’t answered me whether you said that
      dreadful thing he says you did.”

      “Well—” said Georgie. “Anyway, he said somep’m’ to me that made
      me mad.” And upon this point he offered no further details; he
      would not explain to his mother that what had made him “mad” was
      Mr. Smith’s hasty condemnation of herself: “Your mother ought to
      be ashamed,” and, “A woman that lets a bad boy like you—” Georgie
      did not even consider excusing 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
      learn those 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 was the _first_ I ever heard say ’em. Uncle George
      Amberson said ’em to papa once. 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
      detected the lack of conviction in her tone. It was Isabel’s
      great failing that whatever an Amberson did seemed right to her,
      especially if the Amberson was either her brother George, or her
      son George. She knew that she should be more severe with the
      latter now, but severity with him was beyond her power; and the
      Reverend Malloch Smith had succeeded only in rousing her
      resentment against himself. Georgie’s symmetrical face—altogether
      an Amberson face—had looked never more beautiful to her. It
      always looked unusually beautiful when she tried to be severe
      with him. “You must promise me,” she said feebly, “never to use
      those bad words again.”

      “I promise not to,” he said promptly—and he whispered an
      immediate codicil under his breath: “Unless I get mad at
      somebody!” This satisfied a code according to which, in his own
      sincere belief, he never told lies.

      “That’s a good boy,” she said, and he ran out to the yard, his
      punishment over. Some admiring friends were gathered there; they
      had heard of his adventure, knew of the note, and were waiting to
      see what was going to “happen” to him. They hoped for an account
      of things, and also that he would allow them to “take turns”
      riding his pony to the end of 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 often fawned upon; the alley negroes delighted in him,
      chuckled over him, flattered him slavishly. For that matter, he
      often heard well-dressed people speaking of him admiringly: a
      group of ladies once gathered about him on the pavement where he
      was spinning a top. “I _know_ this is Georgie!” one exclaimed,
      and turned to the others with the impressiveness of a showman.
      “Major Amberson’s only grandchild!” The others said, “It is?” and
      made clicking sounds with their mouths; two of them loudly
      whispering, “So handsome!”

      Georgie, annoyed because they kept standing upon the circle he
      had chalked 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
      of his adventure in the Reverend Malloch Smith’s front yard
      became a town topic. Many people glanced at him with great
      distaste, thereafter, when they chanced to encounter him, which
      meant nothing to Georgie, because he innocently believed most
      grown people to be necessarily cross-looking as a normal
      phenomenon resulting from the adult state; and he failed to
      comprehend that the distasteful glances had any personal bearing
      upon himself. If he had perceived such a bearing, he would have
      been affected only so far, probably, as to mutter, “Riffraff!”
      Possibly he would have shouted it; and, certainly, most people
      believed a story that went round the town just after Mrs.
      Amberson’s funeral, when Georgie was eleven. Georgie was reported
      to have differed with the undertaker about the seating 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 foremost
      mourners’ carriage, as the undertaker happened to pass.

      “_Riffraff!_”

      There were people—grown people they were—who expressed themselves
      longingly: they _did_ hope to live to see the day, they said,
      when that boy would get his come-upance! (They used that honest
      word, so much better than “deserts,” and not until many years
      later to be more clumsily rendered as “what is coming to him.”)
      _Something_ was bound to take him down, some day, and they only
      wanted to be there! But Georgie heard nothing of this, and the
      yearners for his taking down went unsatisfied, while their
      yearning grew the greater as the happy day of fulfilment was
      longer and longer postponed. His grandeur was not diminished by
      the Malloch Smith story; the rather it was increased, and among
      other children (especially among little girls) there was added to
      the prestige of his gilded position that diabolical glamour which
      must inevitably 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
      domestic process; tutors came to the house; and those citizens
      who yearned for his taking down often said: “Just wait till he
      has to go to public school; _then_ he’ll get it!” But at twelve
      Georgie was sent to a private school in the town, and there came
      from this small and dependent institution no report, or even
      rumour, of Georgie’s getting anything that he was thought to
      deserve; therefore the yearning still persisted, though growing
      gaunt with feeding upon itself. For, although Georgie’s
      pomposities and impudence in the little school were often almost
      unbearable, the teachers were fascinated by him. They did not
      like him—he was too arrogant for that—but he kept them in such a
      state of emotion that they thought more about him than they did
      about all of the other ten pupils. The emotion he kept them in
      was usually one resulting from injured self-respect, but
      sometimes it was dazzled admiration. So far as their
      conscientious observation went, he “studied” his lessons
      sparingly; but sometimes, in class, he flashed an admirable
      answer, with a comprehension not often shown by the pupils they
      taught; and he passed his examinations easily. In all, without
      discernible effort, he acquired at this school some rudiments of
      a liberal education and learned nothing whatever about himself.

      The yearners were still yearning when Georgie, at sixteen, was
      sent away 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 as he is, and they’ll knock the stuffing out of
      him when he puts on his airs with them! Oh, but that _would_ be
      worth something to see!” They were mistaken, it appeared, for
      when Georgie returned, a few months later, he still seemed to
      have the same stuffing. He had been deported by the authorities,
      the offense being stated as “insolence and profanity”; in fact,
      he had given the principal of the school instructions almost
      identical with those formerly objected to by the Reverend Malloch
      Smith.

      But he had not got his come-upance, and those who counted upon it
      were embittered by his appearance upon the down-town streets
      driving a dog-cart at criminal speed, making pedestrians retreat
      from the crossings, and behaving generally as if he “owned the
      earth.” A disgusted hardware dealer of middle age, one of those
      who hungered for Georgie’s downfall, was thus driven back upon
      the sidewalk to avoid being run over, and so far forgot himself
      as to make use of the pet street insult of the year: “Got ’ny
      _sense!_ See here, bub, does your mother know you’re out?”

      Georgie, without even seeming to look at him, flicked the long
      lash of his whip dexterously, and a little spurt of dust came
      from the hardware man’s trousers, not far below the waist. He was
      not made of hardware: he raved, looking for a missile; then,
      finding none, commanded himself sufficiently 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. The
      dog-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 lawyers offices, insurance and realestate offices, with
      a “drygoods store” occupying the ground floor. Georgie tied his
      lathered trotter to a telegraph pole, and stood for a moment
      looking at the building critically: it seemed shabby, and he
      thought his grandfather ought to replace it with a fourteen-story
      skyscraper, or even a higher one, such as he had lately seen in
      New York—when he stopped there for a few days of recreation and
      rest on his way home from the bereaved school. About the entryway
      to the stairs were various tin signs, announcing the occupation
      and location of upper-floor tenants, and Georgie decided to take
      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
      worn stairs—there was no elevator—to the fourth floor, went down
      a dark corridor, and rapped three times upon a door. It was a
      mysterious door, its upper half, of opaque glass, bearing no sign
      to state the business or profession of the occupants within; but
      overhead, upon the lintel, four letters had been smearingly
      inscribed, partly with purple ink and partly 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 skull and
      crossbones.

      Three raps, similar to Georgie’s, sounded from within the room.
      Georgie then rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped
      twice, and Georgie rapped seven times. This ended precautionary
      measures; and a well-dressed boy of sixteen opened the door;
      whereupon Georgie entered quickly, and the door was closed behind
      him. Seven boys of congenial age were seated in a semicircular
      row of damaged office chairs, facing a platform whereon stood a
      solemn, red-haired young personage with a table before him. At
      one end of the room there was a battered sideboard, and upon it
      were some empty beer bottles, a tobacco can about two-thirds
      full, with a web of mold over the surface of the tobacco, a dusty
      cabinet photograph (not inscribed) of Miss Lillian Russell,
      several withered old pickles, a caseknife, and a half-petrified
      section of icing-cake on a sooty plate. At the other end of the
      room were two rickety card-tables and a stand of bookshelves
      where were displayed under dust four or five small volumes of M.
      Guy de Maupassant’s stories, “Robinson Crusoe,” “Sappho,” “Mr.
      Barnes of New York,” a work by Giovanni Boccaccio, a Bible, “The
      Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,” “Studies of the Human Form
      Divine,” “The Little Minister,” and a clutter of monthly
      magazines and illustrated weeklies of about that crispness one
      finds in such articles upon a doctor’s ante-room table. Upon the
      wall, above the sideboard, was an old framed lithograph of Miss
      Della Fox in “Wang”; over the bookshelves there was another
      lithograph purporting to represent Mr. John L. Sullivan in a
      boxing costume, and beside it a halftone reproduction of “A
      Reading From Horner.” The final decoration consisted of damaged
      papiermache—a round shield with two battle-axes and two
      cross-hilted swords, upon the wall over the little platform where
      stood the red-haired presiding officer. He addressed Georgie in a
      serious voice:

      “Welcome, Friend of the Ace.”

      “Welcome, Friend of the Ace,” Georgie responded, and all of the
      other boys 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
      to the boy who had admitted him: “Look here, Charlie Johnson,
      what’s Fred Kinney 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 be president just the same, even if I was away
      at school?”

      “Well—” said Charlie Johnson uneasily. “Listen! I didn’t have
      much to do with it. Some of the other members thought that long
      as you weren’t in town or anything, and Fred gave the sideboard,
      why—”

      Mr. Kinney, presiding, held in his hand, in lieu of a gavel, and
      considered much more impressive, a Civil War relic known as a
      “horse-pistol.” He rapped loudly for order. “All Friends of the
      Ace will take 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 Johnson sit down, because I was elected perfectly
      fair, and we’re goin’ to hold a meeting here.”

      “Oh, you are, are you?” said George skeptically.

      Charlie Johnson thought to mollify him. “Well, didn’t we call
      this meeting just especially because you told us to? You said
      yourself we ought 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 you care about being president? All it
      amounts to is just calling the roll and—”

      The president _de facto_ hammered the table. “This meeting will
      now proceed to—”

      “No, it won’t,” said George, and he advanced to the desk,
      laughing contemptuously. “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 or you’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’m not going to be bulldozed!”

      “All right,” said Georgie. “You’re president. Now we’ll hold
      another election.”

      “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. This meeting will now come to ord—”

      Georgie addressed the members. “I’d like to know who got up this
      thing in the first place,” he said. “Who’s the founder of the
      F.O.T.A., if you please? Who got this room rent free? Who got the
      janitor to let us have most of this furniture? You suppose you
      could keep this clubroom a minute if I told my grandfather I
      didn’t want it for a literary club any more? I’d like to say a
      word on how you members been acting, too! When I went away I said
      I didn’t care if you had a _vice_-president or something while I
      was gone, but here I hardly turned my back and you had to go and
      elect Fred Kinney president! Well, if that’s what you want, you
      can have it. I was going to have a little celebration down here
      some night pretty soon, and bring some port wine, like we drink
      at school in our crowd there, and I was going to get my
      grandfather to give the club an extra room across the hall, and
      prob’ly I could get my Uncle George to give us his old billiard
      table, because he’s got a new one, and the club could put it in
      the other room. Well, you got a new president now!” Here Georgie
      moved toward the door and his tone became plaintive, though
      undeniably there was disdain beneath his sorrow. “I guess all I
      better do is—resign!”

      And he opened the door, apparently intending to withdraw.

      “All in favour of having a new election,” Charlie Johnson shouted
      hastily, “say, ‘Aye’!”

      “Aye” was said by everyone present except Mr. Kinney, who began a
      hot protest, but it was immediately smothered.

“All in favour of me being president instead of Fred Kinney,” shouted
Georgie, “say ‘Aye.’ The ‘Ayes’ have it!”
 “I resign,” said the red-headed boy, gulping as he descended from the
 platform. “I resign from the club!”

      Hot-eyed, he found his hat and departed, jeers echoing after him
      as he plunged down the corridor. Georgie stepped upon the
      platform, and took up 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 I guess we don’t want him: that fellow always
      was a trouble-maker. We will now proceed with our meeting. Well,
      fellows, I suppose you want to hear from your president. I don’t
      know that I have much to say, as I have already seen most of you
      a few times since I got back. I had a good time at the old
      school, back East, but had a little trouble with the faculty and
      came on home. My family stood by me as well as I could ask, and I
      expect to stay right here in the old town until whenever I decide
      to enter college. Now, I don’t suppose there’s any more business
      before the meeting. I guess we might as well play cards. Anybody
      that’s game for a little 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
      that afternoon, Georgie invited his chief supporter, Mr. Charlie
      Johnson, to drive home with him to dinner, and as they jingled up
      National Avenue in the 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 tone of gentle explanation. “It’s vulgar to do any other way.
      Did I tell you the nickname they gave me—‘King’? That was what
      they called me at that school, ‘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
      about the family and all that, and so I suppose it was a good
      deal on account of—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 at
      Christmastide, in his sophomore year, probably no great change
      had taken place inside him, but his exterior was visibly altered.
      Nothing about him encouraged any hope that he had received his
      come-upance; on the contrary, the yearners for that stroke of
      justice must yearn even more itchingly: the gilded youth’s manner
      had become polite, but his politeness was of a kind which
      democratic people found hard to bear. In a word, M. le Due had
      returned from the gay life of the capital to show himself for a
      week among the loyal peasants belonging to the old chateau, and
      their quaint habits and costumes afforded him a mild amusement.

      Cards were out for a ball in his honour, and this pageant of the
      tenantry was held in the ballroom of the Amberson Mansion the
      night after his arrival. It was, as Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster
      said of Isabel’s wedding, “a big Amberson-style thing,” though
      that wise Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster had long ago gone the way of
      all wisdom, having stepped out of the Midland town,
      unquestionably into heaven—a long step, but not beyond her
      powers. She had successors, but no successor; the town having
      grown too large to confess that it was intellectually led and
      literarily authoritated by one person; and some of these
      successors were not invited to the ball, for dimensions were now
      so metropolitan that intellectual leaders and literary
      authorities loomed in outlying regions unfamiliar to the
      Ambersons. However, all “old citizens” recognizable as gentry
      received cards, and of course so did their dancing descendants.

      The orchestra and the caterer were brought from away, in the
      Amberson manner, though this was really a gesture—perhaps one
      more of habit than of ostentation—for servitors of gaiety as
      proficient as these importations were nowadays to be found in the
      town. Even flowers and plants and roped vines were brought from
      afar—not, however, until the stock of the local florists proved
      insufficient to obliterate the interior structure of the big
      house, in the Amberson way. It was the last of the great, long
      remembered dances that “everybody talked about”—there were
      getting to be so many people in town that no later than the next
      year there were too many for “everybody” to hear of even such a
      ball as the Ambersons’.

      George, white-gloved, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, stood
      with his mother and the Major, embowered in the big red and gold
      drawing room downstairs, to “receive” the guests; and, standing
      thus together, the trio offered a picturesque example of good
      looks persistent through three generations. The Major, his
      daughter, and his grandson were of a type all Amberson: tall,
      straight, and regular, with dark eyes, short noses, good chins;
      and the grandfather’s expression, no less than the grandson’s,
      was one of faintly amused condescension. There was a difference,
      however. The grandson’s unlined young face had nothing to offer
      except this condescension; the grandfather’s had other things to
      say. It was a handsome, worldly old face, conscious of its
      importance, but persuasive rather than arrogant, and not without
      tokens of sufferings withstood. The Major’s short white hair was
      parted in the middle, like his grandson’s, and in all he stood as
      briskly equipped to the fashion as exquisite young George.

      Isabel, standing between her father and her son caused a vague
      amazement in the mind of the latter. Her age, just under forty,
      was for George a thought of something as remote as the moons of
      Jupiter: he could not possibly have conceived such an age ever
      coming to be his own: five years was the limit of his thinking in
      time. Five years ago he had been a child not yet fourteen; and
      those five years were an abyss. Five years hence he would be
      almost twenty-four; what the girls he knew called “one of the
      older men.” He could imagine himself at twenty-four, but beyond
      that, his powers staggered and refused the task. He saw little
      essential difference between thirty-eight and eighty-eight, and
      his mother was to him not a woman but wholly a mother. He had no
      perception of her other than as an adjunct to himself, his
      mother; nor could he imagine her thinking or doing
      anything—falling in love, walking with a friend, or reading 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 never
      in his life seen her or heard her voice. And it was to-night,
      while he stood with her, “receiving,” that he caught a
      disquieting glimpse of this stranger whom he thus fleetingly
      encountered for the first time.

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

      He had one of those curious moments that seem to have neither a
      cause nor any connection with actual things. While it lasted, he
      was disquieted not by thoughts—for he had no definite
      thoughts—but by a slight emotion like that caused in a dream by
      the presence of something invisible. soundless, and yet
      fantastic. There was nothing different or new about his mother,
      except her new black and silver dress: she was standing there
      beside him, bending her head a little in her greetings, smiling
      the same smile she had worn for the half-hour that people had
      been passing the “receiving” group. Her face was flushed, but the
      room was warm; and shaking hands with so many people easily
      accounted for the pretty glow that was upon her. At any time she
      could have “passed” for twenty-five or twenty-six—a man of fifty
      would have honestly guessed her to be about thirty but possibly
      two or three years younger—and though extraordinary in this, she
      had been extraordinary in it for years. There was nothing in
      either her looks or her manner to explain George’s uncomfortable
      feeling; and yet it increased, becoming suddenly a vague
      resentment, as if she had done something unmotherly to him.

      The fantastic moment passed; and even while it lasted, he was
      doing his duty, greeting two pretty girls with whom he had grown
      up, as people say, and warmly assuring them that he remembered
      them very well—an assurance which might have surprised them “in
      anybody but Georgie Minafer!” It seemed unnecessary, since he had
      spent many hours with them no longer ago than the preceding
      August. They had with them their parents and an uncle from out of
      town; and George negligently gave the parents the same assurance
      he had given the daughters, but murmured another form of greeting
      to the out-of-town uncle, whom he had never seen before. This
      person George absently took note of as a “queer-looking duck.”
      Undergraduates had not yet adopted “bird.” It was a period
      previous to that in which a sophomore would have thought of the
      Sharon girls’ uncle as a “queer-looking bird,” or, perhaps a
      “funny-face bird.” In George’s time, every human male was to be
      defined, at pleasure, as a “duck”; but “duck” was not spoken with
      admiring affection, as in its former feminine use to signify a
      “dear”—on the contrary, “duck” implied the speaker’s personal
      detachment and humorous superiority. An indifferent amusement was
      what George felt when his mother, with a gentle emphasis,
      interrupted his interchange of courtesies with the nieces to
      present him to the queer-looking duck their uncle. This emphasis
      of Isabel’s, though slight, enabled George to perceive that she
      considered the queer-looking duck a person of some importance;
      but it was far from enabling him to understand why. The duck
      parted his thick and longish black hair on the side; his tie was
      a forgetful looking thing, and his coat, though it fitted a good
      enough middle-aged figure, no product of this year, or of last
      year either. One of his eyebrows was noticeably higher than the
      other; and there were whimsical lines between them, which gave
      him an apprehensive expression; but his apprehensions were
      evidently more humorous than profound, for his prevailing look
      was that of a genial man of affairs, not much afraid of anything
      whatever. Nevertheless, observing only his unfashionable hair,
      his eyebrows, his preoccupied tie and his old coat, the olympic
      George set him down as a queer-looking duck, and having thus
      completed his portrait, took no interest in him.

      The Sharon girls passed on, taking the queer-looking duck with
      them, and George became pink with mortification as his mother
      called his attention to a white-bearded guest waiting to shake
      his hand. This was George’s great-uncle, old John Minafer: it was
      old John’s boast that in spite of his connection by marriage with
      the Ambersons, he never had worn and never would wear a
      swaller-tail coat. Members of his family had exerted their
      influence uselessly—at eighty-nine conservative people seldom
      form radical new habits, and old John wore his “Sunday suit” of
      black broadcloth to the Amberson ball. The coat was square, with
      skirts to the knees; old John called it a “Prince Albert” and was
      well enough pleased with 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 his hand for a moment; whereupon old
      John began to tell George that he was looking 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, and seized
      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
      rooms on the other side of the hall, where there were tables for
      whist. The imported orchestra waited in the ballroom on the third
      floor, but a local harp, ’cello, violin, and flute were playing
      airs from “The Fencing 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, heard his own voice but
      faintly, and liked to hear it. “Smell o’ flowers like this 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 of
      satisfaction out of this reminder. His tremulous yet strident
      voice cut through the voluminous sound that filled the room, and
      he was heard everywhere: “Always got to think o’ funerals when I
      smell so many flowers!” And, as the pressure of people forced
      Fanny and himself against the white marble mantelpiece, he
      pursued this train of cheery thought, shouting, “Right here’s
      where the Major’s wife was laid out at her 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 the Major when his
      time comes.”

      Presently George’s mortification was increased to hear this
      sawmill droning harshly from the midst of the thickening crowd:
      “Ain’t the dancin’ broke out yet, Fanny? Hoopla! Le’s push
      through and go see the young women-folks crack their heels! Start
      the circus! Hoopse-daisy!” Miss Fanny Minafer, in charge of the
      lively veteran, was almost as distressed as her nephew George,
      but she did her duty and managed to get old John through the
      press and out to the broad stairway, which numbers of young
      people were now ascending to the ballroom. And here the sawmill
      voice still rose over all others: “Solid black walnut every inch
      of it, balustrades and all. Sixty thousand dollars’ worth o’
      carved woodwork in 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
      young heads, white shoulders, jewels, and chiffon, like an old
      dog slowly swimming up the rapids of a sparkling river; while
      down below, in the drawing room, George began to recover from the
      degradation into which this relic of early settler days had
      dragged him. What restored him completely was a dark-eyed little
      beauty of nineteen, very knowing in lustrous blue and jet; at
      sight of this dashing advent in the line of guests before him,
      George was fully an Amberson again.

      “Remember you very well _indeed!_” he said, his graciousness more
      earnest than any he had heretofore displayed. Isabel heard him
      and laughed.

      “But you don’t, George!” she said. “You don’t remember her yet,
      though of course you _will!_ Miss Morgan is from out of town, and
      I’m afraid this is the first time you’ve ever seen her. You might
      take her up to the dancing; I think you’ve pretty well done your
      duty here.”

      “Be d’lighted,” George responded formally, and offered his arm,
      not with a flourish, certainly, but with an impressiveness
      inspired partly by the appearance of the person to whom he
      offered it, partly by his being the hero of this fête, and partly
      by his youthfulness—for when manners are new they are apt to be
      elaborate. The little beauty entrusted her gloved fingers to his
      coat-sleeve, and they moved away together.

      Their progress was necessarily slow, and to George’s mind it did
      not lack 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 had been brought to life and tended to this
      hour that they might sweeten the air for him while they died; and
      the evanescent power that music and floral scents hold over youth
      stirred his appreciation of strange, beautiful qualities within
      his own bosom: he seemed to himself to be mysteriously angelic,
      and about to do something which would overwhelm the beautiful
      young stranger upon his arm.

      Elderly people and middle-aged people moved away to let him pass
      with his honoured fair beside him. Worthy middle-class creatures,
      they seemed, leading dull lives but appreciative of better things
      when they saw them—and George’s bosom was fleetingly touched with
      a pitying kindness. And since the primordial day when caste or
      heritage first set one person, in his own esteem, above his
      fellow-beings, it is to be doubted if anybody ever felt more
      illustrious, or more negligently grand, than George Amberson
      Minafer felt at this party.

      As he conducted Miss Morgan through the hall, toward the
      stairway, they passed the open double doors of a card room, where
      some squadrons of older people were preparing for action, and,
      leaning gracefully upon the mantelpiece of this room, a tall man,
      handsome, high-mannered, and sparklingly point-device, held
      laughing converse with that queer-looking duck, the Sharon girls’
      uncle. The tall gentleman waved a gracious salutation to George,
      and Miss Morgan’s curiosity was stirred. “Who is that?”

      “I didn’t catch his name when my mother presented him to me,”
      said George. “You mean the queer-looking duck.”

      “I mean the aristocratic duck.”

      “That’s my Uncle George Honourable George Amberson. I thought
      everybody knew him.”

      “He looks as though everybody ought to know him,” she said. “It
      seems to run 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 this part 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
      Uncle Sydney Amberson and his wife, Aunt Amelia, they haven’t got
      much of anything to do with themselves—get bored to death around
      here, of course. Well, probably Uncle George’ll have Uncle Sydney
      appointed minister or ambassador, or something like that, to
      Russia or Italy or somewhere, and that’ll make it pleasant when
      any of the rest of the family go travelling, or things like that.
      I expect to do a good deal of travelling 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 was ambassadorial. Sydney was an Amberson
      exaggerated, more pompous than gracious; too portly, flushed,
      starched to a shine, his stately jowl furnished with an Edward
      the Seventh beard. Amelia, likewise full-bodied, showed
      glittering blond hair exuberantly dressed; a pink, fat face cold
      under a white-hot tiara; a solid, cold bosom under a white-hot
      necklace; great, cold, gloved arms, and the rest of her
      beautifully upholstered. Amelia was an Amberson born, herself,
      Sydney’s second-cousin: they had no children, and Sydney was
      without a business or a profession; thus both found a great deal
      of time to think about the appropriateness of their becoming
      Excellencies. And as George ascended the broad stairway, they
      were precisely the aunt and uncle he was most pleased to point
      out, to a girl from out of town, as his appurtenances in the way
      of relatives. At sight of them the grandeur of the Amberson
      family was instantly conspicuous as a permanent thing: it was
      impossible to doubt that the Ambersons were entrenched, in their
      nobility and riches, behind polished and glittering barriers
      which were as solid as they were brilliant, and would last.




      Chapter V


      The hero of the fête, with the dark-eyed little beauty upon his
      arm, reached the top of the second flight of stairs; and here,
      beyond a spacious landing, where two proud-like darkies tended a
      crystalline punch bowl, four wide archways in a rose-vine lattice
      framed gliding silhouettes of waltzers, already smoothly at it to
      the castanets of “_La Paloma_.” Old John Minafer, evidently
      surfeited, was in the act of leaving these delights. “D’want ’ny
      more o’ that!” he barked. “Just slidin’ around! Call that
      dancin’? Rather see a jig any day in the world! 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 the ballroom escorted by a middle-aged man of commonplace
      appearance. The escort had a dry, lined face upon which, not
      ornamentally but as a matter of course, there grew a business
      man’s short moustache; and his thin neck showed an Adam’s apple,
      but not conspicuously, for there was nothing conspicuous about
      him. Baldish, dim, quiet, he was an unnoticeable part of this
      festival, and although there were a dozen or more middle-aged men
      present, not casually to be distinguished from him in general
      aspect, he was probably the last person in the big house at whom
      a stranger would have glanced twice. It did not enter George’s
      mind to mention to Miss Morgan that this was his father, or to
      say anything whatever 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
      guess I’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.
      Ordinarily he was not ashamed of the Minafers; he seldom thought
      about them at all, for he belonged, as most American children do,
      to the mother’s family—but he was anxious not to linger with Miss
      Morgan in the vicinity of old John, whom he felt to be a
      disgrace.

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

      George danced well, and Miss Morgan seemed to float as part of
      the music, the very dove itself of “_La Paloma_.” They said
      nothing as they danced; her eyes were cast down all the while—the
      prettiest gesture for a dancer—and there was left in the
      universe, for each, of them, only their companionship in this
      waltz; while the faces of the other dancers, swimming by, denoted
      not people but merely blurs of colour. George became conscious of
      strange feelings within him: an exaltation of soul, tender, but
      indefinite, and seemingly located in the upper part of his
      diaphragm.

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

      “Give me the next and the one after that,” he said hurriedly,
      recovering some presence of mind, just as the nearest applicant
      reached them. “And give 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
      those dances.”

      “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, with
      surprising vehemence: “Here! I want to know: Are you going to
      give me those—”

      “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 it evident that they succeeded in annoying him; and
      presently he extricated her from an accumulating siege—she must
      have connived in the extrication—and bore her off to sit beside
      him upon the stairway that led to the musicians’ gallery, where
      they were sufficiently retired, yet had a view of the room.

      “How’d all those ducks get to know you so quick?” George
      inquired, with little enthusiasm.

      “Oh, I’ve been here a week.”

      “Looks as if you’d been pretty busy!” he said. “Most of those
      ducks, I don’t know what my mother wanted to invite ’em here
      for.”

      “Don’t you like them?”

      “Oh, I used to see something of a few of ’em. I was president of
      a club we had here, and some of ’em belonged to it, but I don’t
      care much for that 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
      suggested mildly. “Maybe she didn’t want to offend their fathers
      and mothers.”

      “Oh, hardly! I don’t think my mother need worry much about
      offending anybody 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 is anybody ought to be able to do about as they like in
      their own town, I should think!”

      She looked at him critically from under her shading lashes—but
      her eyes grew gentler almost at once. In truth, they became more
      appreciative than critical. George’s imperious good looks were
      altogether manly, yet approached actual beauty as closely as a
      boy’s good looks should dare; and dance-music and flowers have
      some effect upon nineteen-year-old girls as well as upon
      eighteen-year-old boys. Miss Morgan turned her eyes slowly from
      George, and pressed her face among the lilies-of-the-valley and
      violets of the pretty bouquet she carried, while, from the
      gallery above, the music of the next dance carolled out merrily
      in a new two-step. The musicians made the melody gay for the
      Christmastime with chimes of sleighbells, and the entrance to the
      shadowed stairway framed the passing flushed and lively dancers,
      but neither George nor Miss Morgan suggested moving to join the
      dance.

      The stairway was draughty: the steps were narrow and
      uncomfortable; no older person would have remained in such a
      place. Moreover, these two young people were strangers to each
      other; neither had said anything in which the other had
      discovered the slightest intrinsic interest; there had not arisen
      between them the beginnings of congeniality, or even of
      friendliness—but stairways near ballrooms have more to answer for
      than have moonlit lakes and mountain sunsets. Some day the laws
      of glamour must be discovered, because they are so important that
      the world would be wiser now if Sir Isaac Newton had been hit on
      the head, not by an apple, but by a young lady.

      Age, confused by its own long accumulation of follies, is
      everlastingly inquiring, “What does _she_ see in _him?_” as if
      young love came about through thinking—or through conduct. Age
      wants to know: “What on earth can 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 a bright sun, feels
      lively; thinks, “I am hearty, today,” and plans to go for a
      drive. At eighteen, one goes to a dance, sits with a stranger on
      a stairway, feels peculiar, thinks nothing, and becomes incapable
      of any plan whatever. Miss Morgan and George stayed where they
      were.

      They had agreed to this in silence and without knowing it;
      certainly without exchanging glances of intelligence—they had
      exchanged no glances at all. Both sat staring vaguely out into
      the ballroom, and, for a time, they did not speak. Over their
      heads the music reached a climax of vivacity: drums, cymbals,
      triangle, and sleighbells, beating, clashing, tinkling. Here and
      there were to be seen couples so carried away that, ceasing to
      move at the decorous, even glide, considered most knowing, they
      pranced and whirled through the throng, from wall to wall,
      galloping bounteously in abandon. George suffered a shock of
      vague surprise when he perceived that his aunt, Fanny Minafer,
      was the lady-half of one of these wild couples.

      Fanny Minafer, who rouged a little, was like fruit which in some
      climates dries with the bloom on. Her features had remained
      prettily childlike; so had her figure, and there were times when
      strangers, seeing her across the street, took her to be about
      twenty; they were other 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 hours and young hours; old minutes and
      young minutes; for the change might be that quick. An alteration
      in her expression, or a difference in the attitude of her head,
      would cause astonishing indentations to appear—and behold, Fanny
      was an old lady! But she had been never more childlike than she
      was tonight as she flew over the floor in the capable arms 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, gay rapidity with which he bore Miss Fanny about the
      big room, he danced authoritatively, avoiding without effort the
      lightest collision with other couples, maintaining sufficient
      grace throughout his wildest moments, and all the while laughing
      and talking with his partner. What was most remarkable to George,
      and a little irritating, this stranger in the Amberson Mansion
      had no vestige of the air of deference proper to a stranger in
      such a place: he seemed thoroughly at home. He seemed offensively
      so, indeed, when, passing the entrance to the gallery stairway,
      he disengaged his hand from Miss Fanny’s for an instant, and not
      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
      word nor 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’s the 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:
      he meant me.”

      “Oh, he did?” George was not mollified by the explanation.
      “Everybody seems to mean you! You certainly do seem to’ve been
      pretty busy this week you’ve been here!”

      She pressed her bouquet to her face again, and laughed into it,
      not displeased. She made no other comment, and for another period
      neither spoke. Meanwhile the music stopped; loud applause
      insisted upon its renewal; an encore was danced; there was an
      interlude of voices; and the changing of partners began.

      “Well,” said George finally, “I must say you don’t seem to be
      much of a prattler. 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
      her quickly, at this, saw that her eyes were sunny and content,
      over the top of her bouquet; and he consented to smile.

      “Girls are usually pretty fresh!” he said. “They ought to go to a
      man’s college 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 for you 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 the gate, wherever you’re visiting, all afternoon, and if you
      try to go out with anybody else he’s got to whip me before he
      gets you.” And as she laughed—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 big experiment!”

      She laughed again. “I don’t think I’ve often had so large a
      compliment as that,” she said, “especially on such short
      notice—and yet, I don’t think 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
      was amused—but meek.

      When “the third from now” came, George presented himself before
      her without any greeting, like a brother, or a mannerless old
      friend. Neither did she greet him, but moved away with him,
      concluding, as she went, an exchange of badinage with the
      preceding partner: she had been talkative enough with him, it
      appeared. In fact, both George and Miss Morgan talked much more
      to every one else that evening, than to each other; and they said
      nothing at all at this time. Both looked preoccupied, as they
      began to dance, and preserved a gravity, of expression 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, seeming to have
      reached an understanding without any verbal consultation, that
      this suburb was again the place for them.

      “Well,” said George, coolly, when they were seated, “what did you
      say your name was?”

      “Morgan.”

      “Funny name!”

      “Everybody else’s name always is.”

      “I didn’t mean it was really funny,” George explained. “That’s
      just one of my crowd’s bits of horsing at college. We always say
      ‘funny name’ no matter what it is. I guess we’re pretty fresh
      sometimes; but I knew your name was Morgan because my mother said
      so downstairs. I meant: what’s the 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
      to smile. Even his Aunt Fanny admitted that when George smiled
      “in a certain 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,
      but believing isn’t really knowing. You believe some certain day
      is your birthday—at least, I suppose you do—but you don’t really
      know it is because 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
      a suggestion which showed how utterly she failed to comprehend
      the kind of person he was.

      “Why not?” she asked mildly.

      “Just look at ’em!” he said, almost with bitterness, and he made
      a gesture presumably intended to indicate the business and
      professional men 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 do they ever _get?_”

      He was so earnest that she was surprised and impressed. Evidently
      he had deep-seated ambitions, for he seemed to speak with actual
      emotion of these despised things which were so far beneath his
      planning for the future. She had a vague, momentary vision of
      Pitt, at twenty-one, prime minister 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 his confidant, gazed out at the dancers with an
      expression in which there was both sternness and a contempt for
      the squalid lives of the unyachted Midlanders before him.
      However, among them, he marked his mother; and his sombre
      grandeur relaxed momentarily; a more genial light came into his
      eyes.

      Isabel was dancing with the queer-looking duck; and it was to be
      noted that the lively gentleman’s gait was more sedate than it
      had been with Miss Fanny Minafer, but not less dexterous and
      authoritative. He was talking to Isabel as gaily as he had talked
      to Miss Fanny, though with less laughter, and Isabel listened and
      answered eagerly: her colour was high and her eyes had a look of
      delight. She saw George and the beautiful Lucy on the stairway,
      and nodded to them. George waved his hand vaguely: he had a
      momentary return of that inexplicable uneasiness and 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 of sixteen.”

      “Most girls of sixteen,” said George, “are bum dancers. Anyhow, I
      wouldn’t dance with one unless I had to.”

      “Well, you’d better dance with your mother! I never saw anybody
      lovelier. How wonderfully they dance together!”

      “Who?”

      “Your mother and—and the queer-looking duck,” said Lucy. “I’m
      going to dance with him pretty soon.”

      “I don’t care—so long as you don’t give him one of the numbers
      that belong to me.”

      “I’ll try to remember,” she said, and thoughtfully lifted to her
      face the bouquet of violets and lilies, a gesture which George
      noted without approval.

      “Look here! Who sent you those flowers you keep makin’ such a
      fuss over?”

      “He did.”

      “Who’s ‘he’?”

      “The queer-looking duck.”

      George feared no such rival; he laughed loudly. “I s’pose he’s
      some old widower!” he said, the object thus described seeming
      ignominious enough to a person of eighteen, without additional
      characterization. “Some old widower!”

      Lucy became serious at once. “Yes, he is a widower,” she said. “I
      ought to have told you before; he’s my father.”

      George stopped laughing abruptly. “Well, that’s a horse on me. If
      I’d known he was your father, of course I wouldn’t have made fun
      of him. I’m sorry.”

      “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 to make myself silly any more, then; I don’t want to take
      chances like that with _you_. But I thought he was the Sharon
      girls’ uncle. He came with them—”

      “Yes,” she said, “I’m always late to everything: I wouldn’t let
      them wait 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
      in your 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’re_ superior don’t they? In New York last month I
      overheard a climber sort of woman speaking of me as ‘little Miss
      Morgan,’ but she didn’t mean my height; she meant that she was
      important. Her husband spoke of a friend of mine as ‘little Mr.
      Pembroke’ and ‘little Mr. Pembroke’ is six-feet-three. This
      husband and wife were really so terribly unimportant that the
      only way they knew to pretend to be important was calling people
      ‘little’ Miss or Mister so-and-so. It’s a kind of snob slang, 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,” said
      George. “One thing I don’t see though: What’s the use of a man
      being six-feet-three? Men that size can’t handle themselves as
      well as a man about five-feet-eleven and a half can. Those long,
      gangling men, they’re nearly always too kind of wormy to be any
      good in athletics, and they’re so awkward they keep falling over
      chairs or—”

      “Mr. Pembroke is in the army,” said Lucy primly. “He’s
      extraordinarily graceful.”

      “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.
      “Are you engaged to anybody?”

      “No.”

      Not wholly mollified, he shrugged his shoulders. “You seem to
      know a good 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
      this town, 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
      horseless carriage.”

      “Well, I’m sorry for him,” George said, in no unkindly spirit.
      “Those things are never going to amount to anything. People
      aren’t going to spend their lives lying on their backs in the
      road and letting grease drip in their faces. Horseless carriages
      are pretty much a failure, and your 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
      done anything to be insulted for!” he said. “I don’t see that
      what I said was particularly fresh.”

      “No, indeed!”

      “Then what do you—”

      She laughed gaily. “I don’t! And I don’t mind your being such a
      lofty person at all. I think it’s ever so interesting—but papa’s
      a great man!”

      “Is he?” George decided to be good-natured “Well, let us hope so.
      I hope so, I’m sure.”

      Looking at him keenly, she saw that the magnificent youth was
      incredibly sincere in this bit of graciousness. He spoke as a
      tolerant, elderly statesman might speak of a promising young
      politician; and with her eyes still upon him, Lucy shook her head
      in gentle wonder. “I’m just beginning to understand,” she said.

      “Understand what?”

      “What it means to be a real Amberson in this town. Papa told me
      something 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 knew the family before he left here?”

      “Yes. I believe he was particularly a friend of your Uncle
      George; and he didn’t say so, but I imagine he must have known
      your mother very well, too. He wasn’t an inventor then; he was a
      young lawyer. The town was 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 told you.”

      “I don’t think he meant to boast of it,” she said: “He spoke of
      it quite calmly.”

      George stared at her for a moment in perplexity, then perceiving
      that her intention was satirical, “Girls really ought to go to a
      man’s college,” he said—“just a month or two, anyhow; It’d take
      _some_ of the freshness out of ’em!”

      “I can’t believe it,” she retorted, as her partner for the next
      dance arrived. “It would only make them a little politer on the
      surface—they’d be really just as awful as ever, after you got to
      know them 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 about what sort of a _little_ boy you were,” she said, over
      her shoulder. “You must think it out!” She took wing away on the
      breeze of the waltz, and George, having stared gloomily after her
      for a few moments, postponed filling an engagement, and strolled
      round the fluctuating outskirts of the 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
      heel of 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 a while?”

      Amberson laughed. “He’s a man with a pretty daughter, Georgie.
      Meseemed you’ve been spending the evening noticing something of
      that sort—or do I err?”

      “Never mind! What sort is he?”

      “I think we’ll have to give him a character, Georgie. He’s an old
      friend; 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 purely mercenary, I take it: you want to know his true worth
      before proceeding further with the daughter. I cannot inform you,
      though I notice signs of considerable prosperity in that becoming
      dress of hers. However, you never 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 pearl studs 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 the young 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 a great friend of the family.”

      “Oh, the Minafers?” the uncle inquired, with apparent innocence.
      “No, I seem to recall that he and your father were not—”

      “I mean the Ambersons,” George said impatiently. “I understand he
      was a good 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. The way he was dancing with Aunt Fanny—”

      Amberson laughed. “I’m afraid your Aunt Fanny’s heart was stirred
      by ancient recollections, Georgie.”

      “You mean she used to be silly about him?”

      “She wasn’t considered singular,” said the uncle “He was—he was
      popular. 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 the parents of every girl you dance with? Perhaps it’s a new
      fashion we old bachelors ought to take up. Is it the thing this
      year to—”

      “Oh, go on!” said George, moving away. “I only wanted to know—”
      He left the sentence unfinished, and crossed the room to where a
      girl sat waiting for his nobility to find time to fulfil his
      contract with her for 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 to girls’ looking radiant when he danced with them, and she
      had little effect upon him. He danced with her perfunctorily,
      thinking the while of Mr. Eugene Morgan and his daughter.
      Strangely enough, his thoughts dwelt more upon the father than
      the daughter, though George could not possibly have given a
      reason—even to himself—for this disturbing preponderance.

      By a coincidence, though not an odd one, the thoughts and
      conversation of Mr. Eugene Morgan at this very time were
      concerned with George Amberson Minafer, rather casually, it is
      true. Mr. Morgan had retired to a room set apart for smoking, on
      the second floor, and had found a grizzled 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 one you’re masquerading in to-night. You ought to
      have changed it more if you wanted a disguise.”

      “Twenty years!” said Mr. Kinney. “It makes some difference in
      faces, but more in behaviour!”

      “It does so!” his friend agreed with explosive emphasis. “My own
      behaviour began to be different about that long ago—quite
      suddenly.”

      “I remember,” said Mr. Kinney sympathetically. “Well, life’s odd
      enough as 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
      lowered his voice. “He wouldn’t come. It seems that a couple of
      years or so ago he had a row with young Georgie Minafer. Fred was
      president of a literary club they had, and he said this young
      Georgie got himself elected instead, in an overbearing sort of
      way. Fred’s red-headed, you know—I suppose you remember his
      mother? You were at the wedding—”

      “I remember the wedding,” said Mr. Morgan. “And I remember your
      bachelor dinner—most of it, that is.”

      “Well, my boy Fred’s as red-headed now,” Mr. Kinney went on, “as
      his mother was then, and he’s very bitter about his row with
      Georgie Minafer. He says he’d rather burn his foot off than set
      it inside any Amberson house or any place else where young
      Georgie is. Fact is, the boy seemed to have so much feeling over
      it I had my doubts about coming myself, but my wife said it was
      all nonsense; we mustn’t humour Fred in a grudge over such a
      little thing, and while she despised that Georgie Minafer,
      herself, as much as any one else did, she wasn’t going to miss a
      big Amberson show just on account of a boys’ rumpus, and so on
      and so on; 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 their opinions about him.”

      “What’s the matter with him?”

      “Too much Amberson, I suppose, for one thing. And for another,
      his mother just fell down and worshipped him from the day he was
      born. That’s what beats me! I don’t have to tell you what Isabel
      Amberson is, Eugene Morgan. She’s got a touch of the Amberson
      high stuff about her, but you can’t get anybody that ever knew
      her to deny that she’s just about the finest 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.
      He thinks he’s a little tin god on wheels—and honestly, it makes
      some people weak and sick just to think about him! Yet that
      high-spirited, intelligent woman, Isabel Amberson, actually sits
      and worships him! You can hear it in her voice when she speaks to
      him or speaks of him. You can see it in her eyes when she looks
      at him. My Lord! What _does_ she see when she looks at him?”

      Morgan’s odd expression of genial apprehension deepened
      whimsically, though it denoted no actual apprehension whatever,
      and cleared away from his face altogether when he smiled; he
      became surprisingly winning and persuasive when he smiled. He
      smiled now, after a moment, at this question of his old friend.
      “She sees something that we don’t see,” he said.

      “What does she see?”

      “An angel.”

      Kinney laughed aloud. “Well, if she sees an angel when she looks
      at Georgie 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 that time have you looked at Georgie and seen an angel?”

      “No. All I saw was a remarkably good-looking fool-boy with the
      pride of Satan and a set of nice new drawing-room manners that he
      probably couldn’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
      is the same sort of creature when he’s with his mother that he is
      when he’s bulldozing your boy Fred? Mothers see the angel in us
      because the angel is 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’s possible for a misguided angel
      to act like a devil—and she’s entirely right about that!”

      Kinney laughed, and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I
      remember what a fellow you always were to argue,” he said. “You
      mean Georgie Minafer is as much of an angel as any murderer is,
      and that Georgie’s mother is always right.”

      “I’m afraid she always has been,” Morgan said lightly.

      The friendly hand remained upon his shoulder. “She was wrong
      once, old fellow. At least, so it seemed to me.”

      “No,” said Morgan, a little awkwardly. “No—”

      Kinney relieved the slight embarrassment that had come upon both
      of them: he laughed again. “Wait till you know young Georgie a
      little better,” he said. “Something tells me you’re going to
      change your mind about 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 in the eye of the mother. If you were a painter, Fred, you’d
      paint mothers with angels’ eyes holding imps in their laps. Me,
      I’ll stick to the Old Masters and the cherubs.”

      Mr. Kinney looked at him musingly. “Somebody’s eyes must have
      been pretty angelic,” he said, “if they’ve been persuading you
      that Georgie Minafer is a cherub!”

      “They are,” said Morgan heartily. “They’re more angelic than
      ever.” And as 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, your jumping up like that to go and dance with Isabel
      Amberson! Twenty years seem to have passed—but have they? Tell
      me, have you danced with poor old Fanny, too, this evening?”

      “Twice!”

      “My Lord!” Kinney groaned, half in earnest. “Old times starting
      all over again! My Lord!”

      “Old times?” Morgan laughed gaily from the doorway. “Not a bit!
      There aren’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
      begun dancing.




      Chapter VII


      The appearance of Miss Lucy Morgan the next day, as she sat in
      George’s fast cutter, proved so charming that her escort was
      stricken to soft words instantly, and failed to control a poetic
      impulse. Her rich little hat was trimmed with black fur; her hair
      was almost as dark as the fur; a great boa of black fur was about
      her shoulders; her hands were vanished into a black muff; and
      George’s laprobe was black. “You look like—” he said. “Your face
      looks like—it looks like a snowflake on a lump 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 upset just then.”

      George declined to heed this advice. “Because there’s too much
      pink in your cheeks for a snowflake,” he continued. “What’s that
      fairy story about 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
      the street, you know.”

      “Oh, _they’ll_ keep out of the way.”

      “That’s very patrician charioteering, but it seems to me a horse
      like this 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 suppose your 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 a yell and burn up.”

      Evidently she decided not to defend her father’s faith in
      horseless carriages, for she laughed, and said nothing. The cold
      air was polka-dotted with snowflakes, and trembled to the loud,
      continuous jingling of sleighbells. Boys and girls, all aglow and
      panting jets of vapour, darted at the passing sleighs to ride on
      the runners, or sought to rope their sleds to any vehicle
      whatever, but the fleetest no more than just touched the flying
      cutter, though a hundred soggy mittens grasped for it, then
      reeled and whirled till sometimes the wearers of 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 in town
      were out, most of them on National Avenue.

      But there came panting and chugging up that flat thoroughfare a
      thing which some day was to spoil all their sleigh-time
      merriment—save for the rashest and most disobedient. It was
      vaguely like a topless surry, but cumbrous with unwholesome
      excrescences fore and aft, while underneath were spinning leather
      belts and something that whirred and howled and seemed to
      stagger. The ride-stealers made no attempt to fasten their sleds
      to a contrivance so nonsensical and yet so fearsome. Instead,
      they gave over their sport and concentrated all their energies in
      their lungs, so that up and down the street the one cry shrilled
      increasingly: “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Mister, why
      don’t you git a hoss?” But the mahout in charge, sitting solitary
      on the front seat, was unconcerned—he laughed, and now and then
      ducked a snowball without losing any of his good-nature. It was
      Mr. Eugene Morgan who exhibited so cheerful a countenance between
      the forward visor of a deer-stalker cap and the collar of a fuzzy
      gray ulster. “Git a hoss!” the children shrieked, and gruffer
      voices joined them. “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a _hoss!_”

      George Minafer was correct thus far: the twelve miles an hour of
      such a machine would never over-take George’s trotter. The cutter
      was already scurrying between the stone pillars at the entrance
      to Amberson Addition.

      “That’s my grandfather’s,” said George, nodding toward the
      Amberson Mansion.

      “I ought to know that!” Lucy exclaimed. “We stayed there late
      enough last night: papa and I were almost the last to go. He and
      your mother and Miss Fanny Minafer got the musicians to play
      another waltz when everybody else had gone downstairs and the
      fiddles were being put away in their cases. Papa danced part of
      it with Miss Minafer and the rest with 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 a wedding gift. “It’s almost the same as
      grandfather’s, only not as large and hasn’t got a regular
      ballroom. We gave the dance, last night, at grandfather’s on
      account of the ballroom, and because I’m the only grandchild, you
      know. Of course, some day that’ll be my house, though I expect my
      mother will most likely go on living where she does now, with
      father and Aunt Fanny. I suppose I’ll probably build a country
      house, too—somewhere East, I guess.” He stopped speaking, and
      frowned as they passed a closed carriage and pair. The body of
      this comfortable vehicle sagged slightly to one side; the paint
      was old and seamed with hundreds of minute cracks like little
      rivers on a black map; the coachman, a fat and elderly darky,
      seemed to drowse upon the box; but the open window afforded the
      occupants of the cutter a glimpse of a tired, fine old face, a
      silk hat, a pearl tie, and an astrachan collar, evidently out to
      take 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 give
      that rat-trap away and sell those old horses. They’re a disgrace,
      all shaggy—not even clipped. I suppose he doesn’t notice
      it—people get awful 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, look
      at that!” He pointed to a statue of Minerva, one of the cast-iron
      sculptures Major Amberson had set up in opening the Addition
      years before. Minerva was intact, but a blackish streak descended
      unpleasantly from her forehead to the point of her straight nose,
      and a few other streaks were sketched in a repellent dinge upon
      the folds of her drapery.

      “That must be from soot,” said Lucy. “There are so many houses
      around here.”

      “Anyhow, somebody ought to see that these statues are kept clean.
      My grandfather 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, and there used to be heaps of ’em when I was a boy.
      Another thing I don’t think he ought to allow; a good many of
      these people bought big lots and they built houses on ’em; then
      the price of the land kept getting higher, and they’d sell part
      of their yards and let the people that bought it build houses on
      it to live in, till they haven’t hardly any of ’em got big, open
      yards any more, and it’s getting all too much built up. 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
      people take too many liberties: they do anything they want to.”

      “But how could he stop them?” Lucy asked, surely with reason. “If
      he sold them the land, it’s theirs, isn’t it?”

      George remained serene in the face of this apparently difficult
      question. “He ought to have all the trades-people boycott the
      families that sell part of their yards that way. All he’d have to
      do would be to tell the trades-people they wouldn’t get any more
      orders from the family if 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 did not, 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
      happy over!”

      “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 of the reasons I don’t like you—much!—is you’ve got that way
      of seeming quietly superior to everybody else.”

      “I!” she cried. “I have?”

      “Oh, you think you keep it sort of confidential to yourself, but
      it’s plain 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
      like this: 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 as equals.” His voice betrayed a little emotion as
      he added, “I wouldn’t speak like this to everybody.”

      “You mean you’re confiding your deepest creed—or code, whatever
      it is—to me?”

      “Go on, make fun of it, then!” George said bitterly. “You do
      think you’re terribly clever! It makes me tired!”

      “Well, as you don’t like my seeming ‘quietly superior,’ after
      this I’ll be noisily superior,” she returned cheerfully. “We aim
      to please!”

      “I had a notion before I came for you today that we were going to
      quarrel,” he said.

      “No, we won’t; it takes two!” She laughed and waved her muff
      toward a new house, not quite completed, standing in a field upon
      their right. They had passed beyond Amberson Addition, and were
      leaving the northern fringes of the town for the open country.
      “Isn’t that a beautiful house!” 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
      in his machine, and we both loved it. It’s so spacious and
      dignified and plain.”

      “Yes, it’s plain enough!” George grunted.

      “Yet it’s lovely; the gray-green roof and shutters give just
      enough colour, with the trees, for the long white walls. It seems
      to me the finest house I’ve seen in this part of the country.”

      George was outraged by an enthusiasm so ignorant—not ten minutes
      ago they had passed the Amberson Mansion. “Is that a sample of
      your taste in architecture?” he asked.

      “Yes. Why?”

      “Because it strikes me you better go somewhere and study the
      subject a little!”

      Lucy looked puzzled. “What makes you have so much feeling about
      it? Have I offended you?”

      “‘Offended’ nothing!” George returned brusquely. “Girls usually
      think they know it all as soon as they’ve learned to dance and
      dress and flirt a little. They never know anything about things
      like architecture, for instance. 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
      at it! I shouldn’t think you’d have to do any more than look at
      it if you’d ever 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 the past tense, because they had now left it far
      behind them—a human habit of curious significance. “It was like a
      house meant for a street in the city. What kind of a house was
      that for people of any taste to build out here in the country?”

      “But papa says it’s built that way on purpose. There are a lot of
      other houses being built in this direction, and papa says the
      city’s coming out 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
      know the people that are building it. They say a lot of riffraff
      come to town every year nowadays and there’s other riffraff that
      have always lived here, 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 of his friends are organizing a
      country club, and already some of these riffraff are worming into
      it—people he never heard of at all! Anyhow, I guess it’s pretty
      clear you don’t know a great deal about architecture.”

      She demonstrated the completeness of her amiability by laughing.
      “I’ll know something about the North Pole before long,” she said,
      “if we keep going much farther in this direction!”

      At this he was remorseful. “All right, we’ll turn, and drive
      south awhile till you get warmed up again. I expect we have been
      going against the wind about long enough. Indeed, I’m sorry!”

      He said, “Indeed, I’m sorry,” in a nice way, and looked very
      strikingly handsome when he said it, she thought. No doubt it is
      true that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner
      repented than over all the saints who consistently remain holy,
      and the rare, sudden gentlenesses of arrogant people have
      infinitely more effect than the continual gentleness of gentle
      people. Arrogance turned gentle melts the heart; and Lucy gave
      her companion a little sidelong, sunny nod of acknowledgment.
      George was dazzled by the quick glow of her eyes, and found
      himself at a loss for something to say.

      Having turned about, he kept his horse to a walk, and at this
      gait the sleighbells tinkled but intermittently. Gleaming wanly
      through the whitish vapour that kept rising from the trotter’s
      body and flanks, they were like tiny fog-bells, and made the only
      sounds in a great winter silence. The white road ran between
      lonesome rail fences; and frozen barnyards beyond the fences
      showed sometimes a harrow left to rust, with its iron seat half
      filled with stiffened snow, and sometimes an old dead buggy, its
      wheels forever set, it seemed, in the solid ice of deep ruts.
      Chickens scratched the metallic earth with an air of protest, and
      a masterless ragged colt looked up in sudden horror at the mild
      tinkle of 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 upon the land, was the town.

      Lucy looked at this distant thickening reflection. “When we get
      this far out we can see there must be quite a little smoke
      hanging over the town,” she said. “I suppose that’s because it’s
      growing. As it grows bigger it seems to get ashamed of itself, so
      it makes this cloud and hides 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, a particular tone of
      voice, I’ve noticed. He must have been very fond of it. 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 long
      midsummer serenade. He declares it was always sunshine, that the
      air wasn’t like the air anywhere else—that, as he remembers it,
      there always seemed to be gold-dust in the air. I doubt it! I
      think it doesn’t seem to be duller air to him now just on account
      of having a little soot in 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 young that he remembers. I
      think it was just youth. It is pretty pleasant to be young, isn’t
      it?” She laughed absently, then appeared to become wistful. “I
      wonder if we really do enjoy it as much as we’ll look back and
      think we did! I don’t suppose so. Anyhow, for my part I feel as
      if I must be missing something about it, somehow, because I don’t
      ever seem to be thinking about what’s happening at the present
      moment; I’m always looking forward to something—thinking about
      things that will happen when I’m older.”

      “You’re a funny girl,” George said gently. “But your voice sounds
      pretty nice when you think and talk along together like that!”

      The horse shook himself all over, and the impatient sleighbells
      made his wish audible. Accordingly, George tightened the reins,
      and the cutter was off again at a three-minute trot, no
      despicable rate of speed. It was 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 a funny girl, and you know
      a lot—but I don’t believe you know much about architecture!”

      Coming toward them, black against the snowy road, was a strange
      silhouette. It approached moderately and without visible means of
      progression, so the matter seemed from a distance; but as the
      cutter shortened the distance, the silhouette was revealed to be
      Mr. Morgan’s horseless carriage, conveying four people atop: Mr.
      Morgan with George’s mother beside him, and, in the rear seat,
      Miss Fanny Minafer and the Honourable George Amberson. All four
      seemed to be in the liveliest humour, like high-spirited people
      upon a new adventure; and Isabel waved her 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 most
      bewitching _things!_ She looked like a Russian princess, though I
      doubt if they’re that handsome.”

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

      “Let’s go back and take another look at that old sewing-machine,”
      he said. “It certainly is the weirdest, craziest—”

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

      Alas! three figures stood in the road, and a pair of legs, with
      the toes turned 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’s best gait, snow spraying from runners and every hoof,
      swerved to the side of the road and shot by, shouting, “Git a
      hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss!”

      Three hundred yards away he turned and came back, racing; leaning
      out as 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:
      “Be careful!” she said. “Look where you’re driving! There’s a
      ditch on that side. _Look_—”

      George turned too late; the cutter’s right runner went into the
      ditch and snapped off; the little sleigh upset, and, after
      dragging its occupants some fifteen yards, left them lying
      together in a bank of snow. Then the vigorous young horse kicked
      himself free of all annoyances, and disappeared down the road,
      galloping cheerfully.




      Chapter VIII


      When George regained some measure of his presence of mind, Miss
      Lucy Morgan’s cheek, snowy and cold, was pressing his nose
      slightly to one side; his right arm was firmly about her neck;
      and a monstrous amount of her fur boa seemed to mingle with an
      equally unplausible quantity of snow in his mouth. He was
      confused, but conscious of no objection to any of 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, he
      was the first to reach them. He threw himself on his knees beside
      his daughter, but found her already laughing, and was reassured.
      “They’re all right,” he called to Isabel, who was running toward
      them, ahead of her brother and Fanny Minafer. “This snowbank’s a
      feather bed—nothing the 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
      silly horse—”

      Sudden tears stood in Isabel’s eyes. “To see you down
      underneath—dragging—oh—” Then with shaking hands she began to
      brush the snow from him.

      “Let me alone,” he protested. “You’ll ruin your gloves. You’re
      getting snow all over you, and—”

      “No, no!” she cried. “You’ll catch cold; you mustn’t catch cold!”
      And she continued to brush him.

      Amberson had brought Lucy’s hat; Miss Fanny acted as lady’s-maid;
      and both victims of the accident were presently restored to about
      their usual appearance and condition of apparel. In fact,
      encouraged by the two older gentlemen, the entire party, with one
      exception, decided that the episode was after all a merry one,
      and began to laugh about it. But George 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 can send a man out for what’s left of the cutter tomorrow,
      and Pendennis will gallop straight home to his stable: he’ll be
      there a long while before we will, because all we’ve got to
      depend on to get us home is Gene Morgan’s broken-down
      chafing-dish yonder.”

      They were approaching the machine as he spoke, and his friend,
      again underneath 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 her eyes, in spite of the smile, kept upon George in a
      shocked anxiety. Miss Fanny had already mounted to the rear seat,
      and George, after helping Lucy Morgan to climb up beside his
      aunt, was following. Isabel saw that his shoes were light things
      of patent leather, and that snow was clinging to them. She made a
      little rush toward him, and, as one of his feet rested on the
      iron step of the machine, in mounting, she began to clean 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
      sake get in! You’re standing in the snow yourself. Get in!”

      Isabel consented, turning to Morgan, whose habitual expression of
      apprehensiveness was somewhat accentuated. He climbed up after
      her, George Amberson having gone to the other side. “You’re the
      same Isabel I used to know!” he said in a low voice. “You’re a
      divinely ridiculous woman.”

      “Am I, Eugene?” she said, not displeased. “‘Divinely’ and
      ‘ridiculous’ just counterbalance each other, don’t they? Plus one
      and minus one equal nothing; so you mean I’m nothing in
      particular?”

      “No,” he answered, tugging at a lever. “That doesn’t seem to be
      precisely what I meant. There!” This exclamation referred to the
      subterranean machinery, for dismaying sounds came from beneath
      the floor, and the vehicle plunged, then rolled noisily forward.

      “Behold!” George Amberson exclaimed. “She does move! It must be
      another accident.”

      “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. The
      twilight sky cleared, discovering a round moon already risen; and
      the musical congressman hailed this bright presence with the
      complete text and melody of “The Danube River.”

      His nephew, behind, was gloomy. He had overheard his mother’s
      conversation with the inventor: it seemed curious to him that
      this Morgan, of whom he had never heard until last night, should
      be using the name “Isabel” so easily; and George felt that it was
      not just the thing for his mother to call Morgan “Eugene;” the
      resentment of the previous night came upon George again.
      Meanwhile, his mother and Morgan continued their talk; but he
      could no longer hear what they said; the noise of the car and his
      uncle’s songful mood prevented. He marked how animated Isabel
      seemed; it was not strange to see his mother so gay, but it was
      strange 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
      prove that his horseless carriage would run, even in the snow,”
      she said. “It really 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 with air. I don’t understand what he means at all; I
      should think they’d explode—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
      swing underneath me and break the fall for me when we went over,”
      she said. “I knew you were doing that, and—it was nice of you.”

      “Wasn’t any fall to speak of,” he returned brusquely. “Couldn’t
      have hurt either of us.”

      “Still it was friendly of you—and awfully quick, too. I’ll
      not—I’ll not forget it!”

      Her voice had a sound of genuineness, very pleasant; and George
      began to forget his annoyance with her father. This annoyance of
      his had not been alleviated by the circumstance that neither of
      the seats of the old sewing-machine was designed for three
      people, but when his neighbour spoke thus gratefully, he no
      longer minded the crowding—in fact, it pleased him so much that
      he began to wish the old sewing-machine would go even slower. And
      she had spoken no word of blame for his letting that darned horse
      get the cutter into the ditch. George presently addressed her
      hurriedly, almost tremulously, speaking close to her ear:

      “I forgot to tell you something: you’re pretty nice! I thought so
      the first second I saw you last night. I’ll come for you tonight
      and take you 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; and his disappointment was deeper than he was willing
      to let her see—though she 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,
      you could break _that_ engagement, I guess, if you wanted to!
      Girls always can get 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
      only want to go to that thing tonight to get to see something of
      you; and if you don’t dance the cotillion with me, how can I?
      I’ll only be here two weeks, 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
      to dance that cotillion with me simply because you’ve promised
      a—a—a miserable red-headed outsider like Fred Kinney, why we
      might as well quit!”

      “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
      himself in 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 the
      red-headed Kinney sort. I ought to have seen it from the first!”

      Lucy bore her disgrace lightly. “Oh, dancing a cotillion with a
      person doesn’t mean that you like him—but I don’t see anything in
      particular the matter with Mr. Kinney. What is?”

      “If you don’t see anything the matter with him for yourself,”
      George responded, icily, “I don’t think pointing it out would
      help you. You probably wouldn’t understand.”

      “You might try,” she suggested. “Of course I’m a stranger here,
      and if people have done anything wrong or have something
      unpleasant about them, 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
      of mine.”

      “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.
      George Amberson was now discoursing, “O moon of my delight that
      knows no wane”—and there was no further conversation on the back
      seat.

      They had entered Amberson Addition, and the moon of Mr.
      Amberson’s delight was overlaid by a slender Gothic filagree; the
      branches that sprang from the shade trees lining the street.
      Through the windows of many of the houses rosy lights were
      flickering; and silver tinsel and evergreen wreaths and brilliant
      little glass globes of silver and wine colour could be seen, and
      glimpses were caught of Christmas trees, with people 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 a shrill 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; there were 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
      relatives did, to see the old sewing machine start briskly down
      the street, toward the Sharons’; its lighter load consisting now
      of only Mr. Morgan and his daughter. George went into the house
      at once.

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

      “They’re coming,” said his son; and, casting himself heavily into
      a chair, stared at the fire.

      His prediction was verified a few moments later; the two ladies
      came in cheerfully, unfastening their fur cloaks. “It’s all
      right, Georgie,” said Isabel. “Your Uncle George called to us
      that Pendennis got home safely. Put your shoes close to the fire,
      dear, or else go and change them.” She went to her husband and
      patted him lightly on the shoulder, an action which George
      watched with sombre moodiness. “You might dress before long,” she
      suggested. “We’re all going to the Assembly, after dinner, aren’t
      we? Brother George said he’d go with us.”

      “Look here,” said George abruptly. “How about this man Morgan and
      his old sewing-machine? Doesn’t he want to get grandfather to put
      money into it? Isn’t he trying to work Uncle George for that?
      Isn’t that what he’s up to?”

      It was Miss Fanny who responded. “You little silly!” she cried,
      with surprising sharpness. “What on earth are you talking about?
      Eugene Morgan’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
      young fellow twenty years ago,” he said, glancing at his wife
      absently. “He was like you in one thing, Georgie; he spent too
      much money—only he didn’t have any mother to get money out of a
      grandfather for him, so he was usually in debt. But I believe
      I’ve heard he’s done fairly well of late years. No, I can’t say I
      think he’s a swindler, and I doubt if he needs anybody else’s
      money to back his horseless carriage.”

      “Well, what’s he brought the old thing here for, then? People
      that own elephants don’t take them elephants around with ’em when
      they go visiting. What’s he got it here for?”

      “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mr. Minafer, resuming his paper.
      “You might ask him.”

      Isabel laughed, and patted her husband’s shoulder again. “Aren’t
      you going to dress? Aren’t we all going to the dance?”

      He groaned faintly. “Aren’t your brother and Georgie escorts
      enough for you 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
      stood behind him, looking into the fire, and George, watching her
      broodingly, thought there was more colour in her face than the
      reflection of the flames accounted for. “Well, then,” she said
      indulgently, “stay at home and 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
      a bath-robe stage of preparation for the evening’s’ gaieties,
      when he encountered his Aunt Fanny. He stopped her. “Look here!”
      he said.

      “What in the world is the matter with you?” she demanded,
      regarding him with little amiability. “You look as if you were
      rehearsing for a villain 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’t want to go tonight,” he said solemnly. “You’re his
      only sister, and yet you don’t know!”

      “He never wants to go anywhere that I ever heard of,” said Fanny.
      “What is 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
      your father’s thoughts at all, one way or the other. Why should
      he be?”

      George hesitated. “Well—it strikes me—Look here, what makes you
      and—and everybody—so excited over him?”

      “Excited!” she jeered. “Can’t people be glad to see an old friend
      without silly children like you having to make a to-do about it?
      I’ve just been in your mother’s room suggesting that she might
      give a little dinner 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
      do that. It wouldn’t look well.”

      “Wouldn’t look well!” Fanny mocked him; and her suppressed
      vehemence betrayed a surprising acerbity. “See here, Georgie
      Minafer, I suggest that 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 was
      delayed by his curiosity. “Why, what upsets you this way?” he
      inquired.

      “I know what you mean,” she said, her voice still lowered, but
      not decreasing in sharpness. “You’re trying to insinuate that I’d
      get your mother to invite Eugene Morgan here on my account
      because he’s a widower!”

      “I am?” George gasped, nonplussed. “I’m trying to insinuate that
      you’re setting your cap at him and getting mother to help you? Is
      that what you mean?”

      Beyond a doubt that was what Miss Fanny meant. She gave him a
      white-hot look. “You attend to your own affairs!” she whispered
      fiercely, and swept away.

      George, dumfounded, returned to his room for meditation.

      He had lived for years in the same house with his Aunt Fanny, and
      it now appeared that during all those years he had been thus
      intimately associating with a total stranger. Never before had he
      met the passionate 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 her with this horseless-carriage widower!

      “Well, I _will_ be shot!” he muttered aloud. “I will—I certainly
      will be shot!” And he began to laugh. “Lord ’lmighty!”

      But presently, at the thought of the horseless-carriage widower’s
      daughter, his grimness returned, and he resolved upon a line of
      conduct for 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 with her; 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
      coloured butler, having spent two hours dressing—and rehearsing.




      Chapter IX


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

      Georgie had carried out his rehearsed projects with precision, he
      had given Miss Morgan a nod studied into perfection during his
      lengthy toilet before dinner. “Oh, yes, I do seem to remember
      that curious little outsider!” this nod seemed to say.
      Thereafter, all cognizance of her evaporated: the curious little
      outsider was permitted no further existence worth the struggle.
      Nevertheless, she flashed in the corner of his eye too often. He
      was aware of her dancing demurely, and of her viciously
      flirtatious habit of never looking up at her partner, but keeping
      her eyes concealed beneath downcast lashes; and he had
      over-sufficient consciousness of her between the dances, though
      it was not possible to see her at these times, even if he had
      cared to look frankly in her direction—she was invisible in a
      thicket of young dresscoats. The black thicket moved as she moved
      and her location was hatefully apparent, even if he had not heard
      her voice laughing from the thicket. It was annoying how her
      voice, though never loud, pursued him. No matter how vociferous
      were other voices, all about, he seemed unable to prevent himself
      from constantly recognizing hers. It had a quaver in it, not
      pathetic—rather humorous than pathetic—a quality which annoyed
      him 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 girl and her conduct increased until he thought of leaving
      this sickening Assembly and going home to bed. _That_ would show
      her! But just then he heard her laughing, and decided that it
      wouldn’t show her. So he remained.

      When the young couples seated themselves in chairs against the
      walls, round three sides of the room, for the cotillion, George
      joined a brazen-faced group clustering about the doorway—youths
      with no partners, yet eligible to be “called out” and favoured.
      He marked that his uncle placed the infernal Kinney and Miss
      Morgan, as the leading couple, in the first chairs at the head of
      the line upon the leader’s right; and this disloyalty on the part
      of Uncle George was inexcusable, for in the family circle the
      nephew had often expressed his opinion of Fred Kinney. In his
      bitterness, George uttered a significant monosyllable.

      The music flourished; whereupon Mr. Kinney, Miss Morgan, and six
      of their neighbours rose and waltzed knowingly. Mr. Amberson’s
      whistle blew; then the eight young people went to the
      favour-table and were given toys and trinkets wherewith to
      delight the new partners it was now their privilege to select.
      Around the walls, the seated non-participants in this ceremony
      looked rather conscious; some chattered, endeavouring not to
      appear expectant; some tried not to look wistful; and others were
      frankly solemn. It was a trying moment; and whoever secured a
      favour, this very first shot, might consider the portents happy
      for a successful evening.

      Holding their twinkling gewgaws in their hands, those about to
      bestow honour came toward the seated lines, where expressions
      became feverish. Two of the approaching girls seemed to wander,
      not finding a predetermined object in sight; and these two were
      Janie Sharon, and her cousin, Lucy. At this, George Amberson
      Minafer, conceiving that he had little to anticipate from either,
      turned a proud back upon the room and affected to converse with
      his friend, Mr. Charlie Johnson.

      The next moment a quick little figure intervened between the two.
      It was Lucy, 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 that this episode was concluded, and he
      conducted her to her seat, she lifted the little bell toward him.
      “You haven’t taken your favour. You’re supposed 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 his trousers’ pocket.

      The figure proceeded to its conclusion, and George was given
      other sleighbells, which he easily consented to wear upon his
      lapel; but, as the next figure began, he strolled with a bored
      air to the tropical grove, where sat his elders, and seated
      himself beside his Uncle Sydney. His mother leaned across Miss
      Fanny, raising her voice over the music to speak 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 his attention behind him. “Look! Over your shoulder!”

      He turned, and discovered Miss Lucy Morgan in the act of offering
      him a purple 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
      was solemn, and solemnly he departed with her from the grove.
      Solemnly he danced with her.

      Four times, with not the slightest encouragement, she brought him
      a favour: four times in succession. When the fourth came, “Look
      here!” said George huskily. “You going to keep this up all night?
      What do you mean 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
      dance with 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
      this afternoon 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 dance the cotillion with you. I—I didn’t feel terribly
      hurt with you for getting angry about _that!_”

      “Was there any other reason? Did my telling you I liked you have
      anything to do with it?”

      She looked up gently, and, as George met her eyes, something
      exquisitely touching, yet queerly delightful, gave him a catch in
      the throat. She looked instantly away, and, turning, ran out from
      the palm grove, where they 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. It was a happy dance for both of them.

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

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

      “They seem to get along better than they did at first, those two
      children,” Fanny Minafer said sitting beside her at the Sharons’
      dance, a week after the Assembly. “They seemed to be always
      having little quarrels of some sort, at first. At least George
      did: he seemed to be continually pecking at that lovely, dainty,
      little Lucy, and being cross with her over nothing.”

      “_Pecking?_” Isabel laughed. “What a word to use about Georgie! I
      think I never 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 of him you ever happen to see. And why wouldn’t he be
      amiable to anybody that simply fell down and worshipped him every
      minute of her life? Most of us would!”

      “Isn’t he worth worshipping? Just look at him! Isn’t he
      _charming_ with Lucy! See how hard he ran to get it when she
      dropped her handkerchief back 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’s certainly stunning _looking_, if only—”

      “Let the ‘if only’ go, dear,” Isabel suggested good-naturedly.
      “Let’s talk about that dinner you thought I should—”

      “I?” Miss Fanny interrupted quickly. “Didn’t you want to give it
      yourself?”

      “Indeed, I did, my dear!” said Isabel heartily. “I only meant
      that unless you had proposed it, perhaps I wouldn’t—”

      But here Eugene came for her to dance, and she left the sentence
      uncompleted. Holiday dances can be happy for youth renewed as
      well as for youth in bud—and yet it was not with the air of a
      rival that Miss Fanny watched her brother’s wife dancing with the
      widower. Miss Fanny’s eyes narrowed a little, but only as if her
      mind engaged in a hopeful calculation. She looked pleased.




      Chapter X


      A few days after George’s return to the university it became
      evident that not quite everybody had gazed with complete
      benevolence upon the various young collegians at their holiday
      sports. The Sunday edition of the principal morning paper even
      expressed some bitterness under the heading, “Gilded Youths of
      the Fin-de-Siècle”—this was considered the knowing phrase of the
      time, especially for Sunday supplements—and there is no doubt
      that from certain references in this bit of writing some people
      drew the conclusion that Mr. George Amberson Minafer had not yet
      got his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating. Undeniably,
      Fanny Minafer was one of the people who drew this conclusion, for
      she cut the article out and enclosed it in a letter to her
      nephew, having written on the 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
      we think that in a few years public affairs may be in the hands
      of the _fin-de-siècle_ gilded youths we see about us during the
      Christmas holidays. Such foppery, such luxury, such insolence,
      was surely never practised by the scented, overbearing patricians
      of the Palatine, even in Rome’s most decadent epoch. In all the
      wild orgy of wastefulness and luxury with which the nineteenth
      century reaches its close, the gilded youth has been surely the
      worst symptom. With his airs of young milord, his fast horses,
      his gold and silver cigarette-cases, his clothes from a New York
      tailor, his recklessness of money showered upon him by indulgent
      mothers or doting grandfathers, he respects nothing and nobody.
      He is blase if you please. Watch him at a social function how
      condescendingly he deigns to select a partner for the popular
      waltz or two step, how carelessly he shoulders older people out
      of his way, with what a blank stare he returns the salutation of
      some old acquaintance whom he may choose in his royal whim to
      forget! The unpleasant part of all this is that the young women
      he so condescendingly selects as partners for the dance greet him
      with seeming rapture, though in their hearts they must feel
      humiliated by his languid hauteur, and many older people beam
      upon him almost fawningly if he unbends so far as to throw them a
      careless, disdainful word!
          One wonders what has come over the new generation. Of such as
          these the Republic was not made. Let us pray that the future
          of our country is not in the hands of these _fin-de-siècle_
          gilded youths, but rather in the calloused palms of young men
          yet unknown, labouring upon the farms of the land. When we
          compare the young manhood of Abraham Lincoln with the
          specimens we are now producing, we see too well that it bodes
          ill for the twentieth century—

      George yawned, and tossed the clipping into his waste-basket,
      wondering why his aunt thought such dull nonsense worth the
      sending. As for her insinuation, pencilled upon the border, he
      supposed she meant to joke—a supposition which neither surprised
      him nor altered his lifelong opinion of her wit.

      He read her letter with more interest:

      The dinner your mother gave for the Morgans was a lovely affair.
      It was last Monday evening, just ten days after you left. It was
      peculiarly appropriate that your mother should give this dinner,
      because her brother George, your uncle, was Mr. Morgan’s most
      intimate friend before he left here a number of years ago, and it
      was a pleasant occasion for the formal announcement of some news
      which you heard from Lucy Morgan before you returned to college.
      At least she told me she had told you the night before you left
      that her father had decided to return here to live. It was
      appropriate that your mother, herself an old friend, should
      assemble a representative selection of Mr. Morgan’s old friends
      around him 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 a younger member of his family, you probably
      overlooked opportunities of hearing him talk, and do not know
      what an interesting man he can be.
          He will soon begin to build his factory here for the
          manufacture of _automobiles_, which he says is a term he
          prefers to “horseless carriages.” Your Uncle George told me
          he would like to invest in this factory, as George thinks
          there is a future for automobiles; perhaps not for general
          use, but as an interesting novelty, which people with
          sufficient means would like to own for their amusement and
          the sake of variety. However, he said Mr. Morgan laughingly
          declined his offer, as Mr. M. was fully able to finance this
          venture, though not starting in a very large way. Your uncle
          said other people are manufacturing automobiles in different
          parts of the country with success. Your father is not very
          well, though he is not actually ill, and the doctor tells him
          he ought not to be so much at his office, as the long years
          of application indoors with no exercise are beginning to
          affect him unfavourably, but I believe your father would die
          if he had to give up his work, which is all that has ever
          interested him outside of his family. I never could
          understand it. Mr. Morgan took your mother and me with Lucy
          to see Modjeska in “Twelfth Night” yesterday evening, and
          Lucy said she thought the Duke looked rather like you, only
          much more democratic in his manner. I suppose you will think
          I have written a great deal about the Morgans in this letter,
          but thought you would be interested 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
      dropped the missive in his wastebasket to join the clipping, and
      strolled down the corridor of his dormitory to borrow a copy of
      “Twelfth Night.” Having secured one, he returned to his study and
      refreshed his memory of the play—but received no enlightenment
      that enabled him to comprehend Lucy’s strange remark. However, he
      found himself impelled in the direction of correspondence, and
      presently wrote a letter—not a reply to his Aunt Fanny.

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

      Well, here I sit smoking my faithful briar pipe, indulging in the
      fragrance of my tobacco as I look out on the campus from my
      many-paned window, and things are different with me from the way
      they were way back in Freshman year. I can see now how boyish in
      many ways I was then. I believe what has changed me as much as
      anything was my visit home at the time I met you. So I sit here
      with my faithful briar and dream the old dreams over as it were,
      dreaming of the waltzes we waltzed together and of that last
      night before we parted, and you told me the good news you were
      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
      of friendship except for the very few, and, looking back over my
      life, I remember there were times when I doubted if I could feel
      a great friendship for anybody—especially girls. I do not take a
      great interest in many people, as you know, for I find most of
      them shallow. Here in the old place I do not believe in being
      hail-fellow-well-met with every Tom, Dick, and Harry just because
      he happens to be a classmate, any more than 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 ever since my
      boyhood has been to encourage real intimacy from but the few.

      What are you reading now? I have finished both “Henry Esmond” and
      “The Virginians.” I like Thackeray because he is not trashy, and
      because he writes principally of nice people. My theory of
      literature is an author who does not indulge in trashiness—writes
      about people you could introduce into your own home. I agree with
      my Uncle Sydney, as I once heard him say he did not care to read
      a book or go to a play about people he would not care to meet at
      his own dinner table. I believe we should live by certain
      standards and ideals, as you know from my telling you my theory
      of life.

      Well, a letter is no place for deep discussions, so I will not go
      into the subject. From several letters from my mother, and one
      from Aunt Fanny, 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 silver frame for your photograph in New York, and
      I keep it on my desk. It is 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 have questioned in years
      past if I was capable of much friendship toward the feminine sex,
      which I usually found shallow until our own friendship began.
      When I look at your photograph, I say to myself, “At last, at
      last here is one that will not prove shallow.”

My faithful briar has gone out. I will have to rise and fill it, then
once more in the fragrance of My Lady Nicotine, I will sit and dream
the old dreams over, and think, too, of the true friend at home
awaiting my return 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 June his friend was awaiting him; at least, she was so pleased
      to see him again that for a few minutes after their first
      encounter she was a little breathless, and a great deal glowing,
      and quiet withal. Their sentimental friendship continued, though
      sometimes he was irritated by her making it less sentimental than
      he did, and sometimes by what he called her “air of superiority.”
      Her air was usually, in truth, that of a fond but amused older
      sister; and George did not believe such an attitude was warranted
      by her eight months of seniority.

      Lucy and her father were living at the Amberson Hotel, while
      Morgan got his small machine-shops built in a western outskirt of
      the town; and George grumbled about the shabbiness and the
      old-fashioned look of the hotel, though it was “still the best in
      the place, of course.” He remonstrated with his grandfather,
      declaring that the whole Amberson Estate would be getting
      “run-down and out-at-heel, if things weren’t taken in hand pretty
      soon.” He urged the general need of rebuilding, renovating,
      varnishing, and lawsuits. But the Major, declining to hear him
      out, interrupted querulously, saying that he had enough to bother
      him without any advice from George; and retired to his library,
      going so far as to lock the door audibly.

      “Second childhood!” George muttered, shaking his head; and he
      thought sadly that the Major had not long to live. However, this
      surmise depressed him for only a moment or so. Of course, people
      couldn’t be expected to live forever, and it would be a good
      thing to have someone in charge of the Estate who wouldn’t let it
      get to looking so rusty that riffraff dared to make fun of it.
      For George had lately undergone the annoyance of calling upon the
      Morgans, in the rather stuffy red velours and 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, were obliged to stay at the Amberson, Mr. Kinney’s
      intention was interpreted by 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,
      Miss Morgan. Good-night, Mr. Morgan,” he said. “I shall take
      pleasure in calling at some other time when a more courteous sort
      of people may be present.”

      “Look here!” the hot-headed Fred burst out. “Don’t you try to
      make me out a boor, George Minafer! I wasn’t hinting anything at
      you; I simply forgot all about your grandfather owning this old
      building. Don’t you try to put me in the light of a boor! I
      won’t—”

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

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

      “I didn’t—I didn’t think I could hold out!” he gasped, and, after
      choking until tears came to his eyes, felt blindly for the chair
      from which he had risen to wish Mr. Kinney an indistinct
      good-night. His hand found the arm of the chair; he collapsed
      feebly, and sat uttering incoherent sounds.

      “Papa!”

      “It brings things back so!” he managed to explain, “This very
      Fred Kinney’s father and young George’s father, Wilbur Minafer,
      used to do just such things when they were at that age—and, for
      that matter, so did George Amberson and I, and all the rest of
      us!” And, in spite of his exhaustion, he began to imitate: “Don’t
      you try to put me in the light of a boor!” “I shall take pleasure
      in calling at some time when a more courteous sort of people—” He
      was unable to go on.

      There is a mirth for every age, and Lucy failed to comprehend her
      father’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
      smile at all; she was beginning to look indignant. “I can forgive
      that poor Fred Kinney,” she said. “He’s just blundering—but
      George—oh, George behaved outrageously!”

      “It’s a difficult age,” her father observed, his calmness
      somewhat restored. “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 to a return of his convulsion.

      She came and sat upon the arm of his chair. “Papa, _why_ should
      George behave like that?”

      “He’s sensitive.”

      “Rather! But why is he? He does anything he likes to, without any
      regard for what people think. Then why should he mind so
      furiously when the least little thing reflects upon him, or on
      anything or anybody connected with him?”

      Eugene patted her hand. “That’s one of the greatest puzzles of
      human vanity, 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 most furious if it went against
      them. Arrogant and domineering people can’t stand the least,
      lightest, faintest breath of criticism. It just kills them.”

      “Papa, do you think George is _terribly_ arrogant and
      domineering?”

      “Oh, he’s still only a boy,” said Eugene consolingly. “There’s
      plenty of fine stuff in him—can’t help but be, because he’s
      Isabel Amberson’s son.”

      Lucy stroked his hair, which was still almost as dark as her own.
      “You liked her pretty well once, I guess, papa.”

      “I do still,” he said quietly.

      “She’s lovely—lovely! Papa—” she paused, then continued—“I wonder
      sometimes—”

      “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, but he’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 him at all except business and saving money. Miss Fanny
      Minafer herself told me 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 Major Amberson.”

      “Thrift, Horatio!” said Eugene lightly. “Thrift’s an inheritance,
      and a common enough one here. The people who settled the country
      _had_ to save, so making and saving were taught as virtues, and
      the people, to the third generation, haven’t found out that
      making and saving are only means to an end. Minafer doesn’t
      believe in money being spent. He believes God made it to be
      invested and saved.”

      “But George isn’t saving. He’s reckless, and even if he is
      arrogant and conceited 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
      said thoughtfully. “No. I don’t think he is.”

      “Only when he’s cross about something?” Morgan suggested, with a
      semblance of sympathetic gravity.

      “Yes,” she said brightly, not perceiving that his intention was
      humorous. “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! He certainly behaved awfully to-night.” She jumped up,
      her indignation returning. “He did, indeed, and it won’t do to
      encourage him in it. I think he’ll find me pretty cool—for a week
      or so!”

      Whereupon her father suffered a renewal of his attack of
      uproarious laughter.




      Chapter XI


      In the matter of coolness, George met Lucy upon her own
      predetermined ground; in fact, he was there first, and, at their
      next encounter, proved loftier and more formal than she did.
      Their estrangement lasted three weeks, and then disappeared
      without any preliminary treaty: it had worn 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 satiric attitude toward his competitors, referring to
      them as her “local swains and 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 home with them to
      lunch or dinner, and making a hundred little engagements with
      her, and the Major had taken a great fancy to her, insisting upon
      her presence and her father’s at the Amberson family dinner at
      the Mansion every Sunday evening. She knew how to flirt with old
      people, he said, 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” long ago. “Oh, yes, he was!” the Major
      laughed, when she remonstrated. “He came up here with my son
      George and some others for a serenade one night, and Eugene
      stepped into a bass fiddle, and the poor musicians just 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’d touched plenty before that, young lady, and he daren’t deny
      it! Well, well; there’s another thing that’s changed: hardly
      anybody drinks nowadays. 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 gentleman burst into laughter, and shook
      his finger at Eugene across the table. “The fact is,” the Major
      went on hilariously, “I believe if Eugene hadn’t broken that bass
      fiddle and given himself away, Isabel would never have taken
      Wilbur! I shouldn’t be surprised if that was about all the reason
      that Wilbur got her! What do you think. Wilbur?”

      “I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Wilbur placidly. “If your notion
      is right, 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? By Jove!” he cried, pounding the table. “She’s
      blushing!”

      Isabel did blush, but she laughed. “Who wouldn’t blush!” she
      cried, and her 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 of
      embarrassment other than his heightened colour. “There’s another
      important thing—that is, for me,” he said. “It’s the only thing
      that makes 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
      a murmur of friendliness round the table.

      George was not one of those who joined in this applause. He
      considered his grandfather’s nonsense indelicate, even for second
      childhood, and he thought that the sooner the subject was dropped
      the better. However, he had only a slight recurrence of the
      resentment which had assailed him during 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 him that Fanny was
      almost publicly throwing herself at the widower’s head. Fanny and
      he had one or two arguments in which her fierceness again
      astonished and amused him.

      “You drop your criticisms of your relatives,” she bade him,
      hotly, one day, “and begin thinking a little about your own
      behaviour! You say people will ‘talk’ about my—about my merely
      being pleasant to an old friend! What do I care how they talk? I
      guess if people are talking about anybody in this family they’re
      talking about the impertinent little snippet that hasn’t any
      respect for anything, and doesn’t even know enough to attend to
      his own affairs!”

      “‘Snippet,’ Aunt Fanny!” George laughed. “How elegant! And
      ‘little snippet’—when I’m over five-feet-eleven?”

      “I said it!” she snapped, departing. “I don’t see how Lucy can
      stand you!”

      “You’d make an amiable stepmother-in-law!” he called after her.
      “I’ll be careful about proposing to Lucy!”

      These were but roughish spots in a summer that glided by evenly
      and quickly enough, for the most part, and, at the end, seemed to
      fly. On the last night before George went back to be a Junior,
      his mother asked him 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
      people of your age realize that they’re happy.”

      “People of your age!” he repeated. “You know you don’t look
      precisely like 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 does come!” She sighed, still smiling. “It’s seemed to me
      that, it must have been a happy summer for you—a real ‘summer of
      roses and wine’—without the 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
      and smoke?”

      “I mean the things that we have and that we think are so
      solid—they’re like smoke, and time is like the sky that the smoke
      disappears into. You know how a wreath of smoke goes up from a
      chimney, and seems all thick and black and busy against the sky,
      as if it were going to do such important things and last forever,
      and you see it getting thinner and thinner—and then, in such a
      little while, it isn’t there at all; nothing is left but the sky,
      and the sky keeps on being just the same forever.”

      “It strikes me you’re getting mixed up,” said George cheerfully.
      “I don’t see much resemblance between time and the sky, or
      between things and smoke-wreaths; but I do see one reason you
      like Lucy Morgan so much. She talks that same kind of wistful,
      moony way sometimes—I don’t mean to say I mind it in either of
      you, because I rather like to listen to 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 for that matter;
      and I see why you’re congenial. She talks that way to her father,
      too; and he’s right there with the same kind of guff. Well, it’s
      all right with me!” He laughed, teasingly, and allowed her to
      retain his hand, which she had fondly seized. “I’ve got plenty to
      think about when people drool along!”

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

      “For heaven’s sake!” he said. “What’s the matter? Isn’t
      everything all right?”

      “You’re going away!”

      “Well, I’m coming back, don’t you suppose? Is that all that
      worries you?”

      She cheered up, and smiled again, but shook her head. “I never
      can bear to see you go—that’s the most of it. I’m a little
      bothered about your father, 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 I can see. What’s the matter with him?”

      “He never talks much about his business to me but I think he’s
      been worrying about some investments he made last year. I think
      his worry has affected his health.”

      “What investments?” George demanded. “He hasn’t gone into Mr.
      Morgan’s automobile concern, has he?”

      “No,” Isabel smiled. “The ‘automobile concern’ is all Eugene’s,
      and it’s so small I understand it’s taken hardly anything. No;
      your father has always prided himself on making only the most
      absolutely safe investments, but two or three years ago he and
      your Uncle George both put a great deal—pretty much everything
      they could get together, I think—into the stock of rolling-mills
      some friends of theirs owned, and I’m afraid the mills haven’t
      been doing well.”

      “What of that? Father needn’t worry. You and I could take care of
      him the rest of his life on what grandfather—”

      “Of course,” she agreed. “But your father’s always lived so for
      his business and taken such pride in his sound investments; it’s
      a passion with him. I—”

      “Pshaw! He needn’t worry! You tell him we’ll look after him:
      we’ll build him a little stone bank in the backyard, if he busts
      up, and he can go and put his pennies in it every morning.
      That’ll keep him just as happy as he ever was!” He kissed her.
      “Good-night, I’m going to tell Lucy good-bye. Don’t sit up for
      me.”

      She walked to the front gate with him, still holding his hand,
      and he told 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 husband’s health—sometimes
      reflected in her letters to George during the winter that
      followed—had not been alleviated when the accredited Senior
      returned for his next summer vacation, and she confided to him in
      his room, soon after his arrival, that “something” the doctor had
      said to her lately had made her more uneasy than ever.

      “Still worrying over his rolling-mills investments?” George
      asked, not seriously impressed.

      “I’m afraid it’s past that stage from what Dr. Rainey says. His
      worries only aggravate his condition now. Dr. Rainey says we
      ought to get him away.”

      “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’t think there’s anything much the matter with him, though,
      and he looks just 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 about herself. How’s she look?”

      “She looks—pretty!” said Isabel. “I suppose she wrote you they’ve
      moved?”

      “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 so capable; she keeps house exquisitely. It’s small, but
      oh, such a pretty little house!”

      “Well, that’s fortunate,” George said. “One thing I’ve always
      felt they didn’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 that big white house with a gray-green roof somebody
      built out there a year or so ago. There are any number of houses
      going up, out that way; and the 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
      dinner this evening.”

      At this his mother laughed, not astonished. “It was only my
      feeble joke about ‘to-morrow,’ Georgie! I was pretty sure you
      couldn’t wait that long. Did Lucy write you about the factory?”

      “No. What factory?”

      “The automobile shops. They had rather a dubious time at first,
      I’m afraid, and some of Eugene’s experiments turned out badly,
      but this spring they’ve finished eight automobiles and sold them
      all, and they’ve got twelve more almost finished, and they’re
      sold already! Eugene’s so gay over it!”

      “What do his old sewing-machines look like? Like that first one
      he had when they came here?”

      “No, indeed! These have rubber tires blown up with air—pneumatic!
      And they aren’t so high; they’re very easy to get into, and the
      engine’s in front—Eugene thinks that’s a great improvement.
      They’re very interesting to look at; behind the driver’s seat
      there’s a sort of box where 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 half an hour, any afternoon. I’ve seen half-a-dozen
      go by almost at the same time—within a few minutes, anyhow; and
      of course electric hansoms are a common sight there any day. I
      hired one, myself, the last time I was there. How fast do Mr.
      Morgan’s machines go?”

      “Much too fast! It’s very exhilarating—but rather frightening;
      and they do make a fearful uproar. He says, though, he thinks he
      sees a way to get 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’s grandfather?”

      “He looks well, but he complains sometimes of his heart: I
      suppose that’s natural at his age—and it’s an Amberson trouble.”
      Having mentioned this, she looked anxious instantly. “Did you
      ever feel any weakness 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
      was about all right. He said I needn’t be alarmed.”

      “I should think not! Women do seem to be always talking about
      health: I suppose 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,”
      he said, “but I do want to dress before dinner.”

      “Don’t be long; I’ve got to do a lot of looking at you, dear!”
      She kissed him and ran away singing.

      But his Aunt Fanny was not so fond; and at the dinner-table there
      came a spark of liveliness into her eye when George patronizingly
      asked her what 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
      causing any divorces lately?”

      “No,” said Fanny, the spark in her eye getting brighter. “I
      haven’t been causing anything.”

      “Well, what’s the gossip? You usually hear pretty much everything
      that goes on around the nooks and crannies in this town, I hear.
      What’s the last from the gossips’ corner, auntie?”

      Fanny dropped her eyes, and the spark was concealed, but a
      movement of her lower lip betokened a tendency to laugh, as she
      replied. “There hasn’t been much gossip lately, except the report
      that Lucy Morgan and Fred Kinney are engaged—and that’s quite
      old, by this time.”

      Undeniably, this bit of mischief was entirely successful, for
      there was a clatter upon George’s plate. “What—what do you think
      you’re talking about?” he gasped.

      Miss Fanny looked up innocently. “About the report of Lucy
      Morgan’s engagement to Fred Kinney.”

      George turned dumbly to his mother, and Isabel shook her head
      reassuringly. “People are always starting rumours,” she said. “I
      haven’t paid 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 idea that it’s true.”

      “Then you have heard it!”

      “I wouldn’t let it take my appetite,” his father suggested drily.
      “There are plenty of girls in the world!”

      George turned pale.

      “Eat your dinner, Georgie,” his aunt said sweetly. “Food will do
      you good. I didn’t say I knew this rumour was true. I only said
      I’d heard it.”

      “When? When did you hear it!”

      “Oh, months ago!” And Fanny found any further postponement of
      laughter impossible.

      “Fanny, you’re a hard-hearted creature,” Isabel said gently. “You
      really are. Don’t pay any attention to her, George. Fred Kinney’s
      only a clerk in his uncle’s hardware place: he couldn’t marry for
      ages—even if anybody 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 to be somewhat disconnected. “‘Ages,’ don’t mean
      anything! I only want to know—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 the table.

      “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
      than I wanted. I don’t want—I—” He rose, still incoherent. “I
      prefer—I want—Please excuse me!”

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

      “Fanny! You shouldn’t—”

      “Isabel, don’t reproach me, he did have plenty of dinner, and I
      only told 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. Lucy and her father were just rising from their dinner table
      when the stirred youth 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 the architect, achieving results in
      white and green, outside, and white and blue, inside, to such
      effect of youth and daintiness that her father complained of “too
      much spring-time!” The whole place, including his own bedroom,
      was a young damsel’s boudoir, he said, so that nowhere could he
      smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he was
      smoking when George arrived, and he encouraged George to join him
      in the 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.
      “I mean 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’t work. 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-bell afforded him obvious relief. “It’s my foreman,” he
      said, looking at his watch. “I’ll take him out in the yard to
      talk. This is no place for a foreman.” And he departed, leaving
      the “living room” to Lucy and George. It was a pretty room, white
      panelled and blue curtained—and no place for a foreman, as Eugene
      said. There was a grand piano, and Lucy stood leaning back
      against it, looking intently at George, while her fingers, behind
      her, absently struck a chord or two. And her dress was the dress
      for that room, being of blue and white, too; and the high colour
      in her cheeks was far from interfering with the general harmony
      of things—George saw with dismay that she was prettier than ever,
      and naturally he missed the reassurance he might have felt had he
      been able to guess that Lucy, on her part, was finding him better
      looking than ever. For, however unusual the scope of George’s
      pride, vanity of beauty was 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 your
      examination 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
      you talked sounded—well, a little confused.”

      “‘Confused’! I said I didn’t care to smoke. What in the world is
      confused about 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
      his dramatic intensity. “Of course I am! How long have I been
      looking forward to it?”

      “I don’t know,” he said sharply, abating nothing of his
      fierceness. “How long 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 the matter with you, George!”

      “I will!” he exclaimed. “I was a boy when I saw you last. I see
      that now, 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’t a boy be treated just as well as a man?”

      George seemed to find himself at a loss. “Why shouldn’t—Well, he
      shouldn’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 I want to know!”

      Lucy shook her head despairingly. “You are the queerest person!
      You say you’re a man now, but you talk more like a boy than ever.
      What does make you 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
      my life! I don’t know that a person needs to be called ‘excited’
      because he demands 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
      been awful!” 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 been three times to church with Fred—and once to
      the circus! I don’t know when 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
      shortest instant possible, she gave him a look half merry, half
      defiant, but all fond. 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 be
      engaged to me?”

      She stood at a window, seeming to look out into the summer
      darkness, her back 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 to him, she did not see how humble his attitude had become;
      but his voice was 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 feel about you, and always have
      felt about you. I’ve shown it in every single thing 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
      were tears 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—the night before you go away.”

      “That will have to do, then,” he laughed, “so long as I know
      we’re engaged.”

      “But we’re not!” she protested. “And we never will be, if you
      don’t promise 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 to speak of it till the next time you call me ‘dear’; and
      you’ve promised to 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
      flickering above 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 of this 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
      difference between us, will we?” And she joined in his laughter.

      “It will all depend on what you tell me the night before I go
      away. You agree 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,
      opening the campaign upon his return home at about eleven
      o’clock. Fanny had retired, and was presumably asleep, but
      George, on the way to his own room, 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 for him. “I’m afraid you’ll disturb your father, dear. I
      wish you’d sing more, 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 a little?”

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

      He kissed her hilariously, entered his room with a skip, closed
      his door noisily; 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 to her own apartment.

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

      “Thank you so much for the serenade, George!” she said. “Your
      poor father 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’m awfully sorry. But Aunt Fanny was so gloomy and excited
      before I went out, last evening, I thought she needed cheering
      up.”

      “I!” Fanny jeered. “I was gloomy? I was excited? You mean about
      that engagement?”

      “Yes. Weren’t you? I thought I heard you worrying over somebody’s
      being engaged. Didn’t I hear you say you’d heard Mr. Eugene
      Morgan was engaged to marry some pretty little seventeen-year-old
      girl?”

      Fanny was stung, but she made a brave effort. “Did you ask Lucy?”
      she said, her voice almost refusing the teasing laugh she tried
      to make it utter. “Did you ask her when Fred Kinney and she—”

      “Yes. That story wasn’t true. But the other one—” Here he stared
      at Fanny, 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
      lacked steadiness. “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
      all stirred up over a rumour I just this minute invented myself.
      She’s so excitable—about certain subjects—it’s hard to control
      her.” He turned to 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’s disgraceful—it really is—the way things are looking. He
      wouldn’t listen, and he seemed upset. What’s he upset over?”

      Isabel looked serious; however, it was her husband who suggested
      gloomily, “I suppose the Major’s bothered about this Sydney and
      Amelia business, most likely.”

      “What Sydney and Amelia business?” George asked.

      “Your mother can tell you, if she wants to,” Minafer said. “It’s
      not my side of the family, so I keep off.”

      “It’s rather disagreeable for all of us, Georgie,” Isabel began.
      “You see, your Uncle Sydney wanted a diplomatic position, and he
      thought brother George, being in Congress, could arrange it.
      George did get him the offer of a South American ministry, but
      Sydney wanted a European ambassadorship, and he got quite
      indignant with poor George for thinking he’d take anything
      smaller—and he believes George didn’t work hard enough for him.
      George had done his best, of course, and now he’s out of
      Congress, and won’t run again—so there’s Sydney’s idea of a big
      diplomatic position gone for good. Well, Sydney and your Aunt
      Amelia are terribly disappointed, and they say they’ve been
      thinking for years that this town isn’t really fit to live
      in—‘for a gentleman,’ Sydney says—and it is getting rather big
      and dirty. So they’ve sold their house and decided to go abroad
      to live permanently; there’s a villa near Florence they’ve often
      talked of buying. And they want father to let them have their
      share of the estate now, instead of waiting for him to leave it
      to them in his will.”

      “Well, I suppose that’s fair enough,” George said. “That is, in
      case he intended to leave them a certain amount in his will.”

      “Of course that’s understood, Georgie. Father explained his will
      to us long ago; a third to them, and a third to brother George,
      and a third to us.”

      Her son made a simple calculation in his mind. Uncle George was a
      bachelor, and probably would never marry; Sydney and Amelia were
      childless. The Major’s only grandchild appeared to remain the
      eventual heir of the entire property, no matter if the Major did
      turn over to Sydney a third of it now. And George had a
      fragmentary vision of himself, in mourning, arriving to take
      possession of a historic Florentine villa—he saw himself walking
      up a cypress-bordered path, with ancient carven stone balustrades
      in the distance, and servants in mourning livery greeting the new
      signore. “Well, I suppose it’s grandfather’s own affair. He can
      do it or not, just as he likes. I don’t see why he’d mind much.”

      “He seemed rather confused and pained about it,” Isabel said. “I
      think they oughtn’t to urge it. George says that the estate won’t
      stand taking out the third that Sydney wants, and that Sydney and
      Amelia are behaving like a couple of pigs.” She laughed,
      continuing, “Of course I don’t know whether they are or not: I
      never have understood any more about business myself than a
      little pig would! But I’m on George’s side, whether he’s right or
      wrong; I always was from the time we were children: and Sydney
      and Amelia are hurt with me about it, I’m afraid. They’ve stopped
      speaking to George entirely. Poor father. Family rows at his time
      of life.”

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

      He became more and more thoughtful, forgetting entirely a plan he
      had formed for the continued teasing of his Aunt Fanny; and, an
      hour after lunch, he strolled over to his grandfather’s,
      intending to apply for further information, as a party rightfully
      interested.

      He did not carry out this intention, however. Going into the big
      house by a side entrance, he was informed that the Major was
      upstairs in his bedroom, that his sons Sydney and George were
      both with him, and that a serious argument was in progress. “You
      kin stan’ right in de middle dat big, 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 in nish heah
      house! Quollin’, honey, big quollin’!”

      “All right,” said George shortly. “You go on back to your own
      part of the 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
      angry voices overhead—those of his two uncles—and a plaintive
      murmur, as if the Major tried to keep the peace. Such sounds were
      far from encouraging to callers, and George decided not to go
      upstairs until this interview was over. His decision was the
      result of no timidity, nor of a too sensitive delicacy. What he
      felt was, that if he interrupted the scene in his grandfather’s
      room, just at this time, one of the three gentlemen engaging in
      it might speak to him in a peremptory manner (in the heat of the
      moment) and George saw no reason for exposing his dignity to such
      mischances. Therefore he turned from the stairway, and going
      quietly into the library, picked up a magazine—but he did not
      open it, for his attention was instantly arrested by his Aunt
      Amelia’s voice, speaking in the next room. The door was open and
      George heard her distinctly.

      “Isabel does? Isabel!” she exclaimed, her tone high and shrewish.
      “You needn’t tell me anything about Isabel Minafer, I guess, my
      dear old Frank 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 him as that of his grandfather’s attorney-in-chief and chief
      intimate as well. He was a contemporary of the Major’s, being
      over seventy, and they had been through three years of the War in
      the same regiment. Amelia addressed him now, with an effect of
      angry mockery, as “my dear old Frank Bronson”; but that (without
      the mockery) was how the Amberson family almost always spoke of
      him: “dear old Frank Bronson.” He was a hale, 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 you do because she sides with her brother George, instead of
      with you and Sydney.”

      “Pooh!” Aunt Amelia was evidently in a passion. “You know what’s
      been going 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
      simply because 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’t tell me you’re blind! For nearly two years Isabel’s been
      pretending to chaperone Fanny Minafer with Eugene, and all the
      time she’s been dragging that poor fool Fanny around to chaperone
      her and Eugene! Under the circumstances, she knows people will
      get to thinking Fanny’s a pretty slim kind of chaperone, and
      Isabel wants to please George because she 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 will be talking,
      the first thing she knows! She—”

      Amelia stopped, and stared at the doorway in a panic, for her
      nephew stood 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,” she said
quietly. “But since you seem to—”

      “Yes, I did.”

      “So!” She shrugged her shoulders again. “After all, I don’t know
      but it’s just as well, in the long run.”

      He walked up to where she sat. “You—you—” he said thickly. “It
      seems—it seems to me you’re—you’re pretty common!”

      Amelia tried to give the impression of an unconcerned person
      laughing with complete indifference, but the sounds she produced
      were disjointed and 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’ve already got, George, with your
      eavesdropping, you can go and repeat—”

      Old Bronson had risen from his chair in great distress. “Your
      aunt was talking nonsense because she’s piqued over a business
      matter, George,” he said. “She doesn’t mean what she said, and
      neither she nor any one else gives the slightest credit to such
      foolishness—no one in the world!”

      George gulped, and wet lines shone suddenly along his lower
      eyelids. “They—they’d better not!” he said, then stalked out of
      the room, and out of the house. He stamped fiercely across the
      stone slabs of the front porch, descended the steps, and halted
      abruptly, blinking in the strong sunshine.

      In front of his own gate, beyond the Major’s broad lawn, his
      mother was just getting into her victoria, where sat already his
      Aunt Fanny and Lucy Morgan. It was a summer fashion-picture: the
      three ladies charmingly dressed, delicate parasols aloft; the
      lines of the victoria graceful as those of a violin; the trim
      pair of bays in glistening harness picked out with silver, and
      the serious black driver whom Isabel, being an Amberson, dared
      even in that town to put into a black livery coat, boots, white
      breeches, and cockaded hat. They jingled smartly away, and,
      seeing George standing on the Major’s lawn, Lucy waved, and
      Isabel threw him a kiss.

      But George shuddered, pretending not to see them, and stooped as
      if searching for something lost in the grass, protracting that
      posture until the victoria was out of hearing. And ten minutes
      later, George Amberson, somewhat in the semblance of an angry
      person plunging out of the 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 to tell you something I just heard Aunt Amelia say, in
      there.”

      “I don’t want to hear it,” said Amberson. “I’ve been hearing
      entirely too much of what ‘Aunt Amelia says, lately.”

      “She says my mother’s on your side about this division of the
      property because you’re Eugene Morgan’s best friend.”

      “What in the name of heaven has that got to do with your mother’s
      being on my side?”

      “She said—” George paused to swallow. “She said—” He faltered.

      “You look sick,” said his uncle; and laughed shortly. “If it’s
      because of anything Amelia’s been saying, I don’t blame you! What
      else did she say?”

      George swallowed again, as with nausea, but under his uncle’s
      encouragement he was able to be explicit. “She said my mother
      wanted you to be friendly to her about Eugene Morgan. She said my
      mother had been using Aunt Fanny as a chaperone.”

      Amberson emitted a laugh of disgust. “It’s wonderful what
      tommy-rot a woman in a state of spite can think of! I suppose you
      don’t doubt that Amelia 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 people
      were—were talking about it.”

      “Of all the damn nonsense!” his uncle exclaimed. George looked at
      him haggardly. “You’re sure they’re not?”

      “Rubbish! Your mother’s on my side about this division because
      she knows Sydney’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 well as from getting the better of me,
      don’t you suppose? Well, they’re in a rage because Sydney always
      could do what he liked with father unless your mother interfered,
      and they know I got Isabel to ask him not to do what they wanted.
      They’re keeping up the fight and they’re sore—and Amelia’s a
      woman who always says any damn thing that comes into her head!
      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.
      “There probably is some harmless talk about the way your Aunt
      Fanny goes after poor Eugene, and I’ve no doubt I’ve abetted it
      myself. People can’t help being 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 poor thing if she’s got
      her hopes up again, and I don’t know that I blame her, 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. Fanny hasn’t got much in her life. You know, Georgie, just
      being an aunt isn’t really the great career it may sometimes
      appear to you! In fact, I don’t know of anything much that Fanny
      has got, except her feeling about Eugene. She’s always had it—and
      what’s funny to us is pretty much life-and-death to her, I
      suspect. Now, I’ll not deny that Eugene Morgan is attracted to
      your mother. He is; and that’s another case of ‘always was’; 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
      better than she likes any man outside her own family, and that he
      interests her more 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
      tell you in confidence. I think Fanny’s a fairly tricky customer,
      for such an innocent old girl! There isn’t any real harm in her,
      but she’s a great diplomatist—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 at poor Eugene!” And he stopped to
      laugh again.

      “I don’t see anything confidential about that,” George
      complained. “I thought—”

      “Wait a minute! My idea is—don’t forget it’s a confidential one,
      but I’m devilish right about it, young Georgie!—it’s this: Fanny
      uses your mother for a decoy duck. She does everything in the
      world she can to keep your mother’s friendship with Eugene going,
      because she thinks that’s what keeps Eugene about the place, so
      to speak. Fanny’s always with 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 some day her chance may come! You
      see, she’s probably afraid—perhaps she even knows, poor
      thing!—that she wouldn’t get to see much of Eugene if it 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’re sure 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 off for a week’s fishing to forget that woman in there, and
      her pig of a husband.” (His gesture toward the Mansion indicated
      Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Amberson.) “I recommend a like course to you,
      if you’re silly enough to pay any attention to such rubbishings!
      Good-bye!”

      George was partially reassured, but still troubled: a word
      haunted him like 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 mysteriously threatening. He had always despised them,
      except the largest of them, which was the home of his henchman,
      Charlie Johnson. The Johnsons had originally owned a lot three
      hundred feet wide, but they had sold all of it except the meager
      frontage before the house itself, and five houses were now
      crowded into the space where one used to squire it so spaciously.
      Up and down the street, the same transformation had taken place:
      every big, comfortable old brick house now had two or three
      smaller frame neighbours crowding up to it on each side,
      cheap-looking neighbours, most of them needing paint and not
      clean—and yet, though they were cheap looking, they had cost as
      much to build as the big brick houses, whose former ample yards
      they occupied. Only where George stood was there left a sward as
      of yore; the great, level, green lawn that served for both the
      Major’s house and his daughter’s. This serene domain—unbroken,
      except for the two gravelled carriage-drives—alone remained as it
      had been during the early glories of the Amberson Addition.

      George stared at the ugly houses opposite, and hated them more
      than ever; but he shivered. Perhaps the riffraff living in those
      houses sat at 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 briskly and 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
      found the sun too hot for driving. I’m in a hurry.”

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

      “I haven’t time to talk now, Georgie; I’m going right back. I
      promised your 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 his uncle: Fanny was the one who showed agitation
      during this interview, for she grew fiery red, and her eyes
      dilated. “What on earth do you want to bring such trash to me
      for?” she demanded, breathing fast.

      “I merely wished to know two things: whether it is your duty or
      mine to speak to father of what Aunt Amelia—”

      Fanny stamped her foot. “You little fool!” she cried. “You awful
      little fool!”

      “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
      Amberson family 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 to think 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
      in words. She made a hissing sound of utter contempt and snapped
      her fingers. Then she asked scornfully: “What’s the other thing
      you wanted to know?”

      George’s pallor increased. “Whether it mightn’t be better, under
      the circumstances,” he said, “if this family were not so intimate
      with the Morgan 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
      necessary on account of talk about my mother, I—I—” He hesitated
      unhappily. “I suggested that if all of us—for a time—perhaps only
      for a time—it might be better if—”

      “See here,” she interrupted. “We’ll settle this nonsense right
      now. If Eugene Morgan comes to this house, for instance, to see
      me, your mother can’t get up and leave the place the minute he
      gets here, can she? What do you want her to do: insult him? Or
      perhaps you’d prefer she’d insult Lucy? That would do just as
      well. What is it you’re up to, anyhow? Do you 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 you want 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’s silly. I don’t—”

      “You do! You do! You want to—you want to destroy the only
      thing—that I—that I ever—” And, unable to continue, she became
      inaudible in her handkerchief.

      George felt remorseful, and his own troubles were lightened: all
      at once it became clear to him that he had been worrying about
      nothing. He perceived that his Aunt Amelia was indeed an old cat,
      and that to give her scandalous meanderings another thought would
      be the height of folly. By no means unsusceptible to such pathos
      as that now exposed before him, he did not lack pity for Fanny,
      whose almost spoken confession was lamentable; and he was granted
      the vision to understand that his mother also pitied Fanny
      infinitely more than he did. This seemed to explain everything.

      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 about Aunt 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 back there with you. It’s all over,
      and nothing’s the matter. Can’t you cheer up?”

      Fanny cheered up; and presently the customarily hostile aunt and
      nephew were driving out Amberson Boulevard amiably together in
      the hot sunshine.




      Chapter XIV


      “Almost” was Lucy’s last word on the last night of George’s
      vacation—that vital evening which she had half consented to agree
      upon for “settling things” between them. “Almost engaged,” she
      meant. And George, discontented with the “almost,” but contented
      that she seemed glad to wear a sapphire locket with a tiny
      photograph of George Amberson Minafer inside it, found himself
      wonderful in a new world at the final instant of their parting.
      For, after declining to let him kiss her “good-bye,” as if his
      desire for such a ceremony were the most preposterous absurdity
      in the world, she had leaned suddenly close to him 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 you knew it—I’m afraid you did. I’m afraid you always knew
      it. I’m not conventional and cautious about being engaged, as you
      say I am, dear. (I always read over the “dears” in your letters a
      time or two, as you say you do in mine—only I read all of your
      letters a time or two!) But it’s such a solemn thing it scares
      me. It means a good deal to a lot of people besides you and me,
      and that scares me, too. You write that I take your feeling for
      me “too lightly” and that I “take the whole affair too lightly.”
      Isn’t that odd! Because to myself I seem to take it as something
      so much more solemn than you do. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised
      to find myself an old lady, some day, still thinking of you—while
      you’d be away and away with somebody else perhaps, and me
      forgotten 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 know some Lucy Morgan or other, once upon a time?” Then
      you’d shake your big white head and stroke your long white
      beard—you’d have such a distinguished long white beard! and you’d
      say, ‘No. I don’t seem to remember any Lucy Morgan; I wonder what
      made me think I did?’ And poor me! I’d be deep in the ground,
      wondering if you’d heard about it and what you were saying!
      Good-bye for to-day. Don’t work too hard—dear!

      George immediately seized pen and paper, plaintively but
      vigorously requesting Lucy not to imagine him with a beard,
      distinguished or otherwise, even in the extremities of age. Then,
      after inscribing his protest in the matter of this visioned
      beard, he concluded his missive in a tone mollified to
      tenderness, and proceeded to read a letter from his mother which
      had reached him simultaneously with Lucy’s. Isabel wrote from
      Asheville, where she had just arrived with her husband.

      I think your father looks better already, darling, though we’ve
      been here only a few hours. It may be we’ve found just the place
      to build him up. The doctors said they hoped it would prove to
      be, and if it is, it would be worth the long struggle we had with
      him to get him to give up and come. Poor dear man, he was so
      blue, not about his health but about giving up the worries down
      at his office and forgetting them for a time—if he only will
      forget them! It took the pressure of the family and all his best
      friends, to get him to come—but father and brother George and
      Fanny and Eugene Morgan all kept at him so constantly that he
      just had to give in. I’m afraid that in my anxiety to get him to
      do what the doctors wanted him to, I wasn’t able to back up
      brother George as I should in his difficulty with Sydney and
      Amelia. I’m so sorry! George is more upset than I’ve ever seen
      him—they’ve got what they wanted, and they’re sailing before
      long, I hear, to live in Florence. Father said he couldn’t stand
      the constant persuading—I’m afraid the word he used was
      “nagging.” I can’t understand people behaving like that. George
      says they may be Ambersons, but they’re vulgar! I’m afraid I
      almost agree with him. At least, I think they were inconsiderate.
      But I don’t see why I’m unburdening myself of all this to you,
      poor darling! We’ll have forgotten all about it long before you
      come home for the holidays, and it should mean little or nothing
      to you, anyway. Forget that I’ve been so foolish!

      Your father is waiting for me to take a walk with him—that’s a
      splendid sign, because he hasn’t felt he could walk much, at
      home, lately. I mustn’t keep him waiting. Be careful to wear your
      mackintosh and rubbers in 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 to stay six weeks if the place
      agrees with him. It does really seem to already! He’s just called
      in the door to say he’s waiting. Don’t smoke too much, darling
      boy.

      Devotedly, your mother Isabel.

      But she did not keep her husband there for the six weeks she
      anticipated. She did not keep him anywhere that long. Three weeks
      after writing this letter, she telegraphed suddenly to George
      that they were leaving for home at once; and four days later,
      when he and a friend came whistling into his study, from lunch at
      the club, he found another telegram 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 to go home.”

      His Uncle George and the Major met him at the station when he
      arrived—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 grasp George’s hand tremulously, when the
      latter appeared. “Poor fellow!” he said, and patted him
      repeatedly upon the shoulder. “Poor fellow! Poor Georgie!”

      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 almost irresistible impulse to tell his grandfather
      that he was not a poodle. But he said “Thanks,” in a low voice,
      and got into the carriage, his two relatives following with
      deferential sympathy. He noticed that the Major’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 his
      lack of emotion; and the anxious sympathy of his grandfather and
      his uncle made him feel hypocritical. He was not grief-stricken;
      but he felt that he ought to be, and, with a secret shame,
      concealed his callousness beneath an affectation of solemnity.

      But when he was taken into the room where lay what was left of
      Wilbur Minafer, George had no longer to pretend; his grief was
      sufficient. It needed only the sight of that forever inert
      semblance of the quiet man who had been always so quiet a part of
      his son’s life—so quiet a part that George had seldom been
      consciously aware that his father was indeed a part of his life.
      As the figure lay there, its very quietness was what was most
      lifelike; and suddenly it struck George hard. And in that
      unexpected, racking grief of his son, Wilbur Minafer became more
      vividly George’s father than he had ever been in life.

      When George left the room, his arm was about his black-robed
      mother, his shoulders were still shaken with sobs. He leaned upon
      his mother; she gently comforted him; and presently he recovered
      his composure and became self-conscious enough to wonder if he
      had not been making an unmanly display of himself. “I’m all right
      again, mother,” he said awkwardly. “Don’t worry about me: you’d
      better go lie down, or something; you look pretty pale.”

      Isabel did look pretty pale, but not ghastly pale, as Fanny did.
      Fanny’s grief was overwhelming; she stayed in her room, and
      George did not see her until the next day, a few minutes before
      the funeral, when her haggard face appalled him. But by this time
      he was quite himself again, and during the short service in the
      cemetery his thoughts even wandered so far as to permit him a
      feeling of regret not directly connected with his father. Beyond
      the open flower-walled grave was a mound where new grass grew;
      and here lay his great-uncle, old John Minafer, who had died the
      previous autumn; and beyond this were the graves of George’s
      grandfather and grandmother Minafer, and of his grandfather
      Minafer’s second wife, and her three sons, George’s half-uncles,
      who had been drowned together in a canoe accident when George was
      a child—Fanny was the last of the family. Next beyond was the
      Amberson family lot, where lay the Major’s wife and their sons
      Henry and Milton, uncles whom George dimly remembered; and beside
      them lay Isabel’s older sister, his Aunt Estelle, who had died,
      in her girlhood, long before George was born. The Minafer
      monument was a granite block, with the name chiseled upon its one
      polished side, and the Amberson monument was a white marble shaft
      taller than any other in that neighbourhood. But farther on there
      was a newer section of the cemetery, an addition which had been
      thrown open to occupancy only a few years before, after dexterous
      modern treatment by a landscape specialist. There were some large
      new mausoleums here, and shafts taller than the Ambersons’, as
      well as a number of monuments of some sculptural pretentiousness;
      and altogether the new section appeared to be a more fashionable
      and important quarter than that older one which contained the
      Amberson and Minafer lots. This was what caused George’s regret,
      during the moment or two when his mind strayed from his father
      and the reading of the service.

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

      The annoyance gave way before a recollection of the sweet
      mournfulness of 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, whom he had seen only twice, and he could not
      help feeling that in these quiet interviews he had appeared to
      her as tinged with heroism—she had shown, rather than said, how
      brave she thought him in his sorrow. But what came most vividly
      to George’s mind, during these retrospections, was the despairing
      face of his Aunt Fanny. Again and again he thought of it; he
      could not avoid its haunting. And for days, after he got back to
      college, the stricken likeness of Fanny would appear before him
      unexpectedly, and without a cause that he could trace in his
      immediately previous thoughts. Her grief had been so silent, yet
      it had so amazed him.

      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
      want her to live with us any longer and because I always teased
      her so much she might think I’d be for turning her out. I don’t
      know where on earth she’d go or what she could live on if we did
      do something like this, and of course we never would do such a
      thing, but I’m pretty sure she had something of the kind on her
      mind. She didn’t say anything, but the way she looked is what
      makes me think so. Honestly, to me she looked just scared sick.
      You tell her there isn’t any danger in the world of my treating
      her like that. Tell her everything is to go on just as it always
      has. Tell her to cheer up!




      Chapter XV


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

      He spoke philosophically, having his “prospects” from his father
      to fall back upon; but Fanny had neither “prospects” nor
      philosophy. However, a legal survey of Wilbur’s estate revealed
      the fact that his life insurance was left clear of the wreck; and
      Isabel, with the cheerful consent of her son, promptly turned
      this salvage over to her sister-in-law. Invested, it would yield
      something better than nine hundred dollars a year, and thus she
      was assured of becoming neither a pauper nor a dependent, but
      proved to be, as Amberson said, adding his efforts to the
      cheering up of Fanny, “an heiress, after all, in spite of rolling
      mills and the devil.” She was unable to smile, and he continued
      his humane gayeties. “See what a wonderfully desirable income
      nine hundred dollars is, Fanny: a bachelor, to be in your class,
      must have exactly forty-nine thousand one hundred a year. Then,
      you see, all you need to do, in order to have fifty thousand a
      year, is to be a little encouraging when some bachelor in your
      class begins to show by his haberdashery what he wants you to
      think about him!”

      She looked at him wanly, murmured a desolate response—she had
      “sewing to do”—and left the room; while Amberson shook his head
      ruefully at his 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 proud of her stalwart, good-looking son at the
      hotel where they stayed, and it was meat and drink to her when
      she saw how people stared at him in the lobby and on the big
      verandas—indeed, her vanity in him was so dominant that she was
      unaware of their staring at her with more interest and an
      admiration friendlier than George evoked. Happy to have him to
      herself for this fortnight, she loved to walk with him, leaning
      upon his arm, to read with him, to watch the sea with him—perhaps
      most of all she liked to enter the big dining room with him.

      Yet both of them felt constantly the difference between this
      Christmastime and other Christmas-times of theirs—in all, it was
      a sorrowful 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 persuaded him to this outing; and they
      made a cheerful party of it, with the new graduate of course the
      hero and center of it all.

      His uncle was a fellow alumnus. “Yonder was where I roomed when I
      was here,” he said, pointing out one of the university buildings
      to Eugene. “I don’t know whether George would let my admirers
      place a tablet to mark 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
      should be 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 said
      reflectively, as they strolled on through the commencement crowd.
      “For one thing, I had brothers and sisters, and my mother didn’t
      just sit at 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
      good and 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 and which are the bad ones?”

      “All of them,” said Eugene.

      It happened that just then they came in sight of the subject of
      their discourse. George was walking under the elms with Lucy,
      swinging a stick and pointing out to her various objects and
      localities which had attained historical value during the last
      four years. The two older men marked his gestures, careless and
      graceful; they observed his attitude, unconsciously noble, his
      easy proprietorship of the ground beneath his feet and round
      about, of the branches overhead, of the old buildings beyond, and
      of Lucy.

      “I don’t know,” Eugene said, smiling whimsically. “I don’t know.
      When I spoke of his being a human being—I don’t know. Perhaps
      it’s more like deity.”

      “I wonder if I was like that!” Amberson groaned. “You don’t
      suppose every 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 and come to be people in time. It takes more than time,
      though.”

      “I should say it did take more than time!” his friend agreed,
      shaking a rueful head.

      Then they walked over to join the loveliest Amberson, whom
      neither time nor trouble seemed to have touched. She stood alone,
      thoughtful under the great trees, chaperoning George and Lucy at
      a distance; but, seeing the two friends approaching, she came to
      meet them.

      “It’s charming, isn’t it!” she said, moving her black-gloved hand
      to indicate the summery dressed crowd strolling about them, or
      clustering in 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’s touching.”

      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 young faces? 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
      walloping for every mother’s son of ’em!”

      “Maybe,” said Isabel, troubled—“maybe some of the mothers can
      take the walloping for them.”

      “Not one!” her brother assured her, with emphasis. “Not any more
      than she can take on her own face the lines that are bound to
      come on her son’s. I suppose you know that all these young faces
      have got to get lines on ’em?”

      “Maybe they won’t,” she said, smiling wistfully. “Maybe times
      will change, and nobody will have to wear lines.”

      “Times have changed like that for only one person that I know,”
      Eugene said. And as Isabel looked inquiring, he laughed, and she
      saw that she was the “only one person.” His implication was
      justified, moreover, and she knew it. She blushed charmingly.

      “Which is it puts the lines on the faces?” Amberson asked. “Is it
      age or trouble? Of course we can’t decide that wisdom does it—we
      must be polite 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 by lack 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,
      and there was an unconscious earnestness in her glance, something
      trustful as well as inquiring, as if she knew that whatever he
      meant it was all right. Then her eyes drooped thoughtfully, and
      she seemed to address some inquiries to herself. She looked up
      suddenly. “Why, I believe,” she said, in a tone of surprise, “I
      believe I do!”

      And at that both men laughed. “Isabel!” her brother exclaimed.
      “You’re a foolish person! There are times when you look exactly
      fourteen years old!”

      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 take Lucy pretty soon, so that George can go and sit
      with the Class. We must catch up with them.”

      She took her brother’s arm, and the three moved on, looking about
      them in the crowd.

      “Curious,” Amberson remarked, as they did not immediately
      discover the young people they sought. “Even in such a concourse
      one would think we couldn’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. “And doesn’t he look it!”

      Her escorts were still laughing at her when they joined the
      proprietor of the universe and his pretty friend, and though both
      Amberson and Eugene declined to explain the cause of their mirth,
      even upon Lucy’s urgent request, the portents of the day were
      amiable, and the five made a happy party—that is to say, four of
      them made a happy audience for the fifth, and the mood of this
      fifth was gracious and cheerful.

      George took no conspicuous part in either the academic or the
      social celebrations of his class; he seemed to regard both sets
      of exercises with a tolerant amusement, his own “crowd” “not
      going in much for either of those sorts of things,” as he
      explained to Lucy. What his crowd had gone in for remained
      ambiguous; some negligent testimony indicating that, except for
      an astonishing reliability which they all seemed to have attained
      in matters relating to musical comedy, they had not gone in for
      anything. Certainly the question one of them put to Lucy, in
      response to investigations of hers, seemed to point that way:
      “Don’t you think,” he said, “really, don’t you think that being
      things is rather better than doing things?”

      He said “rahthuh bettuh” for “rather better,” and seemed to do it
      deliberately, with perfect knowledge of what he was doing. Later,
      Lucy mocked him to George, and George refused to smile: he
      somewhat inclined to such pronunciations, himself. This
      inclination was one of the things that he had acquired in the
      four years.

      What else he had acquired, it might have puzzled him to state,
      had anybody asked him and required a direct reply within a
      reasonable space of 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 of a selected fragment of some
      scientific or philosophical or literary or linguistic subject to
      reply plausibly to six questions out of ten. He could retain the
      information necessary for such a feat just long enough to give a
      successful performance; then it would evaporate utterly from his
      brain, and leave him undisturbed. George, like his “crowd,” not
      only preferred “being things” to “doing things,” but had
      contented himself with four years of “being things” as a
      preparation for going on “being things.” And when Lucy rather
      shyly pressed him for his friend’s probable definition of the
      “things” it seemed so superior and beautiful to be, George raised
      his eyebrows slightly, meaning that she should have understood
      without explanation; but he did explain: “Oh, family and all
      that—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 few minutes after their arrival, on the night they got home. He
      stood with a towel in her doorway, concluding some sketchy
      ablutions before going downstairs to a supper which Fanny was
      hastily preparing for them. Isabel had not telegraphed; Fanny was
      taken by surprise when they drove up in a station cab at eleven
      o’clock; and George instantly demanded “a little decent food.”
      (Some criticisms of his had publicly disturbed the composure of
      the dining-car steward four hours previously.) “I never saw
      anybody take things so hard as she seems to,” he observed, his
      voice muffled by the towel. “Doesn’t she get over it at all? I
      thought she’d feel better when we turned over the insurance to
      her—gave it to her absolutely, without any strings to it. She
      looks about a thousand years old!”

      “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
      goes on.”

      “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
      the salmon salad, cold beef, cheese, and cake which Fanny made
      ready for them without disturbing the servants. The journey had
      fatigued Isabel, she ate nothing, but sat to observe with tired
      pleasure the manifestations of her son’s appetite, meanwhile
      giving her sister-in-law a brief summary of the events of
      commencement. But presently she kissed them both
      good-night—taking care to kiss George lightly upon the side of
      his head, so as not to disturb his eating—and left aunt and
      nephew alone together.

      “It never was becoming to her to look pale,” Fanny said absently,
      a few moments 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
      all she could do was just sit around and look on. That’s all Lucy
      could do either, 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 rest of us, of course.”

      “I didn’t mean that,” Fanny explained. “I meant from the station.
      Did you 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 voice that had become her habit. “I haven’t seen him
      while your mother’s been away.”

      “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.
      Uncle George got him to come.”

      Fanny’s eyelids drooped again, and she sat silent until George
      pushed back his chair and lit a cigarette, declaring his
      satisfaction with what she 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 and widowers
      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, his
      benevolent mood increasing, he conceived the idea that a little
      harmless rallying might serve to elevate his aunt’s drooping
      spirits. “I’ll tell you 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 doing quite well—won a race, too! I
      shouldn’t be a bit surprised if all the young fellow had been
      waiting for was to know he had an assured income before he
      proposed.”

      “What ‘young fellow’?”

      “This young fellow Morgan,” laughed George; “Honestly, Aunt
      Fanny, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to have him request an
      interview with me any day, and declare that his intentions are
      honourable, and ask my permission 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 and began to clear away the dishes.

      “Please, Aunt Fanny—”

      “Just let me alone.”

      George was distressed. “I didn’t mean anything, Aunt Fanny! I
      didn’t know you’d got so sensitive as all that.”

      “You’d better go up to bed,” she said desolately, going on with
      her work and her weeping.

      “Anyhow,” he insisted, “do let these things wait. Let the
      servants ’tend to the table in the morning.”

      “No.”

      “But, why not?”

      “Just let me alone.”

      “Oh, Lord!” George groaned, going to the door. There he turned.
      “See here, Aunt Fanny, there’s not a bit of use your bothering
      about those dishes 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 room as he went up the stairs.

      “By George!” he grunted, as he reached his own room; and his
      thought was that living with a person so sensitive to kindly
      raillery might prove lugubrious. He whistled, long and low, then
      went to the window and looked through the darkness to the great
      silhouette of his grandfather’s house. Lights were burning over
      there, upstairs; probably his newly arrived 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, they seemed; but, without much curiosity, he
      supposed that sewer connections or 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 of lawn made unsightly
      by trenches and lines of dirt, even temporarily. Not greatly
      disturbed, however, he pulled down the shade, yawned, and began
      to 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 until he had finished dressing did he look forth from
      his window, and then his glance was casual. The next instant his
      attitude became electric, and he gave utterance to a bellow of
      dismay. He ran from his room, plunged down the stairs, out of the
      front door, and, upon a nearer view of the destroyed lawn, began
      to release profanity upon the breezeless summer air, which
      remained unaffected. Between his mother’s house and his
      grandfather’s, excavations for the cellars of five new houses
      were in process, each within a few feet of its neighbour.
      Foundations of brick were being laid; everywhere were piles of
      brick and stacked lumber, and sand heaps and mortar beds.

      It was Sunday, and so the workmen implicated in these defacings
      were denied what unquestionably they would have considered a
      treat; but as the fanatic orator continued the monologue, a
      gentleman in flannels emerged upward from one of the excavations,
      and regarded him contemplatively.

      “Obtaining any relief, nephew?” he inquired with some interest.
      “You must have learned quite a number of those expressions in
      childhood—it’s so long since I’d heard them I fancied they were
      obsolete.”

      “Who wouldn’t swear?” George demanded hotly. “In the name of God,
      what does grandfather mean, doing such things?”

      “My private opinion is,” said Amberson gravely, “he desires to
      increase his income by building these houses to rent.”

      “Well, in the name of God, can’t he increase his income any other
      way but 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
      over some planks to join him. “It might be a mistake, though.
      Your mother said not to tell you until we got home, so as not to
      spoil commencement for you. She rather feared you’d be upset.”

      “Upset! Oh, my Lord, I should think I would be upset! He’s in his
      second childhood. 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, I thought, myself, it was a mistake.”

      “I should say so!”

      “Yes,” said Amberson. “I wanted him to put up an apartment
      building instead 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
      wish he had, some day. He says that people aren’t going to live
      in miserable little flats when they can get a whole house with
      some grass in front and plenty of backyard behind. He sticks it
      out that apartment houses will never do in a town of this type,
      and when I pointed out to him that a dozen or so of ’em already
      are doing, he claimed it was just the novelty, 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
      knows he’s liberal enough with mother and me; but why on earth
      didn’t he sell something or other rather than do a thing like
      this?”

      “As a matter of fact,” Amberson returned coolly, “I believe he
      has sold something 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
      the whole thing as a joke—and in the meantime, if you haven’t had
      your breakfast—”

      “I haven’t!”

      “Then if I were you I’d go in and get some. And”—he paused,
      becoming serious—“and if I were you I wouldn’t say anything to
      your grandfather about this.”

      “I don’t think I could trust myself to speak to him about it,”
      said George. “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 as this!”

      And with a gesture of despair, plainly signifying that all too
      soon after leaving bright college years behind him he had entered
      into the full tragedy of life, George turned bitterly upon his
      heel and went into the house for his breakfast.

      His uncle, with his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after
      him not altogether unsympathetically, then descended again into
      the excavation whence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher
      he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he
      took in the old carriage with the Major, when, George was
      encountered upon the highway, flashing along in his runabout with
      Lucy beside him and Pendennis doing better than three minutes.

      “He seems to have recovered,” Amberson remarked: “Looks in the
      highest good spirits.”

      “I beg your pardon.”

      “Your grandson,” Amberson explained. “He was inclined to
      melancholy this morning, but seemed jolly enough just now when
      they passed us.”

      “What was he melancholy about? Not getting remorseful about all
      the money he’s spent at college, was he?” The Major chuckled
      feebly, but with sufficient grimness. “I wonder what he thinks
      I’m made of,” he concluded querulously.

      “Gold,” his son suggested, adding gently, “And he’s right about
      part of you, father.”

      “What part?”

      “Your heart.”

      The Major laughed ruefully. “I suppose that may account for how
      heavy it feels, sometimes, nowadays. This town seems to be
      rolling right over that old heart you mentioned, George—rolling
      over it and burying it 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’s a good idea not to keep remembering ’em.”

      “I try not to,” the old gentleman murmured. “I try to keep
      remembering that I won’t be remembering anything very long.” And,
      somehow convinced that this thought was a mirthful one, he
      laughed loudly, and slapped his knee. “Not so very long now, my
      boy!” he chuckled, continuing to echo his 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 Sunday until after the Major’s bedtime; and topics
      concerned with building or excavations were not introduced into
      the conversation, which was a cheerful one until George lightly
      mentioned some new plans of his. He was a skillful driver, as the
      Major knew, and he spoke of his desire to extend his proficiency
      in this art: in fact, be entertained the ambition to drive a
      four-in-hand. However, as the Major said nothing, and merely sat
      still, looking surprised, George went on to say that he did not
      propose to “go in for coaching just at the start”; he thought it
      would be better to begin with a tandem. He was sure Pendennis
      could be trained to 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 a special groom; one of the
      stablemen would do.

      At this point the Major decided to speak. “You say one of the
      stablemen would do?” he inquired, his widened eyes remaining
      fixed upon his grandson. “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 took Pendennis 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 be glad to set aside a sum that would see you through.”

      This senile divergence from the topic in hand surprised George
      painfully. “I have no interest whatever in the law,” he said. “I
      don’t care for it, and the idea of being a professional man has
      never appealed to me. None of the family has ever gone in for
      that sort of thing, to my knowledge, and I don’t care to be the
      first. I was speaking of driving a tandem—”

      “I know you were,” the Major said quietly.

      George looked hurt. “I beg your pardon. Of course if the idea
      doesn’t appeal to you—” And he rose to go.

      The Major ran a tremulous hand through his hair, sighing deeply.
      “I—I don’t like to refuse you anything, Georgie,” he said. “I
      don’t know that I often have refused you whatever you wanted—in
      reason—”

      “You’ve always been more than generous, sir,” George interrupted
      quickly. “And if the idea of a tandem doesn’t appeal to you,
      why—of course—” And he waved his hand, heroically dismissing the
      tandem.

      The Major’s distress became obvious. “Georgie, I’d like to,
      but—but I’ve an idea tandems are dangerous to drive, and your
      mother might be anxious. She—”

      “No, sir; I think not. She felt it would be rather a good
      thing—help to keep 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’t thinking of that altogether.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I
      guess we could still afford a new horse or two, if need be—”

 “I thought you said—”

      The Major waved his hand airily. “Oh, a few retrenchments where
      things were useless; nothing gained by a raft of idle darkies in
      the stable—nor by a lot of extra land that might as well be put
      to work for us 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 it then. That will be a great deal better. You remind me
      of it, along in September—or October. We’ll see what can be
      done.” He rubbed his hands cheerfully. “We’ll see what can be
      done about it then, Georgie. We’ll see.”

      And George, in reporting this conversation to his mother, was
      ruefully humorous. “In fact, the old boy cheered up so much,” he
      told her, “you’d have thought he’d got a real load off his mind.
      He seemed to think he’d fixed me up perfectly, and that I was
      just as good as driving a tandem around his library right that
      minute! Of course I know he’s anything but miserly; still I can’t
      help thinking he must be salting a lot of money away. I know
      prices are higher than they used to be, but he doesn’t spend
      within thousands of what he used to, and we certainly can’t be
      spending more than we always have spent. Where does it all go to?
      Uncle George told me grandfather had sold some pieces of
      property, and it looks a little queer. If he’s really ‘property
      poor,’ of course we ought to be more saving than we are, and help
      him out. I don’t mind giving up a tandem if it seems a little too
      expensive just now. I’m perfectly willing 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 at all—but that
      old age has begun to make him timid about money. There’s no doubt
      about it, he’s getting a little queer: he can’t keep his mind on
      a subject long. Right in the middle of talking about one thing
      he’ll wander off to something else; and I shouldn’t be surprised
      if he turned out to be a lot better off than any of us guess.
      It’s entirely possible that whatever he’s sold just went into
      government bonds, or even his safety deposit box. There was a
      friend of mine in college had an old uncle like that: made the
      whole family think he was poor as dirt—and then left seven
      millions. People get terribly queer as they get old, sometimes,
      and grandfather certainly doesn’t act the way he used to. He
      seems to be a totally different man. For instance, he said he
      thought tandem driving might be dangerous—”

      “Did he?” Isabel asked quickly. “Then I’m glad he doesn’t want
      you to have 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
      it interest you to get one of Eugene’s automobiles?”

      “I don’t think so. They’re fast enough, of course. In fact,
      running one of those things is getting to be quite on the cards
      for sport, and people go all over the country in ’em. But they’re
      dirty things, and they keep getting out of order, so that you’re
      always lying down on your back in the mud, and—”

      “Oh, no,” she interrupted eagerly. “Haven’t you noticed? You
      don’t see nearly so many people doing that nowadays as you did
      two or three years ago, and, when you do, Eugene says it’s apt to
      be one of the older patterns. The way they make them now, you can
      get at most of the machinery from the top. I do think you’d be
      interested, dear.”

      George remained indifferent. “Possibly—but I hardly think so. I
      know a lot 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 to me, mother. It’s exciting, and I’d like that part
      of it, but still it doesn’t seem to me precisely the thing a
      gentleman ought to do. Too much overalls and monkey-wrenches and
      grease!”

      “But Eugene says people are hiring mechanics to do all that sort
      of thing for them. They’re beginning to have them just the way
      they have coachmen; 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 only pretend to understand the machinery and they let
      people break down a hundred miles from nowhere, so that about all
      these fellows are good for is to hunt up a farmer and hire a
      horse to pull the automobile. And friends of mine at college
      that’ve had a good deal of experience tell me the mechanics who
      do understand the engines have no training at all as servants.
      They’re awful! They say anything they like, and usually speak to
      members of the family as ‘Say!’ No, I believe I’d rather wait for
      September and a tandem, mother.”

      Nevertheless, George sometimes consented to sit in an automobile,
      while waiting for September, and he frequently went driving in
      one of Eugene’s cars with Lucy and her father. He even allowed
      himself to be escorted with his mother and Fanny through the
      growing factory, which was now, as the foreman of the paint shop
      informed the visitors, “turning out a car and a quarter a day.”
      George had seldom been more excessively bored, but his mother
      showed a lively interest in everything, wishing to have all the
      machinery explained to her. It was Lucy who did most of the
      explaining, while her father looked on and laughed at the
      mistakes she made, and Fanny remained in the background with
      George, exhibiting a bleakness that overmatched his boredom.

      From the factory Eugene took them to lunch at a new restaurant,
      just opened in the town, a place which surprised Isabel with its
      metropolitan air, and, though George made fun of it to her, in a
      whisper, she offered everything the tribute of pleased
      exclamations; and her gayety helped Eugene’s to make the little
      occasion almost a festive one.

      George’s ennui disappeared in spite of himself, and he laughed to
      see his mother in such spirits. “I didn’t know mineral waters
      could go to a person’s head,” he said. “Or perhaps it’s this
      place. It might pay to have a new restaurant opened somewhere in
      town every time you get the blues.”

      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 thought unpleasantly significant, “I never knew a person of a
      more even disposition. I wish I could be like that!” And though
      the tone of this afterthought was not so enthusiastic as she
      tried to make it, she succeeded in producing a fairly amiable
      effect.

      “No,” Isabel said, reverting to George’s remark, and overlooking
      Fanny’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 of the air like that—an idea that most people laughed
      at him for—wouldn’t any old friend of his be happy to see how
      he’d made his idea into such a splendid, humming thing as that
      factory—all shiny steel, clicking and buzzing away, and with all
      those workmen, such muscled looking men and yet 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
      the small table. He took it quickly, giving her a look in which
      his laughter tried to remain, but vanished before a gratitude
      threatening to become emotional in spite of him. Isabel, however,
      turned instantly to Fanny. “Give him your hand, Fanny,” she said
      gayly; and, as Fanny mechanically obeyed, “There!” Isabel cried.
      “If brother George were here, Eugene would have his three oldest
      and best friends congratulating him all at once. We know what
      brother George thinks about it, though. It’s just beautiful,
      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 must inevitably have struck him that she was in the midst
      of one of those “times” when she looked “exactly fourteen years
      old.” Lucy served as a proxy for Amberson, perhaps, when she
      leaned toward George and whispered: “Did you ever see anything so
      lovely?”

      “As what?” George inquired, not because he misunderstood, but
      because he wished to prolong the pleasant neighbourliness of
      whispering.

      “As your mother! Think of her doing that! She’s a darling! And
      papa”—here she imperfectly repressed a tendency to laugh—“papa
      looks as if he were either going to explode or utter loud sobs!”

      Eugene commanded his features, however, and they resumed their
      customary apprehensiveness. “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,” he
      continued. “But I’m almost thinking I could do it again, to thank
      you for 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
      sentimental over anything at all. Factories or restaurants, it
      doesn’t matter what!”

      And both of them were seized with fits of laughter which they
      managed to cover under the general movement of departure, as
      Isabel had risen to go.

      Outside, upon the crowded street, George helped Lucy into his
      runabout, and drove off, waving triumphantly, and laughing at
      Eugene who was struggling with the engine of his car, in the
      tonneau of which Isabel and Fanny had established themselves.
      “Looks like a hand-organ man grinding away for pennies,” said
      George, as the runabout turned the corner 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
      a siren whistle wailed behind him, and before the sound had died
      away, Eugene’s car, coming from behind with what seemed fairly
      like one long leap, went by the runabout and dwindled almost
      instantaneously in perspective, with a lace handkerchief in a
      black-gloved hand fluttering sweet derision as it was swept
      onward into minuteness—a mere white speck—and then out of sight.

      George was undoubtedly impressed. “Your Father does know how to
      drive some,” the dashing exhibition forced him to admit. “Of
      course Pendennis isn’t as young as he was, and I don’t care to
      push him too hard. I wouldn’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 fooling with 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 Lucy protested 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 so you 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, but you’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 George
      laughed at her fondly. “You are the prettiest thing in this
      world, Lucy!” he exclaimed. “When I see you in winter, in furs,
      with your cheeks 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 and those little silver buckled slippers,
      and your rose-coloured parasol, and your cheeks not red but with
      a kind of pinky glow about them, then I see I must have been
      wrong about the winter! When are you going to drop the ‘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
      the last 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 talk of something pleasant.”

      He was a little offended. “Then it isn’t pleasant for you to know
      that I want 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 put her 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 if
      you 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 feeling that 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 serious again, adopting the tone of argument. “Lucy,
      how is anything ever going to 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’ll never be married,
      when what principally stands between us is the fact that 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 about
      anything.”

      “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 the queerest girl! What is ‘unsettled’?”

      “Well, for one thing,” she said, able to smile at his vehemence,
      “you haven’t settled on anything to do. At least, if you have
      you’ve never spoken of it.”

      As she spoke, she gave him the quickest possible side glance of
      hopeful scrutiny; then looked away, not happily. Surprise and
      displeasure were intentionally visible upon the countenance of
      her companion; and he permitted a significant period of silence
      to elapse before making any response. “Lucy,” he said, finally,
      with cold dignity, “I should like to ask you a few questions.”

      “Yes?”

      “The first is: Haven’t you perfectly well understood that I don’t
      mean to 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 see any occasion for a man’s going into trade, or being a
      lawyer, or any of those things if his position and family were
      such that he didn’t need to. You know, yourself, there are a lot
      of people in the East—in the South, too, for that matter—that
      don’t think we’ve got any particular family or position or
      culture in this part of the country. I’ve met plenty of that kind
      of provincial snobs myself, and they’re pretty galling. There
      were one or two men in my crowd at college, their families had
      lived on their income for three generations, and they never
      dreamed there was anybody in their class out here. I had to show
      them a 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 generations can mean just as much out here as anywhere
      else. That’s the way I feel about 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
      his breathing was emotional. As he confessed, with simple
      genuineness, he did feel what he was saying “pretty deeply”; and
      in truth his state approached the tremulous. “I expect to live an
      honourable life,” he said. “I expect to contribute my share to
      charities, and to take part in—in movements.”

      “What kind?”

      “Whatever appeals to me,” he said.

      Lucy looked at him with grieved wonder. “But you really don’t
      mean to have 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 protracted
      interval of silence. Then he said, “I should like to revert to
      the questions 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’s both. 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 you think I ought to ‘do’ something?”

      Lucy frowned slightly. “Why, I suppose almost everything I think
      or say must be owing to his influence in one way or another. We
      haven’t had anybody but each other for so many years, and we
      always think about alike, so of course—”

      “I see!” And George’s brow darkened with resentment. “So that’s
      it, is it? It’s your father’s idea that I ought to go into
      business and that you oughtn’t to be engaged to me until I do.”

      Lucy gave a start, her denial was so quick. “No! I’ve never once
      spoken to him about it. Never!”

      George looked at her keenly, and he jumped to a conclusion not
      far from the truth. “But you know without talking to him that
      it’s the way he does 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,” he said, 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,
      never spoken unkindly, or ‘dictatingly’ of you.” She lifted her
      hand in protest, and her face was so touching in its distress
      that for the moment 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 doing
      something or not doing anything? He has his way, and I have mine.
      I don’t believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes and selling
      potatoes and trying law cases. Why, look at your father’s best
      friend, my Uncle George 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
      business for 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 home that 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
      know what you mean,” he said. “I dare say I don’t care for your
      father’s ideals any more than he does for mine!”

      He tightened the reins, Pendennis quickening eagerly to the trot;
      and when George jumped out of the runabout before Lucy’s gate,
      and assisted her to descend, the silence in which they parted was
      the same that had begun when Pendennis began to trot.




      Chapter XVIII


      That evening, after dinner, George sat with his mother and his
      Aunt Fanny upon the veranda. In former summers, when they sat
      outdoors in the evening, they had customarily used an open
      terrace at the side of the house, looking toward the Major’s, but
      that more private retreat now afforded too blank and abrupt a
      view of the nearest of the new houses; so, without consultation,
      they had abandoned it for the Romanesque stone structure in
      front, an oppressive place.

      Its oppression seemed congenial to George; he sat upon the
      copestone of the stone parapet, his back against a stone
      pilaster; his attitude not comfortable, but rigid, and his
      silence not comfortable, either, but heavy. However, to the eyes
      of his mother and his aunt, who occupied wicker chairs at a
      little distance, he was almost indistinguishable except for the
      stiff white shield of his evening frontage.

      “It’s so nice of you always to dress in the evening, Georgie,”
      his mother said, her glance resting upon this surface. “Your
      Uncle George always used to, and so did father, for years; but
      they both stopped quite a long time ago. Unless there’s some
      special occasion, it seems to me we don’t see it done any more,
      except on the stage and in the magazines.”

      He made no response, and Isabel, after waiting a little while, as
      if she expected one, appeared to acquiesce in his mood for
      silence, and turned her 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 their branches met overhead, arching across the street, but
      only filtered splashings of moonlight reached the block pavement
      below; and through this darkness flashed the firefly lights of
      silent bicycles gliding by in pairs and trios—or sometimes a
      dozen at a time might come, and not so silent, striking their
      little bells; the riders’ voices calling and laughing; while now
      and then a pair of invisible experts would pass, playing mandolin
      and guitar as if handle-bars were of no account in the
      world—their music would come swiftly, and then too swiftly die
      away. Surreys rumbled lightly by, with the plod-plod of honest
      old horses, and frequently there was the glitter of whizzing
      spokes from a runabout or a sporting buggy, and the sharp,
      decisive hoof-beats of a trotter. Then, like a cowboy shooting up
      a peaceful camp, a frantic devil would hurtle out of the
      distance, bellowing, exhaust racketing like a machine gun gone
      amuck—and at these horrid sounds the surreys and buggies would
      hug the curbstone, and the bicycles scatter to cover, cursing;
      while children rushed from the sidewalks to drag pet dogs from
      the street. The thing would roar by, leaving a long wake of
      turbulence; then the indignant street would quiet down for a few
      minutes—till another came.

      “There are a great many more than there used to be,” Miss Fanny
      observed, in her lifeless voice, as the lull fell after one of
      these visitations. “Eugene is right about that; there seem to be
      at least three or four times as many as there were last summer,
      and you never hear the ragamuffins shouting ‘Get a horse!’
      nowadays; but I think he may be mistaken about their going on
      increasing after this. I don’t believe 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
      fad than anything else, and I think it must be the height of the
      fad just now. You know how roller-skating came in—everybody in
      the world seemed to be crowding to the rinks—and now only a few
      children use rollers for getting to school. Besides, people won’t
      permit the automobiles to be used. Really, I think they’ll make
      laws against them. You see how they spoil 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 to see such a thing
      happen to Eugene, but I shouldn’t be really surprised to see a
      law passed forbidding the sale of automobiles, just the way there
      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.
      “Then you didn’t mean it when you told Eugene you’d enjoyed the
      drive this afternoon?”

      “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 said slowly.

      “Why not? Why shouldn’t you, Fanny?”

      Fanny did not reply at once, and when she did, her voice was
      almost inaudible, but much more reproachful than plaintive. “I
      hardly think I’d want any one to get the notion he’d pleased me
      just now. It hardly seems time, yet—to me.”

      Isabel made no response, and for a time the only sound upon the
      dark veranda was the creaking of the wicker rocking-chair in
      which Fanny sat—a creaking which seemed to denote content and
      placidity on the part of the chair’s occupant, though at this
      juncture a series of human shrieks could have been little more
      eloquent of emotional disturbance. However, the creaking gave its
      hearer one great advantage: it could be ignored.

      “Have you given up smoking, George?” Isabel asked presently.

      “No.”

      “I hoped perhaps you had, because you’ve not smoked since dinner.
      We shan’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 softly rendering 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,
      and merely wondered if he could be making such a cheerful sound.”
      And Fanny resumed her creaking.

      “Is she right, George?” his mother asked quickly, leaning forward
      in her chair to peer at him through the dusk. “You didn’t eat a
      very hearty dinner, but I thought it was probably because of the
      warm weather. Are you 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
      her chair; but “Fra Diavolo” was not revived. After a time she
      rose, went to the steps, and stood for several minutes looking
      across the street. Then her laughter was faintly heard.

      “Are you laughing about something?” Fanny inquired.

      “Pardon?” Isabel did not turn, but continued her observation of
      what had interested 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 of opera-glasses.”

      “Really!”

      “Really. You can see the window through the place that was left
      when we had the dead walnut tree cut down. She looks up and down
      the street, but mostly at father’s and over here. Sometimes she
      forgets to put out the light in her room, and there she is,
      spying away for all the world to see!”

      However, Fanny made no effort to observe this spectacle, but
      continued her creaking. “I’ve always thought her a very good
      woman,” she said primly.

      “So she is,” Isabel agreed. “She’s a good, friendly old thing, a
      little too intimate in her manner, sometimes, and if her poor old
      opera-glasses afford her the quiet happiness of knowing what sort
      of young man our new cook is walking out with, I’m the last to
      begrudge it to her! Don’t you want 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 the house, but the heat’s really not bad anywhere,
      since nightfall. Summer’s dying. How quickly it goes, once it
      begins to die.”

      When she had gone into the house, Fanny stopped rocking, and,
      leaning forward, drew her black gauze wrap about her shoulders
      and shivered. “Isn’t it queer,” she said drearily, “how your
      mother can use such words?”

      “What words are you talking about?” George asked.

      “Words like ‘die’ and ‘dying.’ I don’t see how she can bear to
      use them so soon after your poor father—” She shivered again.

      “It’s almost a year,” George said absently, and he added: “It
      seems to me 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
      hardly the same thing, George.”

      He was not enough interested to argue the point. “I don’t think
      you’ll convince anybody that mother’s unfeeling,” he said
      indifferently.

      “I’m not trying to convince anybody. I mean merely that in my
      opinion—well, perhaps it may be just as wise for me to keep my
      opinions to myself.”

      She paused expectantly, but her possible anticipation that George
      would urge her to discard wisdom and reveal her opinion was not
      fulfilled. His back was toward her, and he occupied himself with
      opinions of his own about other matters. Fanny may have felt some
      disappointment as she rose to withdraw.

      However, at the last moment she halted with her hand upon the
      latch of the screen door.

      “There’s one thing I hope,” she said. “I hope at least she won’t
      leave off her full mourning on the very anniversary of Wilbur’s
      death!”

      The light door clanged behind her, and the sound annoyed her
      nephew. He had no idea why she thus used inoffensive wood and
      wire to dramatize her departure from the veranda, the impression
      remaining with him being that she was critical of his mother upon
      some point of funeral millinery. Throughout the desultory
      conversation he had been profoundly concerned with his own
      disturbing affairs, and now was preoccupied with a dialogue
      taking place (in his mind) between himself and Miss Lucy Morgan.
      As he beheld the vision, Lucy had just thrown herself at his
      feet. “George, you must forgive me!” she cried. “Papa was utterly
      wrong! I have told him so, and the truth is that I have come to
      rather dislike him as you do, and as you always have, in your
      heart of hearts. George, I understand 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’s bodily lips moved in unison with those which uttered the
      words in his imaginary rendering of this scene. An eavesdropper,
      concealed behind the column, could have heard the whispered word
      “sure,” the emphasis put upon it in the vision was so poignant.
      “You say you understand me, but are you sure?”

      Weeping, her head bowed almost to her waist, the ethereal Lucy
      made reply: “Oh, so sure! I will never listen to father’s
      opinions again. I do 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
      that it had been brought about by processes strikingly lacking in
      substance. Abruptly he swung his feet down from the copestone to
      the floor of the veranda. “Pardon nothing!” No meek Lucy had
      thrown herself in remorse at his feet; and now he pictured her as
      she probably really was at this moment: sitting on the white
      steps of her own front porch in the moonlight, with red-headed
      Fred Kinney and silly Charlie Johnson and four or five others—all
      of them laughing, most likely, and some idiot playing the guitar!

      George spoke aloud: “Riffraff!”

      And because of an impish but all too natural reaction of the
      mind, he could see Lucy with much greater distinctness in this
      vision than in his former pleasing one. For a moment she was
      miraculously real before him, every line and colour of her. He
      saw the moonlight shimmering in the chiffon of her skirts
      brightest on her crossed knee and the tip of her slipper; saw the
      blue curve of the characteristic shadow behind her, as she leaned
      back against the white step; saw the watery twinkling of sequins
      in the gauze wrap over her white shoulders as she moved, and the
      faint, symmetrical lights in her black hair—and not one alluring,
      exasperating twentieth-of-an-inch of her laughing profile was
      spared him as 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’s scornful hour—he meant to indicate, not Lucy, but the
      young gentlemen who, 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 have wished. But she did not let Eugene see that she
      was troubled, and he was pleased when he won three games of her.
      Usually she beat him.




      Chapter XIX


      George went driving the next afternoon alone, and, encountering
      Lucy and her father on the road, in one of Morgan’s cars, lifted
      his hat, but nowise relaxed his formal countenance as they
      passed. Eugene waved a cordial hand quickly returned to the
      steering-wheel; but Lucy only nodded gravely and smiled no more
      than George did. Nor did she accompany Eugene to the Major’s for
      dinner, the following Sunday evening, though both were bidden to
      attend that feast, which was already reduced in numbers and
      gayety by the absence of George Amberson. Eugene explained to his
      host that Lucy had gone away to visit a school-friend.

      The information, delivered in the library, just before old Sam’s
      appearance to announce dinner, set Miss Minafer in quite a
      flutter. “Why, George!” she said, turning to her nephew. “How
      does it happen you didn’t tell us?” And with both hands opening,
      as if to express her innocence of some conspiracy, she exclaimed
      to the others, “He’s never said one word to us about Lucy’s
      planning to go away!”

      “Probably afraid to,” the Major suggested. “Didn’t know but he
      might break down and cry if he tried to speak of it!” He clapped
      his grandson on the shoulder, inquiring jocularly, “That it,
      Georgie?”

      Georgie made no reply, but he was red enough to justify the
      Major’s developing a chuckle into laughter; though Miss Fanny,
      observing her nephew keenly, got an impression that this fiery
      blush was in truth more fiery than tender. She caught a glint in
      his eye less like confusion than resentment, and saw a dilation
      of his nostrils which might have indicated not so much a sweet
      agitation as an inaudible snort. Fanny had never been lacking in
      curiosity, and, since her brother’s death, this quality was more
      than ever alert. The fact that George had spent all the evenings
      of the past week at home had not been lost upon her, nor had she
      failed to ascertain, by diplomatic inquiries, that since the day
      of the visit to Eugene’s shops George had gone driving alone.

      At the dinner-table she continued to observe him, sidelong; and
      toward the conclusion of the meal she was not startled by an
      episode which brought discomfort to the others. After the arrival
      of coffee the Major was rallying Eugene upon some rival
      automobile shops lately built in a suburb, and already promising
      to flourish.

      “I suppose they’ll either drive you out of the business,” said
      the old gentleman, “or else the two of you’ll drive all the rest
      of us off the streets.”

      “If we do, we’ll even things up by making the streets five or ten
      times as 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,”
      said Eugene; “it’s the time it takes to get there. This town’s
      already spreading; bicycles and trolleys have been doing their
      share, but the automobile 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 for us 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 be stretched pretty thin.”

      “I’m afraid so,” Eugene assented. “Unless you keep things so
      bright and clean 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,
      and already the boarding-house is marching up National Avenue.
      There are two in the next block below here, and there are a dozen
      in the half-mile below that. My relatives, the Sharons, have sold
      their house and are building in the country—at least, they call
      it ‘the country.’ It will be city in two or three years.”

      “Good gracious!” the Major exclaimed, affecting dismay. “So your
      little shops are going to ruin all your old friends, Eugene!”

      “Unless my old friends take warning in time, or abolish smoke and
      get a new kind of city government. I should say the best chance
      is to take warning.”

      “Well, well!” the Major laughed. “You have enough faith in
      miracles, Eugene—granting that trolleys and bicycles and
      automobiles are miracles. 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
      had said nothing since entering the dining room, but now he spoke
      in a loud and peremptory voice, using the tone of one in
      authority who checks idle prattle 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 her cheeks and temples, while Fanny watched him with a quick
      eagerness, her eyes alert and bright. But Eugene seemed merely
      quizzical, as if not taking this brusquerie to himself. The Major
      was seriously disturbed.

      “What did you say, George?” he asked, though George had spoken
      but too distinctly.

      “I said all automobiles were a nuisance,” George answered,
      repeating not only 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 business to be invented.”

      The Major frowned. “Of course you forget that Mr. Morgan makes
      them, and also did his share in inventing them. If you weren’t so
      thoughtless he might think you rather offensive.”

      “That would be too bad,” said George coolly. “I don’t think I
      could survive 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
      their speed forward they may be a step backward in
      civilization—that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that
      they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of
      men’s souls. I am not sure. But automobiles have come, and they
      bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They
      are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different
      because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they
      are going to alter peace. I think men’s minds are going to be
      changed in subtle ways because of automobiles; just how, though,
      I could hardly guess. But you can’t have the immense outward
      changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may
      be that George is right, and that the spiritual alteration will
      be bad for us. Perhaps, ten or twenty years from now, if we can
      see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn’t be able to
      defend the gasoline engine, but would have to agree with him that
      automobiles ‘had no business to be invented.’” He laughed
      good-naturedly, and looking at his watch, apologized for having
      an engagement which made his departure necessary when he would so
      much prefer to linger. Then he shook hands with the Major, and
      bade Isabel, George, and Fanny a cheerful good-night—a collective
      farewell cordially addressed to all three of them together—and
      left them at the table.

      Isabel turned wondering, hurt eyes upon her son. “George, dear!”
      she said. “What did you mean?”

      “Just what I said,” he returned, lighting one of the Major’s
      cigars, and his manner was imperturbable enough to warrant the
      definition (sometimes merited by imperturbability) of
      stubbornness.

      Isabel’s hand, pale and slender, upon the tablecloth, touched one
      of the fine 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
      anything about 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.
      “You didn’t mean ‘him,’ you say, George? I suppose if we had a
      clergyman as a guest here you’d expect him not to be offended,
      and to understand that your remarks were neither personal nor
      untactful, if you said the church was a nuisance and ought never
      to have been invented. By Jove, but you’re a puzzle!”

      “In what way, may I ask, sir?”

      “We seem to have a new kind of young people these days,” the old
      gentleman returned, shaking his head. “It’s a new style of
      courting a pretty girl, certainly, for a young fellow to go
      deliberately out of his way to try and make an enemy of her
      father by attacking his business! By Jove! That’s a new way to
      win a woman!”

      George flushed angrily and seemed about to offer a retort, but
      held his breath for a moment; and then held his peace. It was
      Isabel who responded to the Major. “Oh, no!” she said. “Eugene
      would never be anybody’s enemy—he couldn’t!—and last of all
      Georgie’s. I’m afraid he was hurt, but I don’t fear his not
      having understood that George spoke without thinking of what he
      was saying—I mean, with-out realizing its bearing on Eugene.”

      Again George seemed upon the point of speech, and again
      controlled the impulse. 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
      successful little dinner!”

      Thereupon he offered his arm to his daughter, who took it fondly,
      and they left the room, Isabel assuring him that all his little
      dinners were pleasant, and that this one was no exception.

      George did not move, and Fanny, following the other two, came
      round the table, and paused close beside his chair; but George
      remained posed in his great imperturbability, cigar between
      teeth, eyes upon ceiling, and paid no attention to her. Fanny
      waited until the sound of Isabel’s and the 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
      the right thing!”

      She hurried out, scurrying after the others with a faint rustling
      of her black skirts, leaving George mystified but incurious. He
      did not understand why she should bestow her approbation upon him
      in the matter, and cared so little whether she did or not that he
      spared himself even the trouble of being puzzled about it.

      In truth, however, he was neither so comfortable nor so
      imperturbable as he appeared. He felt some gratification: he had
      done a little to put the man in his place—that man whose
      influence upon his daughter was precisely the same thing as a
      contemptuous criticism of George Amberson Minafer, and of George
      Amberson Minafer’s “ideals of life.” Lucy’s going away 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: he
      could demonstrate that to them—since they started it!

      It appeared to him as almost a kind of insolence, this abrupt
      departure—not even telephoning! Probably she wondered how he
      would take it; she even might have supposed he would show some
      betraying chagrin when he heard of it.

      He had no idea that this was just what he had shown; and he was
      satisfied with his evening’s performance. Nevertheless, he was
      not comfortable in his mind; though he could not have explained
      his inward perturbations, for he was convinced, without any
      confirmation from his Aunt Fanny, that he had done “just the
      right thing.”




      Chapter XX


      Isabel came to George’s door that night, and when she had kissed
      him good-night she remained in the open doorway with her hand
      upon his shoulder and her eyes thoughtfully lowered, so that her
      wish to say something more than good-night was evident. Not less
      obvious was her perplexity about the manner of saying it; and
      George, divining her thought, amiably made an opening for her.

      “Well, old lady,” he said indulgently, “you needn’t look so
      worried. I won’t be tactless with Morgan again. After this I’ll
      just keep out of his way.”

      Isabel looked up, searching his face with the fond puzzlement
      which her eyes sometimes showed when they rested upon him; then
      she glanced down the 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
      like Eugene?”

      “Oh, I like him well enough,” George returned, with a short
      laugh, as he sat down and began to unlace his shoes. “I like him
      well enough—in his place.”

      “No, dear,” she said hurriedly. “I’ve had a feeling from the very
      first 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 with him over something in a jolly, companionable way, and
      I’d think I was wrong, and that you really did like him, after
      all; but to-night I’m sure my other feeling was the right one:
      you don’t like him. I can’t understand 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
      Isabel went on, in her troubled voice, “It seems so queer,
      especially when you feel as you do about his daughter.”

      At this, George stopped unlacing his shoes abruptly, and sat up.
      “How do I feel about his daughter?” he demanded.

      “Well, it’s seemed—as if—as if—” Isabel began timidly. “It did
      seem—At least, you haven’t looked at any other girl, ever since
      they came 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 be so much interested in a girl and—and not feel very
      pleasantly toward her father.”

      “Well, I’ll tell you something,” George said slowly; and a frown
      of concentration could be seen upon his brow, as from a profound
      effort at self-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 truth is, I don’t believe I’ve ever thought of
      the two together, exactly—at least, 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 a person herself, not as anybody’s
      daughter. I don’t see what’s very extraordinary about that.
      You’ve probably got plenty of friends, for instance, that don’t
      care much about your son—”

      “No, indeed!” she protested quickly. “And if I knew anybody who
      felt like that, I wouldn’t—”

      “Never mind,” he interrupted. “I’ll try to explain a little more.
      If I have a friend, I don’t see that it’s incumbent upon me to
      like that friend’s relatives. If I didn’t like them, and
      pretended to, I’d be a hypocrite. If that friend likes me and
      wants to stay my friend he’ll have to stand my not liking his
      relatives, or else he can quit. I decline to be a hypocrite about
      it; that’s all. Now, suppose I have certain ideas or ideals which
      I have chosen for the regulation of my own conduct in life.
      Suppose some friend of mine has a relative with ideals directly
      the opposite of mine, and my friend believes more in the
      relative’s ideals than in mine: Do you think I ought to give up
      my own just 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 see what this has to do with dear little Lucy and—”

      “I didn’t say it had anything to do with them,” he interrupted.
      “I was merely putting a case to show how a person would be
      justified in being a friend of one member of a family, and
      feeling anything but friendly toward 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 that I feel unfriendly; but
      if you really think that I was rude to him to-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 perplexed gaze, 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 or another, but you can
      be sure I’ll be careful, after this, not to let them 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
      just let yourself. You say you don’t dislike him. Why don’t you
      like him? I can’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
      nothing in the world to worry about. So good-night, old lady.
      I’ll be polite enough to him, never fear—if we happen to be
      thrown together. So good-night!”

      “But, George, dear—”

      “I’m going to bed, old lady; so good-night.”

      Thus the interview closed perforce. She kissed him again before
      going slowly to her own room, her perplexity evidently not
      dispersed; but the subject was not renewed between them the next
      day or subsequently. Nor did Fanny make any allusion to the
      cryptic approbation she had bestowed upon her nephew after the
      Major’s “not very successful little dinner”; though she annoyed
      George by looking at him oftener and longer than he cared to be
      looked at by an aunt. He could not glance her way, it seemed,
      without finding her red-rimmed eyes fixed upon him eagerly, with
      an alert and hopeful calculation in them which he declared would
      send a nervous man into fits. For thus, one day, he broke out, in
      protest:

      “It would!” he repeated vehemently. “Given time it would—straight
      into fits! What do you find the matter with me? Is my tie always
      slipping up behind? Can’t you look at something else? My Lord!
      We’d better buy a cat for you to stare at, Aunt Fanny! A cat
      could stand it, maybe. What in the name of goodness do you expect
      to see?”

      But Fanny laughed good-naturedly, and was not offended. “It’s
      more as if I expected you to see something, isn’t it?” she said
      quietly, still laughing.

      “Now, what do you mean by that?”

      “Never mind!”

      “All right, I don’t. But for heaven’s sake stare at somebody else
      awhile. Try it on the house-maid!”

      “Well, well,” Fanny said indulgently, and then chose to be more
      obscure in her meaning than ever, for she adopted a tone of deep
      sympathy for her final remark, as she left him: “I don’t wonder
      you’re nervous these days, poor boy!”

      And George indignantly supposed that she referred to the ordeal
      of Lucy’s continued absence. During this period he successfully
      avoided contact with Lucy’s father, though Eugene came frequently
      to the house, and spent several evenings with Isabel and Fanny;
      and sometimes persuaded them and the Major to go for an
      afternoon’s motoring. He did not, however, come again to the
      Major’s Sunday evening dinner, even when George Amberson
      returned. Sunday evening was the time, he explained, for going
      over the week’s work with his factory managers.

      When Lucy came home the autumn was far enough advanced to smell
      of burning leaves, and for the annual editorials, in the papers,
      on the purple haze, the golden branches, the ruddy fruit, and the
      pleasure of long 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 about her. Janie Sharon had just begun to
      tell him that she heard Lucy was expected home soon, after having
      “a perfectly gorgeous time”—information which George received
      with no responsive enthusiasm—when Lucy came demurely in, a
      proper little autumn figure in green and brown.

      Her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes were bright indeed;
      evidences, as George supposed, of the excitement incidental to
      the perfectly gorgeous time just concluded; though Janie and Mary
      Sharon both thought they were the effect of Lucy’s having seen
      George’s runabout in front of the house as she came in. George
      took on colour, himself, as, he rose and nodded indifferently;
      and the hot suffusion to which he became subject extended its
      area to include his neck and ears. Nothing could have made him
      much more indignant than his consciousness of these symptoms of
      the icy indifference which it was his purpose not only to show
      but to feel.

      She kissed her cousins, gave George her hand, said “How d’you
      do,” and took a chair beside Janie with a composure which
      augmented George’s indignation.

      “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 rosy ears his cough was ostentatiously a false one.
      Whereupon, seeking to be plausible, he coughed again, and
      instantly hated himself: the sound he made was an atrocity.
      Meanwhile, Lucy sat silent, and the two Sharon girls leaned
      forward, staring at him with strained eyes, their lips tightly
      compressed; and both were but too easily diagnosed as subject to
      an 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 are
      well. I hope you are extremely—I hope extremely—extremely—” And
      again he stopped in the midst of his floundering, not knowing how
      to progress beyond “extremely,” and unable to understand why the
      infernal word kept getting into his mouth.

      “I beg your pardon?” Lucy said.

      George was never more furious; he felt that he was “making a
      spectacle of himself”; and no young gentleman in the world was
      more loath than George Amberson Minafer to look a figure of fun.
      And while he stood there, undeniably such a figure, with Janie
      and Mary Sharon threatening to burst at any moment, if laughter
      were longer denied them. Lucy sat looking at him with her
      eyebrows delicately lifted in casual, polite inquiry. Her own
      complete composure was what most galled him.

      “Nothing of the slightest importance!” he managed to say. “I was
      just leaving. Good afternoon!” And with long strides he reached
      the door and hastened through the hall; but before he closed the
      front door he heard from Janie and Mary Sharon the outburst of
      wild, irrepressible emotion which his performance had inspired.

      He drove home in a tumultuous mood, and almost ran down two
      ladies who were engaged in absorbing conversation at a crossing.
      They were his Aunt Fanny and the stout Mrs. Johnson; a jerk of
      the reins at the last instant saved them by a few inches; but
      their conversation was so interesting that they were unaware of
      their danger, and did not notice the runabout, nor how close it
      came to them. George was so furious with himself and with the
      girl whose unexpected coming into a room could make him look such
      a fool, that it might have soothed him a little if he had
      actually run over the two absorbed ladies without injuring them
      beyond repair. At least, he said to himself that he wished he
      had; it might have taken his mind off of himself for a few
      minutes. For, in truth, to be ridiculous (and know it) was one of
      several things that George was unable to endure. He was savage.

      He drove into the Major’s stable too fast, the sagacious
      Pendennis saving himself from going through a partition by a
      swerve which splintered a shaft of the runabout and almost threw
      the driver to the floor. 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’
      Jawge mighty 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,
      then passed behind the new houses, on his way home. These
      structures were now approaching completion, but still in a state
      of rawness hideous to George—though, for that matter, they were
      never to be anything except hideous to him. Behind them, stray
      planks, bricks, refuse of plaster and lath, shingles, straw,
      empty barrels, strips of twisted tin and broken tiles were strewn
      everywhere over the dried and pitted gray mud where once the
      suave lawn had lain like a green lake around those stately
      islands, the two Amberson houses. And George’s state of mind was
      not improved by his present view of this repulsive area, nor by
      his sensations when he kicked an uptilted shingle only to
      discover that what uptilted it was a brickbat on the other side
      of it. After that, the whole 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 Morgan upon the cement path that led to the front
      gate. She was bareheaded, and Eugene held his hat and stick in
      his hand; evidently he had been calling upon her, and she had
      come from the house with him, continuing their conversation and
      delaying their parting.

      They had paused in their slow walk from the front door to the
      gate, yet still stood side by side, their shoulders almost
      touching, as though neither Isabel nor Eugene quite realized that
      their feet had ceased to bear them forward; and they were not
      looking at each other, but at some indefinite point before them,
      as people do who consider together thoughtfully and in harmony.
      The conversation was evidently serious; his head was bent, and
      Isabel’s lifted left hand rested against her cheek; but all the
      significances of their thoughtful attitude denoted
      companionableness and a shared understanding. Yet, a stranger,
      passing, would not have thought them married: somewhere about
      Eugene, not quite to be located, there was a romantic gravity;
      and Isabel, tall and graceful, with high colour and absorbed
      eyes, was visibly no wife walking 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 so much thought about her companion and of
      such reliance upon him. And the picture the two thus made was a
      vivid one indeed, to George, whose angry eyes, for some reason,
      fixed themselves most intently upon Isabel’s lifted hand, upon
      the white ruffle at her wrist, bordering the graceful black
      sleeve, and upon the little indentations in her cheek where the
      tips of her fingers rested. She should not have worn white at her
      wrist, or at the throat either, George felt; and then, strangely,
      his resentment concentrated upon those tiny indentations at the
      tips of her fingers—actual changes, however slight and fleeting,
      in his mother’s face, made because of Mr. Eugene Morgan. For the
      moment, it seemed to George that Morgan might have claimed the
      ownership of a face that changed 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, fell upon George. Instantly she smiled and waved her hand
      to him; while Eugene turned and nodded; but George, standing as
      in some rigid trance, and staring straight at them, gave these
      signals of greeting no sign of recognition whatever. Upon this,
      Isabel called to him, waving her hand again.

      “Georgie!” she called, laughing. “Wake up, dear! Georgie, hello!”

      George turned away as if he had neither seen nor heard, and
      stalked into the 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 violently enveloped himself in a black velvet
      dressing-gown, continued this action by lying down with a
      vehemence that brought a wheeze of protest from his bed. His
      repose was only a momentary semblance, however, for it lasted no
      longer than the time it took him to groan “Riffraff!” between his
      teeth. Then he sat up, swung his feet to the floor, rose, and
      began to pace up and down the large room.

      He had just been consciously rude to his mother for the first
      time in his life; for, with all his riding down of populace and
      riffraff, he had never before been either deliberately or
      impulsively disregardful of her. When he had hurt her it had been
      accidental; and his remorse for such 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; rather he was the more
      irritated with her. And when he heard her presently go by his
      door with a light step, singing cheerfully to herself as she went
      to her room, he perceived that she had mistaken his intention
      altogether, or, indeed, had failed to perceive that he had any
      intention at all. Evidently she had concluded that he refused to
      speak to her and Morgan out of sheer absent-mindedness, supposing
      him so immersed in some preoccupation 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 so minded; and probably Eugene
      himself was unaware that any disapproval had recently been
      expressed. George snorted. What sort of a dreamy loon did they
      take him to be?

      There came a delicate, eager tapping at his door, not done with a
      knuckle but with the tip of a fingernail, which was instantly
      clarified to George’s mind’s eye as plainly as if he saw it: the
      long and polished white-mooned pink shield on the end of his Aunt
      Fanny’s right forefinger. But George was in no mood for human
      communications, and even when things went well he had little
      pleasure in Fanny’s society. Therefore it is not surprising that
      at the sound of her tapping, instead of bidding her enter, he
      immediately crossed the room with the intention of locking the
      door to keep her out.

      Fanny was too eager, and, opening the door before he reached it,
      came quickly in, and closed it behind her. She was in a street
      dress and a black hat, with a black umbrella in her black-gloved
      hand—for Fanny’s heavy mourning, at least, was nowhere tempered
      with a glimpse of white, though the anniversary of Wilbur’s death
      had passed. An infinitesimal perspiration gleamed upon her pale
      skin; she breathed fast, as if she had run up the stairs; and
      excitement was sharp in her widened eyes. Her look was that of a
      person who had just seen something extraordinary or heard
      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’t speak 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
      spirited because she suppressed her voice almost to a whisper.
      “You did exactly right! You’re behaving splendidly about the
      whole thing, and I want to tell you I know your father would
      thank you if he could see what you’re doing.”

      “My Lord!” George broke out at her. “You make me dizzy! For
      heaven’s sake quit the mysterious detective business—at least do
      quit it around me! Go and try it on somebody else, if you like;
      but I don’t want to hear it!”

      She began to tremble, regarding him with a fixed gaze. “You don’t
      care to 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. All I’d like, if you please, is to be alone. I’m not giving
      a tea here, this afternoon, if you’ll permit me to mention it!”

      Fanny’s gaze wavered; she began to blink; then suddenly she sank
      into a chair and wept silently, but with a terrible desolation.

      “Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” he moaned. “What in the world is wrong
      with you?”

      “You’re always picking on me,” she quavered wretchedly, her voice
      indistinct with the wetness that bubbled into it from her tears.
      “You do—you always pick on me! You’ve always done it—always—ever
      since you were a little boy! Whenever anything goes wrong with
      you, you take it out on me! You do! You always—”

      George flung to heaven a gesture of despair; it seemed to him the
      last straw that Fanny should have chosen this particular time to
      come and sob in his room over his mistreatment of her!

      “Oh, my Lord!” he whispered; then, with a great effort, addressed
      her in a reasonable tone: “Look here, Aunt Fanny; I don’t see
      what you’re making 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 think I can stand it! Honestly, I don’t think I can! I came
      in here just to show 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 servant the way you treat me! You wouldn’t
      treat anybody in the world like this except 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 I want to!’ You do!
      That’s how you think of me—I know it! And you’re right: I haven’t
      got anything in the world, since my brother
      died—nobody—nothing—nothing!”

      “Oh my Lord!” George groaned.

      Fanny spread out her small, soaked handkerchief, and shook it in
      the air to dry it a little, crying as damply and as wretchedly
      during this operation as before—a sight which gave George a
      curious shock to add to his other agitations, it seemed so
      strange. “I ought not to have come,” she went on, “because I
      might have known it would only give you an 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, and
      couldn’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 would have, if I hadn’t got excited and if I hadn’t felt
      sorry for you. But what does it matter to anybody if I’m sorry
      for them? I’m only old Fanny!”

      “Oh, good gracious! How can it matter to me who’s sorry for me
      when I don’t know what they’re sorry about!”

      “You’re so proud,” she quavered, “and so hard! I tell you I
      didn’t mean to speak of it to you, and I never, never in the
      world would have told you about it, nor have made the faintest
      reference to it, if I hadn’t seen that somebody else had told
      you, or you’d found out for yourself some way. I—”

      In despair of her intelligence, and in some doubt of his own,
      George struck 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 mystified because, in his pride, he would not in
      words admit that he knew what he knew.

      “What did you say?” he asked incredulously.

      “Of course I understood what you were doing,” Fanny went on,
      drying her handkerchief again. “It puzzled other people when you
      began to be rude to Eugene, because they couldn’t see how you
      could treat him as you did when you were so interested in Lucy.
      But I remembered how you came to me, that other time when there
      was so much talk about Isabel; and I knew you’d give Lucy up in a
      minute, if it came to a question of your mother’s reputation,
      because you said then that—”

      “Look here,” George interrupted in a shaking voice. “Look here,
      I’d like—” He stopped, unable to go on, his agitation was so
      great. His chest 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—my mother’s reputation?”

      Fanny looked up at him woefully over the handkerchief which she
      now applied to her reddened nose. “God knows I’m sorry for you,
      George,” she murmured. “I wanted to say so, but it’s only old
      Fanny, so whatever she says—even when it’s sympathy—pick on her
      for it! Hammer her!” She sobbed. “Hammer her! It’s only poor old
      lonely Fanny!”

      “You look here!” George said harshly. “When I spoke to my Uncle
      George after that rotten thing I heard Aunt Amelia say about my
      mother, he said if there was any gossip it was about you! He said
      people might be laughing 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 truth in what Aunt Amelia said about people talking. You
      denied it. And that wasn’t the only time; you’d attacked me
      before then, because I intimated that Morgan might be coming here
      too often. You made me believe that mother let him come entirely
      on your account, and now you say—”

      “I think he did,” Fanny interrupted desolately. “I think he did
      come as much to see me as anything—for a while it looked like it.
      Anyhow, he liked 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 on hers. 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
      know how 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 his sister was getting herself talked about, do
      you? Or that they were going to say much to me?”

      “You told me,” said George, fiercely, “that mother never saw him
      except when she was chaperoning you.”

      “They weren’t much alone together, then,” Fanny returned. “Hardly
      ever, before Wilbur died. But you don’t suppose that stops people
      from talking, do you? Your father never went anywhere, and people
      saw Eugene with her everywhere she went—and though I was with
      them people just thought”—she choked—“they just thought I didn’t
      count! ‘Only old Fanny Minafer,’ I suppose they’d say! Besides,
      everybody knew that he’d been engaged to her—”

      “What’s that?” George cried.

      “Everybody knows it. Don’t you remember your grandfather speaking
      of it at 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 of that serenade when Eugene didn’t know what he was
      doing. He drank when he was a young man, and she wouldn’t stand
      it, but everybody in this town knows that Isabel has never really
      cared for any other man in her life! Poor Wilbur! He was the only
      soul alive that didn’t know it!”

      Nightmare had descended upon the unfortunate George; he leaned
      back against the foot-board of his bed, gazing wildly at his
      aunt. “I believe I’m going crazy,” he said. “You mean when you
      told me there wasn’t any talk, 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 have amounted to much if Wilbur had lived.” And Fanny
      completed this with a fatal admission: “I didn’t want you to
      interfere.”

      George overlooked the admission; his mind was not now occupied
      with analysis. “What do you mean,” he asked, “when you say that
      if father had lived, 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.” She had ceased to weep, and now she sat up stiffly. “I
      certainly didn’t care enough about him to marry him; I wouldn’t
      have let myself care that much until he showed that he wished to
      marry me. I’m not that sort of person!” The poor lady paid her
      vanity this piteous little tribute. “What I mean is, if Wilbur
      hadn’t died, people wouldn’t have had it proved before their very
      eyes that what they’d been talking about was true!”

      “You say—you say that people believe—” George shuddered, then
      forced himself to continue, in a sick voice: “They believe my
      mother is—is in love with that man?”

      “Of course!”

      “And because he comes here—and they see her with him driving—and
      all that—they think they were right when they said she was in—in
      love with him before—before my father died?”

      She looked at him gravely with her eyes now dry between their
      reddened lids. “Why, George,” she said, gently, “don’t you know
      that’s what they say? You must know that everybody in town thinks
      they’re going to be married very soon.”

      George uttered an incoherent cry; and sections of him appeared to
      writhe. He was upon the verge of actual nausea.

      “You know it!” Fanny cried, getting up. “You don’t think I’d have
      spoken of it to you unless I was sure you knew it?” Her voice was
      wholly genuine, as it had been throughout the wretched interview:
      Fanny’s sincerity was unquestionable. “George, I wouldn’t have
      told you, if you didn’t know. What other reason could you have
      for treating Eugene as you did, 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
      come from? Who does it?”

      “Why, I suppose pretty much everybody,” she said. “I know it must
      be pretty general.”

      “Who said so?”

      “What?”

      George stepped close to her. “You say people don’t speak to a
      person of gossip about that person’s family. Well, how did you
      hear it, then? How did you get hold of it? Answer me!”

      Fanny looked thoughtful. “Well, of course nobody not one’s most
      intimate friends would speak to them about such things, and then
      only in the kindest, 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
      that mother of Charlie Johnson’s, for instance. Has she ever
      mentioned this to 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 have
      intimated—”

      George had a sudden intuition, as there flickered into his mind
      the picture of a street-crossing and two absorbed ladies almost
      run down by a 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 a good deal for one day, Aunt Fanny!”

      And Fanny, seeing the passion in his face, began to be alarmed.
      She tried to retain possession of the black velvet sleeve which
      her fingers had clutched, and he suffered her to do so, but used
      this leverage to urge her to the door. “George, you know I’m
      sorry for you, whether you care or not,” she whimpered. “I never
      in the world would have spoken of it, 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 quickly behind her.




      Chapter XXII


      George took off his dressing-gown and put on a collar and a tie,
      his fingers shaking so that the tie was not his usual success;
      then he picked up his coat and waistcoat, and left the room while
      still in process of donning them, fastening the buttons, as he
      ran down the front stairs to the door. It was not until he
      reached the middle of the street that he realized that he had
      forgotten his hat; and he paused for an irresolute moment, during
      which his eye wandered, for no reason, to the Fountain of
      Neptune. This castiron replica of too elaborate sculpture stood
      at the next corner, where the Major had placed it when the
      Addition was laid out so long ago. The street corners had been
      shaped to conform with the great octagonal basin, which was no
      great inconvenience for horse-drawn vehicles, but a nuisance to
      speeding automobiles; and, even as George looked, one of the
      latter, coming too fast, saved itself only by a dangerous skid as
      it rounded the fountain. This skid was to George’s liking, though
      he would have been more pleased to see the car go over, for he
      was wishing grief and destruction, just then, upon all the
      automobiles in the world.

      His eyes rested a second or two longer upon the Fountain of
      Neptune, not an enlivening sight even in the shielding haze of
      autumn twilight. For more than a year no water had run in the
      fountain: the connections had been broken, and the Major was
      evasive about restorations, even when reminded 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 consistent in
      catching; and his trident had been so deeply affected as to drop
      its prongs. Altogether, this heavy work of heavy art, smoked dry,
      hugely scabbed, cracked, and crumbling, was a dismal sight to the
      distracted eye of George Amberson Minafer, and its present
      condition of craziness may have added a mite to his own. His own
      was sufficient, with no additions, however, as he stood looking
      at the Johnsons’ house and those houses on both sides of it—that
      row of riffraff dwellings he had thought 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
      to make, and went forward hurriedly. Mrs. Johnson was at home,
      the Irish girl who came to the door informed him, and he was left
      to await the lady, in a room like an elegant well—the Johnsons’
      “reception room”: floor space, nothing to mention; walls, blue
      calcimined; ceiling, twelve feet from the floor; inside shutters
      and gray lace curtains; five gilt chairs, a brocaded sofa,
      soiled, and an inlaid walnut table, supporting two tall alabaster
      vases; a palm, with two leaves, dying in a corner.

      Mrs. Johnson came in, breathing noticeably; and her round head,
      smoothly but economically decorated with the hair of an honest
      woman, seemed to be lingering far in the background of the Alpine
      bosom which took precedence of the rest of her everywhere; but
      when she was all in the room, it was to be seen that her
      breathing was the result of hospitable haste to greet the
      visitor, and her hand, not so dry as Neptune’s Fountain,
      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 really
      delighted: 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, and he’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 the sofa. “Do sit down.”

      “No, I thank you. I wish—”

      “Surely you’re not going to run away again, when you’ve just
      come. Do sit down, Mr. Minafer. I hope you’re all well at your
      house and at the dear old Major’s, too. He’s looking—”

      “Mrs. Johnson” George said, in a strained loud voice which
      arrested her attention immediately, so that she was abruptly
      silent, leaving her surprised mouth open. She had already been
      concealing some astonishment at this unexampled visit, however,
      and the condition of George’s ordinarily smooth hair (for he had
      overlooked more than his hat) had not alleviated her perplexity.
      “Mrs. Johnson,” he said, “I have come to ask you 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
      recovered herself. “Then I’m sure our conversation was a very
      pleasant one, if we were talking of your mother, because—”

      Again he interrupted. “My aunt has told me what the conversation
      virtually was, and I don’t mean to waste any time, Mrs. Johnson.
      You were talking about a—” George’s shoulders suddenly heaved
      uncontrollably; but he went fiercely on: “You were discussing a
      scandal that 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
      visible agitation. “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
      returned sharply. “I did not repeat a scandal of any kind to your
      aunt and I think you are mistaken in saying she told you I did.
      We may, have discussed 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 interrupted
      crisply. “And I should prefer that you would not make your voice
      quite so loud in this house, which I happen to own. Your aunt may
      have told you—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 discussed some such topic as I have mentioned, and
      possibly that would have been true. If I talked it over with her,
      you may be sure I spoke in the most charitable spirit, and
      without sharing in other people’s disposition to put an evil
      interpretation on what may be nothing more than unfortunate
      appearances and—”

      “My God!” said George. “I can’t stand this!”

      “You have the option of dropping the subject,” Mrs. Johnson
      suggested tartly, 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 will
      remember to ask it quietly. I’ll also take the liberty of
      reminding you that I had a perfect right to discuss the subject
      with your aunt. Other people 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 I want 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 talk about 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 she
      showed it. “Really, this isn’t a court-room,” she said. “And I’m
      not a defendant in a libel-suit, either!”

      The unfortunate young man lost what remained of his balance. “You
      may be!” 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 to make them take every word of it back! I mean to
      know the name of every slanderer that’s spoken of this matter to
      you and of every tattler you’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 that you’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, he burst 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 they are, you ought to do something better with your hair, and
      button your waistcoat to the right buttons—even for Mrs. Johnson!
      What were you doing over there?”

      “She told me to leave the house,” George said desperately. “I
      went there because Aunt Fanny told me the whole town was talking
      about my mother and that man Morgan—that they say my mother is
      going to marry him and that proves she was too fond of him before
      my father died—she said this Mrs. Johnson was one that talked
      about it, and I went to her to ask who were the others.”

      Amberson’s jaw fell in dismay. “Don’t tell me you did that!” he
      said, in a low voice; and then, seeing that it was true, “Oh, now
      you have done it!”




      Chapter XXIII


      “I’ve ‘done it’?” George cried. “What do you mean: I’ve done it?
      And what have I done?”

      Amberson had collapsed into an easy chair beside his
      dressing-table, the white 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 the floor before he replied; and the
      hand that had held it was lifted to stroke his graying hair
      reflectively. “By Jove!” he muttered. “That is too 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 these riffraff can go about bandying my mother’s name—”

      “They can now,” said Amberson. “I don’t know if they could
      before, but they certainly can now!”

      “What do you mean by that?”

      His uncle sighed profoundly, picked up his tie and, preoccupied
      with despondency, 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 every human being alive and about all the dead that
      are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any
      harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip’s a nasty
      thing, but it’s sickly, and if people of good intentions will let
      it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a
      hundred.”

      “See here,” George said: “I didn’t come to listen to any
      generalizing dose of philosophy! I ask you—”

      “You asked me what you’ve done, and I’m telling you.” Amberson
      gave him a melancholy smile, continuing: “Suffer me to do it in
      my own way. Fanny says there’s been talk about your mother, and
      that Mrs. Johnson does some of it. I don’t know, because
      naturally nobody would come to me with such stuff or mention it
      before me; but it’s presumably true—I suppose it is. I’ve seen
      Fanny with Mrs. Johnson quite a lot; and that old lady is a
      notorious gossip, and that’s why she ordered you out of her house
      when you pinned her down that she’d been gossiping. I have a
      suspicion Mrs. Johnson has been quite a comfort to Fanny in their
      long talks; but she’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 any Amberson has always been a
      stone dropped into the centre of a pond, and a lie would send the
      ripples as far as a truth would. I’ve been on a steamer when the
      story went all over the boat, the second day out, that the
      prettiest girl on board didn’t have any ears; and you can take it
      as 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 that it’s a wig. You can be sure that for many years
      there’s been more gossip in this place about the Ambersons than
      about any other family. I dare say it isn’t so much so now as it
      used to be, because the town got too big long ago, but it’s the
      truth that the more prominent you are the more gossip there is
      about you, and the more people would like to pull you down. Well,
      they can’t do it as long as you refuse to know what gossip 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 have
      got to take to the courts; I’m talking of the wretched buzzing
      the Mrs. Johnsons do—the thing you seem to have such a horror
      of—people ‘talking’—the kind of thing that has assailed your
      mother. People who have repeated a slander either get ashamed or
      forget it, if they’re let alone. Challenge them, and in
      self-defense they believe everything they’ve said: they’d rather
      believe you a sinner than believe themselves liars, naturally.
      Submit to gossip and you kill it; fight it and you make it
      strong. People will forget almost any slander except one that’s
      been 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 be trusted for much, except asserting itself and
      fighting and making love.”

      “Indeed!” George snorted. “May I ask what you think I ought to
      have done?”

      “Nothing.”

      “‘Nothing?’” George echoed, mocking bitterly “I suppose you think
      I mean to let my mother’s good name—”

      “Your mother’s good name!” Amberson cut him off impatiently.
      “Nobody has 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 all you’ve done was to go and have a scene with the
      worst old woman gossip in the town—a scene that’s going to make
      her into a partisan against your mother, whereas she was a mere
      prattler before. Don’t you suppose she’ll be all over town with
      this to-morrow? To-morrow? Why, she’ll have her telephone going
      to-night as long as any of her friends are up! People that never
      heard anything about this are going to hear it all now, with
      embellishments. And she’ll see to it that everybody who’s hinted
      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 story will 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. The more 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 into every 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 to sit there—”

      “Yes.”

      “—and let this riffraff bandy my mother’s good name back and
      forth among 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 of your stirring up that awful old woman.”

      George drew a long breath, then advanced and stood close before
      his uncle. “Didn’t you understand me when I told you that people
      are saying my mother means to marry this man?”

      “Yes, I understood you.”

      “You say that my going over there has made matters worse,” George
      went on. “How about it if such a—such an unspeakable marriage did
      take place? Do you think that would make people believe they’d
      been wrong in saying—you know what they say.”

      “No,” said Amberson deliberately; “I don’t believe it would.
      There’d be more badness in the bad mouths and more silliness in
      the silly mouths, I dare say. But it wouldn’t hurt Isabel and
      Eugene, if they never heard of it; and if they did hear of it,
      then they could take their choice between placating gossip or
      living for their own happiness. If they have decided to marry—”

      George almost staggered. “Good God!” he gasped. “You speak of it
      calmly!”

      Amberson looked up at him inquiringly. “Why shouldn’t they marry
      if they want 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 about two people getting married when they’re both free
      and care about each other. What’s the matter with their
      marrying?”

      “It would be monstrous!” George shouted. “Monstrous even if this
      horrible thing hadn’t happened, but now in the face of this—oh,
      that you can sit there and even speak of it! Your own sister! O
      God! Oh—” He became 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’t speak to your mother of this!”

      “Don’t ’tend to,” George said indistinctly; and he plunged out
      into the big dimly lit hall. He passed his grandfather’s room on
      the way to the stairs; and the Major was visible within, his
      white head brightly illumined by a lamp, as he bent low over a
      ledger upon his roll-top desk. He did not look up, and his
      grandson strode by the door, not really conscious of the old
      figure stooping at its tremulous work with long additions and
      subtractions that refused to balance as they used to. George went
      home and got a hat and overcoat without seeing either his mother
      or Fanny. Then he left word that he would be out for dinner, and
      hurried away from the house.

      He walked the dark streets of Amberson Addition for an hour, then
      went downtown and got coffee at a restaurant. After that he
      walked through the lighted parts of the town until ten o’clock,
      when he turned north and came back to the purlieus of the
      Addition. He strode through the length and breadth of it again,
      his hat pulled down over his forehead, his overcoat collar turned
      up behind. He walked fiercely, though his feet ached, but by and
      by he turned homeward, and, when he reached the Major’s, went in
      and sat upon the steps of the huge stone veranda in front—an
      obscure figure in that lonely and repellent place. All lights
      were out at the Major’s, and finally, after twelve, he saw his
      mother’s window darken at home.

      He waited half an hour longer, then crossed the front yards of
      the new houses and let himself noiselessly in the front door. The
      light in the hall had been left burning, and another in his own
      room, as he discovered when he got there. He locked the door
      quickly and without noise, but his fingers were still upon the
      key when there was a quick footfall 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 you had 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 with
      a little flurry of placative laughter, she added: “At your age,
      of course!”

      “I’m going to bed, now,” he said. “Goodnight.”

      Another silence seemed blanker than those which had preceded it,
      and finally her voice came—it was blank, too.

      “Good-night.”

      After he was in bed his thoughts became more tumultuous than
      ever; while among all the inchoate and fragmentary sketches of
      this dreadful day, now rising before him, the clearest was of his
      uncle collapsed in a big chair with a white tie dangling from his
      hand; and one conviction, following upon that picture, became
      definite in George’s mind: that his Uncle George Amberson was a
      hopeless dreamer from whom no help need be expected, an amiable
      imbecile lacking in normal impulses, and wholly useless in a
      struggle which required honour to be defended by a man of action.

      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 a mountain plateau—and her crackling, asthmatic voice...
      “Without sharing in other people’s disposition to put an evil
      interpretation on what may be nothing more than unfortunate
      appearances.”... “Other people may be less considerate in not
      confining their discussion of it, as I have, to charitable
      views.”... “you’ll know something pretty quick! You’ll know
      you’re out in the street.”... And then George would get up
      again—and again—and pace the floor in his bare feet.

      That was what the tormented young man was doing when daylight
      came gauntly in at his window—pacing the floor, rubbing his head
      in his hands, 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
      not make his normal healthy raid upon the dainty tray: the food
      remained untouched, and he sustained himself upon coffee—four
      cups of it, which left nothing of value inside the glistening
      little percolator. During this process he heard his mother being
      summoned to the telephone in the hall, 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 about three... Yes.
      Good-bye till then.” A few minutes later he heard her speaking to
      someone beneath his window and, looking out, saw her directing
      the removal of plants from a small garden bed to the Major’s
      conservatory for the winter. There was an air of briskness about
      her; as she turned away to go into the house, she laughed gaily
      with the Major’s gardener over something he said, and this
      unconcerned cheerfulness of her 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 he gazed long and piteously, till at last hot tears
      stood in his eyes. It was strange how the inconsequent face of
      Wilbur seemed to increase in high significance during this
      belated interview between father and son; and how it seemed to
      take on a reproachful nobility—and yet, under the circumstances,
      nothing could have been more natural than that George, having
      paid but the slightest attention to his father in life, should
      begin to deify him, now that he was dead. “Poor, poor father!”
      the son whispered 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 the shop of a silversmith, where he spent sixty
      dollars on a resplendently festooned silver frame for the
      picture. Having lunched upon more coffee, he returned to the
      house at two o’clock, carrying the framed photograph with him,
      and placed it upon the centre-table in the library, the room most
      used by Isabel and Fanny and himself. Then he went to a front
      window of the long “reception room,” and sat looking out through
      the lace curtains.

      The house was quiet, though once or twice he heard his mother and
      Fanny moving about upstairs, and a ripple of song in the voice of
      Isabel—a fragment from the romantic ballad of Lord Bateman.

      “Lord Bateman was a noble lord, A noble lord of high degree; And
      he sailed West and he sailed East, Far countries for to see....”

      The words became indistinct; the air was hummed absently; the
      humming shifted to a whistle, then drifted out of hearing, and
      the place was still again.

      George looked often at his watch, but his vigil did not last an
      hour. At ten minutes of three, peering through the curtain, he
      saw an automobile stop 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 the tonneau, facing forward; and a
      professional driver sat at the wheel, a strange figure in
      leather, goggled out of all personality and seemingly part of the
      mechanism.

      Eugene himself, as he came up the cement path to the house, was a
      figure of the new era which was in time to be so disastrous to
      stiff hats and skirted coats; and his appearance afforded a
      debonair contrast to that of the queer-looking duck capering at
      the Amberson Ball in an old dress coat, and chugging up National
      Avenue through the snow in his nightmare of a sewing-machine.
      Eugene, this afternoon, was richly in the new outdoor mode:
      motoring coat was soft gray fur; his cap and gloves were of gray
      suede; and though Lucy’s hand may have shown itself in the
      selection of these garnitures, he wore them easily, even with
      becoming hint of jauntiness. Some change might be his face, too,
      for a successful man is seldom to be mistaken, especially if his
      temper be genial. Eugene had begun to look like a millionaire.

      But above everything else, what was most evident about him, as he
      came up the path, was confidence in the happiness promised by his
      errand; the anticipation in his eyes could have been read by a
      stranger. His look at the door of Isabel’s house was the look of
      a man who is quite certain that the next moment will reveal
      something ineffably charming, inexpressibly dear.

      When the bell rang, George waited at the entrance of the
      “reception room” until a housemaid came through the hall on her
      way to answer the summons.

      “You needn’t mind, Mary,” he told her. “I’ll see who it is and
      what they want. Probably it’s only a pedlar.”

      “Thank you, sir, Mister George,” said Mary; and returned to the
      rear of the house.

      George went slowly to the front door, and halted, regarding the
      misty silhouette of the caller upon the ornamental frosted glass.
      After a minute of waiting, this silhouette changed outline so
      that an arm could be distinguished—an arm outstretched toward the
      bell, as if the gentleman outside doubted whether or not it had
      sounded, and were minded to try again. But before the gesture was
      completed George abruptly threw open the door, and stepped
      squarely upon the middle of the threshold.

      A slight change shadowed the face of Eugene; his look of happy
      anticipation gave way to something formal and polite. “How do you
      do, George,” he said. “Mrs. Minafer expects to go driving with
      me, I believe—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 of eye 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
      my mother, and I told you, No!”

      Eugene gave him a steady look, and then he quietly: “What is
      the—the difficulty?”

      George kept his own voice quiet enough, but that did not mitigate
      the vibrant fury of it. “My—mother will have no interest in
      knowing that you came here to-day,” he said. “Or any other day!”

      Eugene continued to look at him with a scrutiny in which began to
      gleam a profound anger, none less powerful because it was so
      quiet. “I am afraid I do not understand you.”

      “I doubt if I could make it much plainer,” George said, raising
      his voice 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
      the misty 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—or the 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,” was rewarded by the sight of an automobile manufacturer in
      baffled retreat, with all his wooing furs and fineries mocking
      him. Eugene got into his car slowly, not looking back at the
      house which had just taught him such a lesson; and it was easily
      visible—even from a window seventy feet distant—that he was not
      the same light suitor who had jumped so gallantly from the car
      only a few minutes earlier. Observing the heaviness of his
      movements as he climbed into the tonneau, George indulged in a
      sickish throat rumble which bore a distant cousinship to mirth.

      The car was quicker than its owner; it shot away as soon as he
      had sunk into his seat; and George, having watched its impetuous
      disappearance from his field of vision, ceased to haunt the
      window. He went to the library, and, seating himself beside the
      table whereon he had placed the photograph of his father, picked
      up a book, and pretended to be engaged in reading it.

      Presently Isabel’s buoyant step was heard descending the stairs,
      and her low, sweet whistling, renewing the air of “Lord Bateman.”
      She came into the library, still whistling thoughtfully, a fur
      coat over her arm, ready to put on, and two veils round her small
      black hat, her right hand engaged in buttoning the glove upon her
      left; and, as the large room contained too many pieces of heavy
      furniture, and the inside shutters excluded most of the light of
      day, she did not at once perceive George’s presence. Instead, she
      went to the bay window at the end of the room, which afforded a
      view of the street, and glanced out expectantly; then bent her
      attention upon her glove; after that, looked out toward the
      street again, ceased to whistle, and turned toward the interior
      of the room.

      “Why, Georgie!”

      She came, leaned over from behind him, and there was a faint,
      exquisite odour as from distant apple blossoms as she kissed his
      cheek. “Dear, I waited lunch almost an hour for you, but you
      didn’t come! Did you lunch out 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
      now in the dining room? Or they could bring it to you here, if
      you think it would 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 address the 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
      a pedlar when the bell rang a little while ago.”

      “Mister George said it was, ma’am; he went to the door,” Mary
      informed her, disappearing.

      “There seem to be a great many of them,” Isabel mused. “What did
      yours want to sell, George?”

      “He didn’t say.”

      “You must have cut him off short!” she laughed; and then, still
      standing in the doorway, she noticed the big silver frame upon
      the table beside him. “Gracious, Georgie!” she exclaimed. “You
      have been investing!” and as 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 whose likeness 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. “I ought to have had it framed, myself, when I gave it
      to you.”

      He said nothing, and, standing beside him, she put her hand
      gently upon his shoulder, then as gently withdrew it, and went
      out of the room. But she did not go upstairs; he heard the faint
      rustle of her dress in the hall, and then the sound of her
      footsteps in the “reception room.” After a time, silence
      succeeded even these slight tokens of her presence; whereupon
      George rose and went warily into the hall, taking care to make no
      noise, and he obtained an oblique view of her through the open
      double doors of the “reception room.” She was sitting in the
      chair which he had occupied so long; and she was looking out of
      the window expectantly—a little troubled.

      He went back to the library, waited an interminable half hour,
      then returned noiselessly to the same position in the hall, where
      he could see her. She was still sitting patiently by the window.

      Waiting for that man, was she? Well, it might be quite a long
      wait! And the grim George silently ascended the stairs to his own
      room, and began to pace his suffering floor.




      Chapter XXV


      He left his door open, however, and when he heard the front
      door-bell ring, 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 make sure.

      Mary appeared in the hall below him, but, after a glance toward
      the front of the house, turned back, and withdrew. Evidently
      Isabel had gone to the door. Then a murmur was heard, and George
      Amberson’s voice, quick and serious: “I want to talk to you,
      Isabel”... and another murmur; then Isabel and her brother passed
      the foot of the broad, dark stairway, but did not look up, and
      remained unconscious of the watchful presence above them. Isabel
      still carried her cloak upon her arm, but Amberson had taken her
      hand, and retained it; and as he led her silently into the
      library there was something about her attitude, and the pose of
      her slightly bent head, that was both startled and meek. Thus
      they quickly disappeared from George’s sight, hand in hand; and
      Amberson at once closed the massive double doors of the library.

      For a time all that George could hear was the indistinct sound of
      his uncle’s voice: what he was saying could not be surmised,
      though the troubled brotherliness of his tone was evident. He
      seemed to be explaining something at considerable length, and
      there were moments when he paused, and George guessed that his
      mother was speaking, but her voice must have been very low, for
      it was entirely inaudible to him.

      Suddenly he did hear her. Through the heavy doors her outcry
      came, clear and loud:

      “Oh, no!”

      It was a cry of protest, as if something her brother told her
      must be untrue, or, if it were true, the fact he stated must be
      undone; and it was a sound of sheer pain.

      Another sound of pain, close to George, followed it; this was a
      vehement sniffling which broke out just above him, and, looking
      up, he saw Fanny Minafer on the landing, leaning over the
      banisters and applying her handkerchief to her eyes and nose.

      “I can guess what that was about,” she whispered huskily. “He’s
      just told her what you did to Eugene!”

      George gave her a dark look over his shoulder. “You go on back to
      your room!” he said; and he began to descend the stairs; but
      Fanny, guessing his 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’ll keep 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 she clutch and tug, never losing a grip of him
      somewhere, though George tried as much as he could, without
      hurting her, to wrench away—with such utter forgetfulness of her
      maiden dignity did she assault him, that she forced him,
      stumbling upward, to the landing.

      “Of all the ridiculous—” he began furiously; but she spared one
      hand from its grasp of his sleeve and clapped it over his mouth.

      “Hush up!” Never for an instant in this grotesque struggle did
      Fanny raise her voice above a husky whisper. “Hush up! It’s
      indecent—like squabbling outside the door of an operating-room!
      Go on to the top of the stairs—go on!”

      And when George had most unwillingly obeyed, she planted herself
      in his way, on the top step. “There!” she said. “The idea of your
      going in there now! I never heard of such a thing!” And with the
      sudden departure of the nervous vigour she had shown so
      amazingly, she began to cry again. “I was an awful fool! I
      thought you knew what was going on or I never, never would have
      done it. Do you suppose I dreamed you’d go making 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 too loud, in spite of her most grievous agitation. “Do
      you dream I thought you’d go making such a fool of yourself at
      Mrs. Johnson’s? Oh, I saw her this morning! She wouldn’t talk to
      me, but I met George Amberson on my way back, and he told me what
      you’d done over there! And do you dream I thought you’d do what
      you’ve done here this afternoon to Eugene? Oh, I knew that, too!
      I was looking out of the front bedroom window, and I saw him
      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 is here. He’s got to tell Isabel the whole thing now,
      and you wanted to go in there interfering—God knows what! You
      stay here and let her brother tell her; he’s got some
      consideration for her!”

      “I suppose you think I haven’t!” George said, challenging her,
      and at that Fanny laughed witheringly.

      “You! Considerate of anybody!”

      “I’m considerate of her good name!” he said hotly. “It seems to
      me that’s about the first thing to be considerate of, in being
      considerate of a person! And look here: it strikes me you’re
      taking a pretty different tack from what you did yesterday
      afternoon!”

      Fanny wrung her hands. “I did a terrible thing!” she lamented.
      “Now that it’s done and too late I know what it was! I didn’t
      have sense enough just to let things go on. I didn’t have any
      business to interfere, and I didn’t mean to interfere—I only
      wanted to talk, and let out a little! I did think you already
      knew everything I told you. I did! And I’d rather have cut my
      hand off than stir you up to doing what you have done! I was just
      suffering so that I wanted to let out a little—I didn’t mean any
      real harm. But now I see what’s happened—oh, I was a fool! I
      hadn’t any business interfering. Eugene never would have looked
      at me, anyhow, and, oh, why couldn’t I have seen that before! He
      never came here a single time in his life except on her account,
      never! and I might have let them alone, because he wouldn’t have
      looked at me even if he’d never seen Isabel. And they haven’t
      done any harm: she made Wilbur happy, and she was a true wife to
      him as long as he lived. It wasn’t a crime for her to care for
      Eugene all the time; she certainly never told him she did—and she
      gave me every chance in the world! She left us alone together
      every time she could—even since Wilbur died—but what was the use?
      And here I go, not doing myself a bit of good by it, and
      just”—Fanny wrung her hands 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 him and 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, profoundly annoyed. “Well, what is it?”

      “George,” she said in a low voice, “I think you ought to be told
      something. If I were you, I’d let my mother alone.”

      “Oh, my Lord!” he groaned. “I’m doing these things for her, not
      against her!”

      A mildness had come upon Fanny, and she had controlled her
      weeping. She shook her head gently. “No, I’d let her alone if I
      were you. I don’t think 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 doctor
      regularly.”

      “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 me years 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 if I’d done something wrong in sending that man
      about his business, and as if I were going to persecute my
      mother, instead of protecting her. By Jove, it’s sickening! You
      told me how all the riffraff in town were busy with her name, and
      then the minute I lift my hand to protect her, you begin to
      attack me and—”

      “Sh!” Fanny checked him, laying her hand on his arm. “Your uncle
      is going.”

      The library doors were heard opening, and a moment later there
      came the sound of the front door closing.

      George moved toward the head of the stairs, then stood listening;
      but the 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 her alone,” she whispered. “She’s down there by herself.
      Don’t go down. Let her alone.”

      She moved a few steps toward him and halted, her face pallid and
      awestruck, and then both stood listening for anything that might
      break the silence downstairs. No sound came to them; that
      poignant silence was continued throughout long, long minutes,
      while the two listeners stood there under its mysterious spell;
      and in its plaintive eloquence—speaking, as it did, of the figure
      alone in the big, dark library, where dead Wilbur’s new silver
      frame gleamed in the dimness—there was something that checked
      even George.

      Above the aunt and nephew, as they kept this strange vigil, there
      was a triple window of stained glass, to illumine the landing and
      upper reaches of the stairway. Figures in blue and amber garments
      posed gracefully in panels, conceived by some craftsman of the
      Eighties to represent Love and Purity and Beauty, and these
      figures, leaded to unalterable attitudes, were little more
      motionless than the two human beings upon whom fell the mottled
      faint light of the window. The colours were growing dull; evening
      was coming on.

      Fanny Minafer broke the long silence with a sound from her
      throat, a stilled gasp; and with that great companion of hers,
      her handkerchief, retired softly to the loneliness of her own
      chamber. After she had gone George looked about him bleakly, then
      on tiptoe crossed the hall and went 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 down heavily in a chair
      facing the window. Outside there was nothing but the darkening
      air and the wall of the nearest of the new houses. He had not
      slept at all, the night before, and he had eaten nothing since
      the preceding day at lunch, but he felt neither drowsiness nor
      hunger. His set determination filled him, kept him but too wide
      awake, and his gaze at 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
      with infinite compassion, a gentle head rested against his
      shoulder, and there 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, but he commanded himself, bravely dismissing the self-pity
      roused by her compassion. “How can I help but be?” he said.

      “No, no.” She soothed him. “You mustn’t. You mustn’t be troubled,
      no matter 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 me everything about—about how unhappy you’d been—and how you
      went so gallantly to that old woman with the operaglasses.”
      Isabel gave a sad little laugh. “What a terrible old woman she
      is! What a really terrible thing 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—”
      She yielded; he rose, helped her to her feet, and pressed the
      light into being.

      As the room took life from the sudden lines of fire within the
      bulbs Isabel made a deprecatory gesture, and, with a faint laugh
      of apologetic protest, turned quickly away from George. What she
      meant was: “You mustn’t see my face until I’ve made it nicer for
      you.” Then she turned again to him, her eyes downcast, but no
      sign of tears in them, and she contrived to show him that there
      was the semblance of a smile upon her lips. She still wore her
      hat, and in her unsteady fingers she held a white envelope,
      somewhat crumpled.

      “Now, mother—”

      “Wait, dearest,” she said; and though he stood stone cold, she
      lifted her arms, put them round him again, and pressed her cheek
      lightly to his. “Oh, you do look so troubled, poor dear! One
      thing you couldn’t doubt, beloved boy: you know I could never
      care for anything in the world as I care for you—never, never!”

      “Now, mother—”

      She released him, and stepped back. “Just a moment more, dearest.
      I want you to read this first. We can get at things better.” She
      pressed into his hand the envelope she had brought with her, and
      as he opened it, and began to read the long enclosure, she walked
      slowly to the other end of the room; then stood there, with her
      back to him, and her head drooping a 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 I write. He and I have talked things over, and before he
      gives this to you he will tell you what has happened. Of course
      I’m rather confused, and haven’t had time to think matters out
      very definitely, and yet I believe I should have been better
      prepared for what took place to-day—I ought to have known it was
      coming, because I have understood for quite a long time 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
      latent distrust of me—or something like distrust—and perhaps
      that’s made me sometimes a little awkward and diffident with him.
      I think it may be he felt from the first that I cared a great
      deal about you, and he naturally resented it. I think perhaps he
      felt this even during all the time when I was so careful—at least
      I thought I was—not to show, even to you, how immensely I did
      care. And he may have feared that you were thinking too much
      about me—even when you weren’t and only liked me as an old
      friend. It’s perfectly comprehensible to me, also, that at his
      age one gets excited about gossip. Dear Isabel, what I’m trying
      to get at, in my confused way, is that you and I don’t care about
      this nonsensical gossip, ourselves, at all. Yesterday I thought
      the time had come when I could ask you to marry me, and you were
      dear enough to tell me “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 much attention 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 life we have left to us
      for making up to ourselves for old unhappinesses and mistakes.
      But now we’re faced with—not the slander and not our own fear of
      it, because we haven’t any, but someone else’s fear of it—your
      son’s. And, oh, dearest woman in the world, I know what your son
      is to you, and it frightens me! Let me explain a little: I don’t
      think he’ll change—at twenty-one or twenty-two so many things
      appear solid and permanent and terrible which forty sees are
      nothing but disappearing miasma. 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 going a little further,
      because it would be fatal not to be wholly frank now. George will
      act toward you only as your long worship of him, your
      sacrifices—all the unseen little ones every day since he was
      born—will make him act. Dear, it breaks my heart for you, but
      what you have to oppose now is the history of your own selfless
      and perfect motherhood. I remember saying once that what you
      worshipped in your son was the angel you saw in him—and I still
      believe that is true of every mother. But in a mother’s worship
      she may not see that the Will in her son should not always be
      offered incense along with the angel. I grow sick with fear for
      you—for both you and me—when I think how the Will against us two
      has grown strong through the love you have given the angel—and
      how long 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 take heart for it, you will find so quickly that it
      has all amounted to nothing. You shall have happiness, and, in a
      little while, only happiness. You need only to write me a line—I
      can’t come to your house—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. What is good in him will grow so fine,
      once you have beaten the turbulent Will—but it must be beaten!

      Your brother, that good friend, is waiting with such patience; I
      should not 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 would need! Don’t strike my life down twice,
      dear—this time I’ve not deserved it. Eugene.

      Concluding this missive, George tossed it abruptly from him so
      that one sheet fell upon his bed and the others upon the floor;
      and at the faint noise of their falling Isabel came, and,
      kneeling, began to gather them up.

      “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 in her hands, tremulously rearranging the sheets in order
      as she spoke—and though she smiled, her smile was as tremulous as
      her hands. Nervousness and an irresistible timidity possessed
      her. “I—I wanted to say, George,” she faltered. “I felt that
      if—if some day it should happen—I mean, if you came to feel
      differently about it, and Eugene and I—that is if we found that
      it seemed the most sensible thing to do—I was afraid you might
      think it would be a little queer about—Lucy, I mean if—if she
      were your step-sister. Of course, she’d not be even legally
      related to you, and if you—if you cared for her—”

      Thus far she got stumblingly with what she wanted to say, while
      George watched her with a gaze that grew harder and hotter; but
      here he cut her off. “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—I could hardly have done that and
      expected his daughter ever to speak to me again.”

      Isabel gave a quick cry of compassion, but he allowed her no
      opportunity to speak. “You needn’t think I’m making any
      particular sacrifice,” he said sharply, “though I would, quickly
      enough, if I thought it necessary in a matter of honour like
      this. I was interested in her, and I could even say I did care
      for her; but she proved pretty satisfactorily that she cared
      little enough about me! She went away right in the midst of a—of
      a difference of opinion we were having; she didn’t even let me
      know she was going, and never wrote a line to me, and then came
      back telling everybody she’d had ‘a perfectly gorgeous time!’
      That’s quite enough for me. I’m not precisely the sort to arrange
      for that kind of thing to be done to me more than once! The truth
      is, we’re not congenial and we’d found that much out, at least,
      before she left. We should never have been happy; she was
      ‘superior’ all the time, and critical of me—not very pleasant,
      that! I was disappointed in her, and I might as well 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 only a quarrel: all young people have them before they get
      adjusted, and you mustn’t let—”

      “If you please!” he said emphatically, moving back from her.
      “This isn’t that kind. It’s all over, and I don’t care to speak
      of it again. It’s settled. 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 in my hands!”

      She stepped back from him, startled. “But, dear, I thought—”

      “I can’t understand your even showing me such a thing!” he cried.
      “How did you happen to bring it to me?”

      “Your uncle thought I’d better. He thought it was the simplest
      thing to do, 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; I thought they were right.”

      “Very well! We’ll agree it was simple and straightforward. Now,
      what do you think of that letter itself?”

      She hesitated, looking away. “I—of course I don’t agree with him
      in the way he speaks of you, dear—except about the angel! I don’t
      agree with some of the things he implies. You’ve always been
      unselfish—nobody knows that better than your mother. When Fanny
      was left with nothing, you were so quick and generous to give up
      what really should have come to you, and—”

      “And yet,” George broke in, “you see what he implies about me.
      Don’t you think, really, that this was a pretty insulting letter
      for that man to be asking you to hand your son?”

      “Oh, no!” she cried. “You can see how fair he means to be, and he
      didn’t ask 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
      you suppose it ever occurs to him that I’m doing my simple duty?
      That I’m doing what my father would do if he were alive? That I’m
      doing what my father 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’m protecting my mother?” George raised his
      voice, advancing upon the helpless lady fiercely; and she could
      only bend her head before him. “He talks about my ‘Will’—how it
      must be beaten down; yes, and he asks my mother to do that little
      thing to please him! What for? Why does he want me ‘beaten’ by my
      mother? Because I’m trying to protect her name! He’s got my
      mother’s name bandied up and down the streets of this town till I
      can’t step in those streets without wondering what every soul I
      meet is thinking of me and of my family, and now he wants you to
      marry him so that every gossip in town will say ‘There! What did
      I tell you? I guess that proves it’s true!’ You can’t get away
      from it; that’s exactly what they’d say, and this man pretends he
      cares for you, and yet asks you to marry him and give them the
      right to say it. He says he and you don’t care what they say, but
      I know better! He may not care—probably he’s that kind—but you
      do. There never was an Amberson yet that would let the Amberson
      name go trailing in the dust like that! It’s the proudest name in
      this town and it’s going to stay the proudest; and I tell you
      that’s the deepest thing in my nature—not that I’d expect Eugene
      Morgan to understand—the very deepest thing in my nature is to
      protect that name, 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 up and down and tossing his arms about, in a
      tumult of gesture. “I can’t believe it of you, that you’d think
      of such a sacrilege! That’s what it would 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 away your good
      name just to please him? That’s all he asks of you—and to quit
      being my mother! Do you think I can believe you really care for
      him? I don’t! You are my mother and you’re an Amberson—and I
      believe you’re too proud! You’re too proud to care for a man who
      could write such a letter as that!” He stopped, faced her, and
      spoke with more self-control: “Well, what are you going to do
      about it, mother?”

      George was right about his mother’s being proud. And even when
      she laughed with a negro gardener, or even those few times in her
      life when people saw her weep, Isabel had a proud look—something
      that was independent and graceful and strong. But she did not
      have it now: she leaned against the wall, beside his
      dressing-table, and seemed beset with 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
      you did 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 you married 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—I wasn’t—quite sure,” she faltered, “about—about it’s being
      wise for us to be married—even before knowing how you feel about
      it. I wasn’t even sure it was quite fair to—to Eugene. I have—I
      seem to have that family trouble—like father’s—that I spoke to
      you about once.” She managed a deprecatory little dry laugh. “Not
      that it amounts to much, but I wasn’t at 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 think of you—and to
      see them. I thought we were all—oh, pretty happy the way things
      were, and I don’t think it would mean giving up a great deal for
      him or me, either, if we just went on as we have been. I—I see
      him almost every day, and—”

      “Mother!” George’s voice was loud and stern. “Do you think you
      could go on seeing him after this!”

      She had been talking helplessly enough before; her tone was
      little more broken now. “Not—not even—see him?”

      “How could you?” George cried. “Mother, it seems to me that if he
      ever set foot in this house again—oh! I can’t speak of it! Could
      you see him, 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—I don’t! If you’d told me, a year ago, that
      such things were going to happen, 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 to the ceiling, he flung himself heavily, face downward,
      upon the bed. His anguish was none the less real for its
      vehemence; and the stricken lady came to him instantly and bent
      over him, once more enfolding him in her arms. She said nothing,
      but suddenly her tears fell upon his head; she saw 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 to dress for dinner. At one stage of these conscientious
      proceedings he put on, temporarily, his long black velvet
      dressing-gown, and, happening to catch sight in his pier glass of
      the picturesque and medieval figure thus presented, he paused to
      regard it; and something profoundly theatrical 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
      solemn black...”

      For, in truth, the mirrored princely image, with hair dishevelled
      on the white brow, and the long tragic fall of black velvet from
      the shoulders, had brought about (in his thought at least) some
      comparisons of his own times, so out of joint, with those of that
      other gentle prince and heir whose widowed mother was minded to
      marry again.

      “But I have that within which passeth show; These but the
      trappings and the suits of Woe.”

      Not less like Hamlet did he feel and look as he sat gauntly at
      the dinner table with Fanny to partake of a meal throughout which
      neither spoke. Isabel had sent word “not to wait” for her, an
      injunction it was as well they obeyed, for she did not come at
      all. But with the renewal of sustenance furnished to his system,
      some relaxation must have occurred within the high-strung George.
      Dinner was not quite finished when, without warning, sleep hit
      him hard. His burning eyes could no longer restrain the lids
      above them; his head sagged beyond control; and he got to his
      feet, and went lurching upstairs, yawning with exhaustion. From
      the door of his room, which he closed mechanically, with his eyes
      shut, he went blindly to his bed, fell upon it soddenly, and
      slept—with his face full upturned to the light.

      It was after midnight when he woke, and the room was dark. He had
      not dreamed, but he woke with the sense that somebody or
      something had been with him while he slept—somebody or something
      infinitely compassionate; somebody or something infinitely
      protective, that would let him come to no harm and to no grief.

      He got up, and pressed the light on. Pinned to the cover of his
      dressing-table was a square envelope, with the words, “For you,
      dear,” written in pencil upon it. But the message inside was in
      ink, a little smudged here and there.

      I have been out to the mail-box, darling, with a letter I’ve
      written to Eugene, and he’ll have it in the morning. It would be
      unfair not to let him know at once, and my decision could not
      change if I waited. It would always be the same. I think it is a
      little better for me to write to you, like this, instead of
      waiting till you wake up and then telling you, 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 like crying
      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
      me most ready to cry now is the thought of the terrible suffering
      in your poor face, and the unhappy knowledge that it is I, your
      mother who put it there. It shall never come again! I love you
      better than anything and everything else on earth. God gave you
      to me—and oh! how thankful I have been every day of my life for
      that sacred gift—and nothing can ever come between me and God’s
      gift. I cannot hurt you, and I cannot let you 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 you couldn’t
      change about this. Your suffering shows how deep-seated the
      feeling is within you. So I’ve written him just about what I
      think you would like me to—though I told him I would always be
      fond of him and always his best friend, and I hoped his dearest
      friend. He’ll understand about not seeing him. He’ll understand
      that, though I didn’t say it in 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 “all to myself”—as
      people say—to make up for your long years away from me at
      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, George
      Amberson Minafer was walking up National Avenue on his homeward
      way when he saw in the distance, coming toward him, upon the same
      side of the street, the figure of a young lady—a figure just
      under the middle height, comely indeed, and to be mistaken for
      none other in the world—even at two hundred yards. To his sharp
      discomfiture his heart immediately forced upon him the
      consciousness of its acceleration; a sudden warmth about his neck
      made him aware that he had turned red, and then, departing, left
      him pale. For a panicky moment he thought of facing about in
      actual flight; he had little doubt that Lucy would meet him with
      no token of recognition, and all at once this probability struck
      him as unendurable. And if she did not speak, was it the proper
      part of chivalry to lift his hat and take the cut bareheaded? Or
      should the finer gentleman acquiesce in the lady’s desire for no
      further acquaintance, 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,
      being perhaps somewhat preoccupied with her own. She saw only
      that he was pale, and that his eyes were darkly circled. But here
      he was advantaged with her, for the finest touch to his good
      looks was given by this toning down; neither pallor nor dark
      circles detracting from them, but rather adding to them a
      melancholy favour of distinction. George had retained his
      mourning, a tribute completed down to the final details of black
      gloves and a polished ebony cane (which he would have been pained
      to name otherwise than as a “walking-stick”) and in the aura of
      this sombre elegance his straight figure and drawn face were not
      without a tristful 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 that came into Lucy’s now, whether she would or no. If
      his spirit had been what his looks proclaimed it, she would have
      rejoiced to let the light glow forth which now shone in spite of
      her. For a long time, thinking of that spirit of his, and what
      she felt it should be, she had a persistent sense: “It must be
      there!” but she had determined to believe this folly no longer.
      Nevertheless, when she met him at the Sharons’, she had been far
      less calm than she seemed.

      People speaking casually of Lucy were apt to define her as “a
      little beauty,” a definition short of the mark. She was “a little
      beauty,” but an independent, masterful, sell-reliant little
      American, of whom her father’s earlier gipsyings and her own
      sturdiness had made a woman ever since she was fifteen. But
      though she was the mistress of her own ways and no slave to any
      lamp save that of her own conscience, she had a weakness: she had
      fallen in love with George Amberson Minafer at first sight, and
      no matter how she disciplined herself, she had never been able to
      climb out. The thing had happened to her; that was all. George
      had looked just the way she had always wanted someone to look—the
      riskiest of all the moonshine ambushes wherein tricky romance
      snares credulous young love. But what was fatal to Lucy was that
      this thing having happened to her, she could not change it. No
      matter what she discovered in George’s nature she was unable to
      take away what she had given him; and though she could think
      differently about him, she could not feel differently about him,
      for she was one of those too faithful victims of glamour. When
      she managed to keep the picture of George away from her mind’s
      eye, she did well enough; but when she let him become visible,
      she could not choose but love what she disdained. She was a
      little angel who had fallen in love with high-handed Lucifer;
      quite an experience, and not apt to be soon succeeded by any
      falling in love with a tamer party—and the unhappy truth was that
      George did make better men seem tame. But though she was a
      victim, she was a heroic one, anything but helpless.

      As they drew nearer, George tried to prepare himself to meet her
      with some remnants of aplomb. He decided that he would keep on
      looking straight ahead, and lift his hand toward his hat at the
      very last moment when it would be possible for her to see him out
      of the corner of her eye: then when she thought it over later,
      she would not be sure whether he had saluted her or merely rubbed
      his forehead. And there was the added benefit that any third
      person who might chance to look from a window, or from a passing
      carriage, would not think that he was receiving a snub, because
      he did not intend to lift his hat, but, timing the gesture
      properly, would in fact actually rub his forehead. These were the
      hasty plans which occupied his thoughts until he was within about
      fifty feet of her—when he ceased to have either plans or
      thoughts, he had kept his eyes from looking full at her until
      then, and as he saw her, thus close at hand, and coming nearer, a
      regret that was dumfounding took possession of him. For the first
      time he had the sense of 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
      meant to say was, “Haven’t you heard?”

      “Haven’t I what?” she asked; and he saw that Eugene had not yet
      told her.

      “Nothing!” he gasped. “May I—may I turn and walk with you a
      little way?”

      “Yes, indeed!” she said cordially.

      He would not have altered what had been done: he was satisfied
      with all that—satisfied that it was right, and that his own
      course was right. But he began to perceive a striking inaccuracy
      in some remarks he had made to his mother. Now when he had put
      matters in such shape that even by the relinquishment of his
      “ideals of life” he could not have Lucy, knew that he could never
      have her, and knew that when Eugene told her the history of
      yesterday he could not have a glance or word even friendly from
      her—now when he must in good truth “give up all idea of Lucy,” he
      was amazed that he could have used such words as “no particular
      sacrifice,” and believed them when he said them! She had looked
      never in his life so bewitchingly pretty as she did today; and as
      he walked beside her he was sure that she was the most exquisite
      thing in the world.

      “Lucy,” he said huskily, “I want to tell you something. Something
      that matters.”

      “I hope it’s a lively something then,” she said; and laughed.
      “Papa’s been so glum to-day he’s scarcely spoken to me. Your
      Uncle George Amberson came to see him an hour ago and they shut
      themselves up in the library, and your uncle looked as glum as
      papa. I’d be glad if you’ll tell 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 a line—”

      Her manner persisted in being inconsequent. “Why, no,” she said.
      “I just trotted off for some visits.”

      “Well, at least you might have—”

      “Why, no,” she said again briskly. “Don’t you remember, George?
      We’d had a grand quarrel, and didn’t speak to each other all the
      way home from a long, 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 to quit 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
      being lovers was just the same as playing at cross-purposes. I
      had all the purposes, and that gave you all the crossness: things
      weren’t getting along 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 I am and the way you are, it couldn’t ever be anything else.
      So what was the use?”

      “I don’t know,” he sighed, and his sigh was abysmal. “But what I
      wanted to tell you is this: when you went away, you didn’t let me
      know and didn’t care how or when I heard it, but I’m not like
      that with you. This time, I’m going away. That’s what I wanted to
      tell you. I’m going away tomorrow night—indefinitely.”

      She nodded sunnily. “That’s nice for you. I hope you’ll have ever
      so jolly 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 her serious. “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
      smiled as brightly as before, and with the same cordial
      inconsequence: “Oh, I can hardly think that!” she said. “And of
      course I’d be awfully sorry to think 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
      your relatives every now and then.”

      “I don’t know when I’m coming back. Mother and I are starting
      to-morrow night 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 you that 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 gone long?”

      He stared at her wanly. “I told you indefinitely,” he said.
      “We’ve made no plans—at all—for coming back.”

      “That does sound like a long trip!” she exclaimed admiringly. “Do
      you plan to be travelling all the time, or will you stay in some
      one place the 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
      the edge of the “business section” of the city, and people were
      everywhere about them, brushing against them, sometimes, in
      passing.

      “I can’t stand this,” George said, in a low voice. “I’m just
      about ready to go in this drug-store here, and ask the clerk for
      something to keep me 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 see how much difference this makes to you! By Jove, I have
      mattered to you!”

      Her cordial smile was tempered now with good-nature. “George!”
      She laughed indulgently. “Surely you don’t want me to do pathos
      on a downtown 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!” He took 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 his hand a cordial little grip, then released it lightly.
      “Give my love to your mother. Good-bye!”

      He turned heavily away, and a moment later glanced back over his
      shoulder. 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 him cheerily, though perhaps with the slightest
      hint of preoccupation, as if she had begun to think of the errand
      that brought her downtown.

      In his mind, George had already explained her to his own poignant
      dissatisfaction—some blond pup, probably, whom she had met during
      that “perfectly gorgeous time!” And he strode savagely onward,
      not looking back again.

      But Lucy remained where she was until he was out of sight. Then
      she went slowly into the drugstore which had struck George as a
      possible source of stimulant for himself.

      “Please let me have a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia in
      a glass of water,” she said, with the utmost composure.

      “Yes, ma’am!” said the impressionable clerk, who had been looking
      at her through the display window as she stood on the corner.

      But a moment later, as he turned from the shelves of glass jars
      against the wall, with the potion she had asked for in his hand,
      he uttered an exclamation: “For goshes’ sake, Miss!” And,
      describing this adventure to his fellow-boarders, that evening,
      “Sagged pretty near to the counter, she was,” he said. “If I
      hadn’t been a bright, quick, ready-for-anything young fella she’d
      ‘a’ flummixed plum! I was watchin’ her out the window—talkin’ to
      some young s’iety fella, and she was all right then. She was all
      right when she come in the store, too. Yes, sir; the prettiest
      girl that ever walked in our place and took one good look at me.
      I reckon it must be the truth what some you town wags say about
      my face!”




      Chapter XXVIII


      At that hour the heroine of the susceptible clerk’s romance was
      engaged in brightening the rosy little coal fire under the white
      mantelpiece in her pretty white-and-blue boudoir. Four
      photographs all framed in decorous plain silver went to the
      anthracite’s fierce destruction—frames and all—and three packets
      of letters and notes in a charming Florentine treasure-box of
      painted wood; nor was the box, any more than the silver frames,
      spared this rousing finish. Thrown heartily upon live coal, the
      fine wood sparkled forth in stars, then burst into an alarming
      blaze which scorched the white mantelpiece, but Lucy stood and
      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 secret excursion of Fanny’s for the purpose, presumably, of
      “letting out” again; because that was what she did. She told Lucy
      everything (except her own lamentable part in the production of
      the recent miseries) and concluded with a tribute to George: “The
      worst of it is, he thinks he’s been such a hero, and Isabel does,
      too, and that makes him more than twice as awful. It’s been the
      same all his life: everything he did was noble and perfect. He
      had a domineering nature to begin with, and she let it go on, and
      fostered it till it absolutely ruled her. I never saw a plainer
      case of a person’s fault making them pay for having it! She goes
      about, overseeing the packing and praising George and pretending
      to be perfectly cheerful about what he’s making her do and about
      the dreadful things he’s done. She pretends he did such a fine
      thing—so manly and protective—going to Mrs. Johnson. And so
      heroic—doing what his ‘principles’ made him—even though he knew
      what it would cost him with you! And all the while it’s almost
      killing her—what he said to your father! She’s always been lofty
      enough, so to speak, and had the greatest idea of the Ambersons
      being superior to the rest of the world, and all that, but
      rudeness, or anything like a ‘scene,’ or any bad manners—they
      always just made her sick! But she could never see what George’s
      manners were—oh, it’s been a terrible adulation!... It’s going to
      be a task for me, living in that big house, all alone: you must
      come and see me—I mean after they’ve gone, of course. I’ll go
      crazy if I don’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, or being reminded of George. Thank
      heaven you’re too well-balanced,” Miss Fanny concluded, with a
      profound fervour, “you’re too well-balanced to let anything
      affect you deeply about that—that monkey!”

      The four photographs and the painted Florentine box went to their
      cremation within the same hour that Miss Fanny spoke; and a
      little later Lucy called her father in, as he passed her door,
      and pointed to the blackened area on the underside of the
      mantelpiece, and to the burnt heap upon the coal, where some
      metallic shapes still retained outline. She flung her arms about
      his neck in passionate sympathy, telling him that she knew what
      had happened to him; and presently he began to comfort her and
      managed an embarrassed laugh.

      “Well, well—” he said. “I was too old for such foolishness to be
      getting into my head, anyhow.”

      “No, no!” she sobbed. “And if you knew how I despise myself
      for—for ever having thought one instant about—oh, Miss Fanny
      called him the right name: that monkey! He is!”

      “There, I think I agree with you,” Eugene said grimly, and in his
      eyes there was a steady light of anger that was to last. “Yes, I
      think I agree 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
      had told her, when George and his mother were to leave upon their
      long journey, Lucy touched that scorched place on her mantel with
      her hand just as the little clock above it struck. Then, after
      this odd, unconscious gesture, she went to a window and stood
      between the curtains, looking out into the cold November dusk;
      and in spite of every reasoning and reasonable power within her,
      a pain of loneliness struck through her heart. The dim street
      below her window, the dark houses across the way, the vague air
      itself—all looked empty, and cold and (most of all)
      uninteresting. Something more sombre than November dusk took the
      colour from them and gave them that air of desertion.

      The light of her fire, flickering up behind her showed suddenly a
      flying group of tiny snowflakes nearing the window-pane; and for
      an instant she felt the sensation of being dragged through a
      snows drift under a broken 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
      sat before 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 scar upon his hand but not what made the
      scar upon his wall.

      She played no marche funebre upon her piano, even though Chopin’s
      romantic lamentation was then at the top of nine-tenths of the
      music-racks in the country, American youth having recently
      discovered the distinguished congeniality between itself and this
      deathless bit of deathly 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 his heart-keeper. Therefore it was
      her affair to keep both house and heart in 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
      danced no more, and quoted Shakespeare to prove all lightfoot
      caperings beneath the dignity of his age, she broke his
      resolution for him at the New Year’s Eve “Assembly” and half
      coaxed, half dragged him forth upon the floor, and made him dance
      the New Year in with her.

      New faces appeared at the dances of the winter; new faces had
      been appearing everywhere, for that matter, and familiar ones
      were disappearing, merged in the increasing crowd, or gone
      forever and missed a little and not long; for the town was
      growing and changing as it never had 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 would appear on a country road; four or five
      others would presently be built at intervals between it and the
      outskirts of the town; the country road would turn into an
      asphalt street with a brick-faced drugstore and a frame grocery
      at a corner; then bungalows and six-room cottages would swiftly
      speckle the open green spaces—and a farm had become a suburb
      which would immediately shoot out other suburbs into the country,
      on one side, and, on the other, join itself solidly to the city.
      You drove between pleasant fields and woodland groves one spring
      day; and in the autumn, passing over the same ground, you were
      warned off the tracks by an interurban trolley-car’s gonging, and
      beheld, beyond cement sidewalks just dry, new house-owners busy
      “moving in.” Gasoline and electricity were performing the
      miracles Eugene had predicted.

      But the great change was in the citizenry itself. What was left
      of the patriotic old-stock generation that had fought the Civil
      War, and subsequently controlled politics, had become venerable
      and was little heeded. The descendants of the pioneers and early
      settlers were merging into the new crowd, becoming part of it,
      little to be distinguished from it. What happened to Boston and
      to Broadway happened in degree to the Midland city; the old stock
      became less and less typical, and of the grown people who called
      the place home, less than a third had been born in it. There was
      a German quarter; there was a Jewish quarter; there was a negro
      quarter—square miles of it—called “Bucktown”; there were many
      Irish neighbourhoods; and there were large settlements of
      Italians, and of Hungarians, and of Rumanians, and of Serbians
      and other Balkan peoples. But not the emigrants, themselves, were
      the almost dominant type on the streets downtown. That type was
      the emigrant’s prosperous offspring: descendant of the
      emigrations of the Seventies and Eighties and Nineties, those
      great folk-journeyings in search not so directly of freedom and
      democracy as of more money for the same labour. A new
      Midlander—in fact, a new American—was beginning dimly to emerge.

      A new spirit of citizenship had already sharply defined itself.
      It was idealistic, and its ideals were expressed in the new kind
      of young men in business downtown. They were optimists—optimists
      to the point of belligerence—their motto being “Boost! Don’t
      Knock!” And they were hustlers, believing in hustling and in
      honesty because both paid. They loved their city and worked for
      it with a plutonic energy which was always ardently vocal. They
      were viciously governed, but they sometimes went so far to
      struggle for better government on account of the helpful effect
      of good government on the price of real estate and “betterment”
      generally; the politicians could not go too far with them, and
      knew it. The idealists planned and strove and shouted that their
      city should become a better, better, and better city—and what
      they meant, when they used the word “better,” was “more
      prosperous,” and the core of their idealism was this: “The more
      prosperous my beloved city, the more prosperous beloved I!” They
      had one supreme theory: that the perfect beauty and happiness of
      cities and of human life was to be brought about by more
      factories; they had a mania for factories; there was nothing they
      would not do to cajole a factory away from another city; and they
      were never more piteously embittered than when another city
      cajoled one away from them.

      What they meant by Prosperity was credit at the bank; but in
      exchange for this credit they got nothing that was not dirty,
      and, therefore, to a sane mind, valueless; since whatever was
      cleaned was dirty again before the cleaning was half done. For,
      as the town grew, it grew dirty with an incredible completeness.
      The idealists put up magnificent business buildings and boasted
      of them, but the buildings were begrimed before they were
      finished. They boasted of their libraries, of their monuments and
      statues; and poured soot on them. They boasted of their schools,
      but the schools were dirty, like the children within them. This
      was not the fault of the children or their mothers. It was the
      fault of the idealists, who said: “The more dirt, the more
      prosperity.” They drew patriotic, optimistic breaths of the
      flying powdered filth of the streets, and took the foul and heavy
      smoke with gusto into the profundities of their lungs. “Boost!
      Don’t knock!” they said. And every year or so they boomed a great
      Clean-up Week, when everybody was supposed to get rid of the tin
      cans in his backyard.

      They were happiest when the tearing down and building up were
      most riotous, and when new factory districts were thundering into
      life. In truth, 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 such a figure carved, coloured, and
      discoloured, and set up in the market-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 make the god they truly
      serve; though of course certain of the idealists went to church
      on Sunday, and there knelt to Another, considered to be
      impractical in business. But while the Growing went on, this god
      of their market-place was their true god, their familiar and
      spirit-control. They did not know that they were his helplessly
      obedient slaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their
      serfdom (as the first step toward becoming free men) until they
      should make the strange and hard 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 the air into their houses they let in the dirt.
      It shortened their lives, and kept them from the happiness of
      ever seeing anything white. And thus, 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 little
      house painted the dark green nearest to black. Then she knew, of
      course, that everything was as dirty as ever, but was a little
      less distressed because 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 other directions; and the Addition’s share of Prosperity
      was only the smoke and dirt, with the bank credit left out. The
      owners of the original big houses sold them, or rented them to
      boarding-house keepers, and the tenants of the multitude of small
      houses moved “farther out” (where the smoke was thinner) or into
      apartment houses, which were built by dozens now. Cheaper tenants
      took their places, and the rents were lower and lower, and the
      houses shabbier and shabbier—for all these shabby houses, burning
      soft coal, did their best to help in the destruction of their own
      value. They helped to make the quarter so dingy and the air so
      foul 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 of cleaner winds. And with the coming of the new
      speed, “farther out” was now as close to business as the Addition
      had been in the days of its prosperity. Distances had ceased to
      matter.

      The five new houses, built so closely where had been the fine
      lawn of the Amberson Mansion, did not look new. When they were a
      year old they looked as old as they would ever look; and two of
      them were vacant, having never been rented, for the Major’s
      mistake about apartment houses had been a disastrous one. “He
      guessed wrong,” George Amberson said. “He guessed wrong at just
      the wrong time! Housekeeping in a house is harder than in an
      apartment; and where the smoke and dirt are as thick as they are
      in the Addition, women can’t stand it. People were crazy for
      apartments—too bad he couldn’t have seen it in time. Poor man! he
      digs away at his ledgers by his old gas drop-light lamp almost
      every night—he still refuses to let the Mansion be torn up for
      wiring, you know. But he had one painful satisfaction this
      spring: he got his taxes lowered!”

      Amberson laughed ruefully, and Fanny Minafer asked how the Major
      could have managed such an economy. They were sitting upon the
      veranda at Isabel’s one evening during the third summer of the
      absence of their nephew and his mother; and the conversation had
      turned toward Amberson finances.

      “I said it was a ‘painful satisfaction,’ Fanny,” he explained.
      “The property has gone down in value, and they assessed it lower
      than they did fifteen years ago.”

      “But farther out—”

      “Oh, yes, ‘farther out!’ Prices are magnificent ‘farther out,’
      and farther in, too! We just happen to be the wrong spot, that’s
      all. Not that I don’t think something could be done if father
      would let me have a hand; but he won’t. He can’t, I suppose I
      ought to say. He’s ‘always done his own figuring,’ he says; and
      it’s his lifelong habit to keep his affairs: 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 the constantly passing automobile headlights, shifting in vast
      geometric demonstrations against the darkness. Now and then a
      bicycle wound its nervous way among these portents, or, at long
      intervals, a surrey or buggy plodded forlornly by.

      “There seem to be so many ways of making money nowadays,” Fanny
      said thoughtfully. “Every day I hear of a new fortune some person
      has got hold of, one way or another—nearly always it’s somebody
      you never heard of. It doesn’t seem all to be in just making
      motor cars; I hear there’s a great deal in manufacturing these
      things that motor cars use—new inventions particularly. I met
      dear old Frank Bronson the other day, and he told me—”

      “Oh, yes, even dear old Frank’s got the fever,” Amberson laughed.
      “He’s as 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 anything yet—‘every car in America can’t
      help but have ’em,’ and all that. He’s putting half he’s laid by
      into it, and the fact is, he almost talked me into getting father
      to ‘finance me’ enough for me to go into it. Poor father! he’s
      financed me before! I suppose he would again if I had the heart
      to ask him; and this seems to be a good thing, though probably
      old Frank is a little too sanguine. At any rate, I’ve been
      thinking it over.”

      “So have I,” Fanny admitted. “He seemed to be certain it would
      pay twenty-five per cent. the first year, and enormously more
      after that; and I’m only getting four on my little principal.
      People are making such enormous fortunes out of everything to do
      with motor cars, it does seem as if—” She paused. “Well, I told
      him I’d think it over seriously.”

      “We may turn out to be partners and millionaires then,” Amberson
      laughed. “I thought I’d ask Eugene’s advice.”

      “I wish you would,” said Fanny. “He probably knows exactly how
      much profit there would be in this.”

      Eugene’s advice was to “go slow”: he thought electric lights for
      automobiles were “coming—someday but probably not until certain
      difficulties could be overcome.” Altogether, he was discouraging,
      but by this time his two friends “had the fever” as thoroughly as
      old Frank Bronson himself had it; for they had been with Bronson
      to see the light working beautifully in a machine shop. They were
      already enthusiastic, and after asking Eugene’s opinion they
      argued with him, telling him how they had seen with their own
      eyes that the difficulties he mentioned had been overcome.
      “Perfectly!” Fanny cried. “And if it worked in the shop it’s
      bound to work any place else, isn’t it?”

      He would not agree that it was “bound to”—yet, being pressed, was
      driven to admit that “it might,” and, retiring from what was
      developing into an oratorical contest, repeated a warning about
      not “putting too much into it.”

      George Amberson also laid stress on this caution later, though
      the Major had “financed him” again, and he was “going in.” “You
      must be careful to leave yourself a ‘margin of safety,’ Fanny,”
      he said. “I’m confident that is a pretty conservative investment
      of its kind, and all the chances are with us, but you must be
      careful to leave yourself enough to fall 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
      laughed excitedly, for she was having the best time that had come
      to her since Wilbur’s death. Like so many women for whom money
      has always been provided without their understanding how, she was
      prepared to be a thorough 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, her importantly engraved shares of stock, he
      reverted to his prediction of possibilities, made when they first
      spoke of the new light.

      “We seem to be partners, all right,” he laughed. “Now let’s go
      ahead and be millionaires before Isabel and young George come
      home.”

      “When they come home!” she echoed sorrowfully—and it was a phrase
      which found an evasive echo in Isabel’s letters. In these letters
      Isabel was always planning pleasant things that she and Fanny and
      the Major and George and “brother George” would do—when she and
      her son came home. “They’ll find things pretty changed, I’m
      afraid,” Fanny said. “If they ever do come home!”

      Amberson went over, the next summer, and joined his sister and
      nephew in Paris, where they were living. “Isabel does want to
      come home,” he told Fanny gravely, on the day of his return, in
      October. “She’s wanted to for a long while—and she ought to come
      while she can stand the journey—” And he amplified this
      statement, leaving Fanny looking startled and solemn when Lucy
      came by to drive him out to dinner at the new house Eugene had
      just completed.

      This was no white-and-blue cottage, but a great Georgian picture
      in brick, five miles north of Amberson Addition, with four acres
      of its own hedged land between it and its next neighbour; and
      Amberson laughed wistfully as they turned in between the stone
      and brick gate pillars, and rolled up the crushed stone driveway.
      “I wonder, Lucy, if history’s going on forever repeating itself,”
      he said. “I wonder if this town’s going on building up things and
      rolling over them, as poor father once said it was rolling over
      his poor old heart. It looks like it: here’s the Amberson Mansion
      again, only it’s Georgian instead of nondescript Romanesque; but
      it’s just the same Amberson Mansion that my father built long
      before you were born. The only difference is that it’s your
      father who’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 walls and trim window hangings were reflected
      dimly in dark, rugless floors, and the sparse furniture showed
      that Lucy had been “collecting” with a long purse. “By Jove!” he
      said. “You have been going it! Fanny tells me you had a great
      ‘house-warming’ dance, and you keep right on being the belle of
      the ball, not any softer-hearted than you used to be. Fred
      Kinney’s father says you’ve refused Fred so often that he got
      engaged to Janie Sharon just to prove that someone would have him
      in spite of his hair. Well, the material world do move, and
      you’ve got the new kind of house it moves into nowadays—if it has
      the new price! And even the grand old expanses of plate glass we
      used to be so proud of at the other Amberson Mansion—they’ve
      gone, too, with the crowded heavy gold and red stuff. Curious!
      We’ve still got the plate glass windows, though all we can see
      out of ’em is the smoke and the old Johnson house, which is a
      counter-jumper’s boardinghouse now, while you’ve got a view, and
      you cut it all up into little panes. Well, you’re pretty
      refreshingly out of the smoke up here.”

      “Yes, for a while,” Lucy laughed. “Until it comes and we have to
      move out farther.”

      “No, you’ll stay here,” he assured her. “It will be somebody else
      who’ll move out farther.”

      He continued to talk of the house after Eugene arrived, and gave
      them no account of his journey until they had retired from the
      dinner table to Eugene’s library, a gray and shadowy room, where
      their coffee was brought. Then, equipped with a cigar, which
      seemed to occupy his attention, 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 the spring, but she hadn’t seen them. Somebody told her
      they were there, it seems. They’d left Florence and were living
      in Rome; Amelia’s become a Catholic and is said to give great
      sums to charity and to go about with the gentry in consequence,
      but Sydney’s ailing and lives in a wheel-chair most of the time.
      It struck me Isabel ought to be doing the same thing.”

      He paused, bestowing minute care upon the removal of the little
      band from his cigar; and as he seemed to have concluded his
      narrative, Eugene spoke out of the shadow beyond a heavily shaded
      lamp: “What do you mean by that?” he asked quietly.

      “Oh, she’s cheerful enough,” said Amberson, still not looking at
      either his young hostess or her father. “At least,” he added,
      “she manages to seem so. I’m afraid she hasn’t been really well
      for several years. She isn’t stout you know—she hasn’t changed in
      looks much—and she seems rather alarmingly short of breath for a
      slender person. Father’s been that way for years, of course; but
      never nearly so much as Isabel is now. Of course she makes
      nothing of it, but it seemed rather serious to me when I noticed
      she had to stop and rest twice to get up the one short flight of
      stairs in their two-floor apartment. I told her I thought she
      ought 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 being proud of him and all that—he’s quite a swell.
      But in spite of anything she 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, she intimated one day that she
      feared it might even happen that she wouldn’t get to see him
      again. At the time I thought she referred to his age and
      feebleness, but on the boat, coming home, I remembered the little
      look of wistfulness, yet of resignation, with which she said it,
      and it struck me all at once that I’d been mistaken: I saw she
      was really thinking of her own state of health.”

      “I see,” Eugene said, his voice even lower than it had been
      before. “And you 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 doubt if the subject is mentioned between them, and
      yet—and yet, knowing my interesting nephew as you do, wouldn’t
      you think that was about the way to put it?”

      “Knowing him as I do—yes,” said Eugene slowly. “Yes, I should
      think that was about the way to put it.”

      A murmur out of the shadows beyond him—a faint sound, musical and
      feminine, yet expressive of a notable intensity—seemed to
      indicate that Lucy was of the same opinion.




      Chapter XXIX


      “Let her” was correct; but the time came—and it came in the
      spring of the next year when it was no longer a question of
      George’s letting his mother come home. He had to bring her, and
      to bring her quickly if she was to see her father again; and
      Amberson had been right: her danger of never seeing him again lay
      not in the Major’s feebleness of heart but in her own. As it was,
      George telegraphed his uncle to have a wheeled chair at the
      station, for the journey had been disastrous, and to this hybrid
      vehicle, placed close to the platform, her son carried her in his
      arms when she arrived. She was unable to speak, but patted her
      brother’s and Fanny’s hands and looked “very sweet,” Fanny found
      the desperate courage to tell her. She was lifted from the chair
      into a carriage, and seemed a little stronger as they drove home;
      for once she took her hand from George’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’re back 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 up the stairs to her own room, where a nurse was waiting; and
      he came out a moment later, as the doctor went in. At the end of
      the hall a stricken group was clustered: Amberson, and Fanny, and
      the Major. George, deathly pale and speechless, took his
      grandfather’s hand, but the old gentleman did 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, because it 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 the Major shuffled forward, leaning on a shaking cane; his
      figure, after all its Years of proud soldierliness, had grown
      stooping at last, and his untrimmed white hair straggled over the
      back of his collar. He looked old—old and divested of the
      world—as he crept toward his daughter’s room. Her voice was
      stronger, for the waiting group heard a low cry of tenderness and
      welcome as the old man reached the open doorway. Then the door
      was closed.

      Fanny touched her nephew’s arm. “George, you must need something
      to eat—I know she’d want you to. I’ve had things ready: I knew
      she’d want me to. You’d better go down to the dining room:
      there’s plenty on the table, waiting for you. She’d want you to
      eat something.”

      He turned a ghastly face to her, it was so panic-stricken. “I
      don’t want 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 were muffled by the long, thick hall rug.
      After a while he went to where Amberson, with folded arms and
      bowed head, had seated himself near the front 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 be serious! 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 his
      attitude.

      Isabel lived through the night. At eleven o’clock Fanny came
      timidly to George 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’t know 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. “Do you think that man’s coming would be very soothing?
      My God! if it hadn’t been for him this mightn’t have happened: we
      could have gone on living here quietly, and—why, it would be like
      taking a stranger into her room! She hasn’t even spoken of him
      more than twice in all the time we’ve been away. Doesn’t he know
      how sick she is? You tell him the doctor 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
      doctor said she was to be kept very quiet. I—I didn’t know—” And
      she pottered out.

      An hour later the nurse appeared in George’s doorway; she came
      noiselessly, and his back was toward her; but he jumped as if he
      had been 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 beside the bed. He took that slender, cold hand, and put it
      to his cheek.

      “Darling, did you—get something to eat?” She could only whisper,
      slowly and with difficulty. It was as if Isabel herself were far
      away, and only able 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 you
      didn’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 feel it, like a child proud of some miraculous seeming
      thing accomplished. It frightened him so that he could not speak,
      and he feared that she would know how he trembled; but she was
      unaware, and again was silent. Finally she 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
      regretful murmur. Several minutes passed before there was
      another. “Just—just once,” she whispered, and then was still.

      She seemed to have fallen asleep, and George moved to go, but a
      faint pressure upon his fingers detained him, and he remained,
      with her hand still pressed against his cheek. After a while he
      made sure she was asleep, and moved again, to let the nurse come
      in, and this time there was no pressure of the fingers to keep
      him. She was not asleep, but thinking that if he went he might
      get some rest, and be better prepared for what she knew was
      coming, she commanded those longing fingers of hers—and let him
      go.

      He found the doctor standing with the nurse in the hall; and,
      telling them 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 his uncle leaning against the wall. They
      had gone home two hours before, and he did not know they had
      returned.

      “The doctor thought we’d better come over,” Amberson said, then
      was silent, and George, shaking violently, sat down on the edge
      of the bed. His shaking continued, and from time to time he wiped
      heavy sweat from his forehead.

      The hours passed, and sometimes the old man upon the bed would
      snore a little, stop suddenly, and move as if to rise, but George
      Amberson would set a hand upon his shoulder, and murmur a
      reassuring word or two. Now and then, either uncle or nephew
      would tiptoe into the hall and look toward Isabel’s room, then
      come tiptoeing back, the other watching him haggardly.

      Once George gasped defiantly: “That doctor in New York said she
      might get 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
      for half 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 the nurse speaking to Fanny Minafer, and the next
      moment, Fanny appeared in the 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 her arms about George, and sobbed in an agony of loss and
      compassion:

      “She loved you!” she wailed. “She loved you! She loved you! Oh,
      how she did love you!”

      Isabel had just left them.




      Chapter XXX


      Major Amberson remained dry-eyed through the time that followed:
      he knew that this separation from his daughter would be short,
      that the separation which had preceded it was the long one. He
      worked at his ledgers no more under his old gas drop-light, but
      would sit all evening staring into the fire, in his bedroom, and
      not speaking unless someone asked him a question. He seemed
      almost unaware of what went on around him, and those who were
      with him thought him dazed by Isabel’s death, guessing that he
      was lost in reminiscences and vague dreams. “Probably his mind is
      full of pictures of his youth, or the Civil War, and the days
      when he and mother were young married people and all of us
      children were jolly little things—and the city was a small town
      with one cobbled street and the others just dirt roads with board
      sidewalks.” This was George Amberson’s conjecture, and the others
      agreed; but they were mistaken. The Major was engaged in the
      profoundest thinking of his life. No business plans which had
      ever absorbed him could compare in momentousness with the plans
      that absorbed him now, for he had to plan how to enter the
      unknown country where he was not even sure of being recognized as
      an Amberson—not sure of anything, except that Isabel would help
      him if she could. His absorption produced the outward effect of
      reverie, but of course it was not. The Major was occupied with
      the first really important matter that had taken his attention
      since he came home invalided, after the Gettysburg campaign, and
      went into business; and he realized that everything which had
      worried him or delighted him during this lifetime between then
      and to-day—all his buying and building and trading and
      banking—that it all was trifling and waste beside what concerned
      him now.

      He seldom went out of his room, and often left untouched the
      meals they brought to him there; and this neglect caused them to
      shake their heads mournfully, again mistaking for dazedness the
      profound concentration of his mind. Meanwhile, the life of the
      little bereft group still forlornly centering upon him began to
      pick up again, as life will, and to emerge from its own period of
      dazedness. It was not Isabel’s father but her son who 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 which she had covered several sheets of paper. This
      mathematical computation was concerned with her future income to
      be produced by the electric headlight, now just placed on the
      general market; but Fanny was ashamed to be discovered doing
      anything except mourning, and hastily pushed the sheets aside,
      even as she looked over her shoulder to greet her hollow-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.
      “You were doing it ever since dinner, and it seems to me you’re
      at it almost every evening. I don’t believe it’s good for you—and
      I know it would worry your mother terribly if she—” Fanny
      hesitated.

      “See here,” George said, breathing fast, “I want to tell you once
      more that what I did was right. How could I have done anything
      else but what I did do?”

      “About what, George?”

      “About everything!” he exclaimed; and he became vehement. “I did
      the right thing, I tell you! In heaven’s name, I’d like to know
      what else there was for anybody in my position to do! It would
      have been a dreadful thing for me to just let matters go on and
      not interfere—it would have been terrible! What else on earth was
      there for me to do? I had to stop that talk, didn’t I? Could a
      son do less than I did? Didn’t it cost me something to do it?
      Lucy and I’d had a quarrel, but that would have come round in
      time—and it meant the end forever when I turned her father back
      from our door. I knew what it meant, yet I went ahead and did it
      because knew it had to be done if the talk was to be stopped. I
      took mother away for the same reason. I knew that would help to
      stop it. And she was happy over there—she was perfectly happy. I
      tell 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 good husband, and all the comfort and luxury
      that anybody could have—and how could 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 hear that 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 on
      earth could she have had anything but a happy life? People that
      aren’t happy don’t look cheerful all the time, do they? They look
      unhappy if they are unhappy; that’s how they look! See here”—he
      faced her challengingly—“do you deny that I did the right thing?”

      “Oh, I don’t pretend to judge,” Fanny said soothingly, for his
      voice and gesture both partook of wildness. “I know you think you
      did, George.”

      “Think I did!” he echoed violently. “My God in heaven!” And he
      began to walk up and down the floor. “What else was there to do?
      What, choice did I have? Was there any other way of stopping the
      talk?” He stopped, close in front of her, gesticulating, his
      voice harsh and loud: “Don’t you hear me? I’m asking you: Was
      there any other way on earth of protecting her from the talk?”

      Miss Fanny looked away. “It died down before long, I think,” she
      said nervously.

      “That shows I was right, doesn’t it?” he cried. “If I hadn’t
      acted as I did, that slanderous old Johnson woman would have kept
      on with her slanders—she’d still be—”

      “No,” Fanny interrupted. “She’s dead. She dropped dead with
      apoplexy one day about six weeks after you left. I didn’t mention
      it in my letters because 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.
      “Things are so changed here, George. The other people you speak
      of—one hardly knows what’s become of them. Of course not a great
      many were doing the talking, and they—well, some of them are
      dead, and some might as well be—you never see them any more—and
      the rest, whoever they were, are probably so mixed in with the
      crowds of new people that seem never even to have heard of us—and
      I’m sure we certainly never heard of them—and people seem to
      forget things so soon—they seem to forget anything. You can’t
      imagine how things have changed here!”

      George gulped painfully before he could speak. “You—you mean to
      sit there 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! If you don’t think so, why in the name of heaven
      can’t you say what else I should have done? It’s easy enough to
      criticize, but the person who criticizes a man ought at least to
      tell him what else he should have done! 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 a sudden bitter divination: “You’re reproaching yourself
      with what you had to do with all that; and you’re trying to make
      up for it by doing and saying what you think mother would want
      you to, and you think I couldn’t stand 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 does Uncle George. I
      challenged him about it the other day, and he answered just as
      you’re answering—evaded, and tried to be gentler. I don’t care to
      be handled with gloves! I tell you I was right, and I don’t need
      any coddling by people that think I wasn’t! And I suppose you
      believe I was wrong not to let Morgan see her that last night
      when he came here, and she—she was dying. If you do, why in the
      name of God did you come and ask 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—‘just once.’ She said ‘I’d like to have seen him—just once!’
      She meant—to tell 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 Uncle George, that the responsibility isn’t
      all mine! If you were so sure I was wrong all the time—when I
      took her away, and when I turned Morgan out—if you were so sure,
      what did you let me do it for? You and Uncle George were grown
      people, both of you, weren’t you? You were older than I, and if
      you were so sure you were wiser than I, why did you just stand
      around with your hands hanging down, and let me go ahead? You
      could have stopped it if it was wrong, couldn’t you?”

      Fanny shook her head. “No, George,” she said slowly. “Nobody
      could have stopped 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 move
      convulsively, and he set his teeth upon it but could not check
      its frantic twitching.

      He ran out of the room.

      She sat still, listening. He had plunged into his mother’s room,
      but no 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 hear nothing. The heavy black walnut door of Isabel’s room,
      as Fanny’s troubled eyes remained fixed upon it, seemed to become
      darker and vaguer; the polished wood took the distant ceiling
      light, at the end of the hall, in dim reflections which became
      mysterious; and to Fanny’s disturbed mind the single sharp point
      of light on the bronze door-knob was like a continuous sharp cry
      in the stillness of night. What interview was sealed away from
      human eye and ear within the lonely darkness on the other side of
      that door—in that darkness where Isabel’s own special chairs
      were, and her own special books, and the two great walnut
      wardrobes filled with her dresses and wraps? What tragic argument
      might be there vainly striving to confute the gentle dead? “In
      God’s name, what else could I have done?” For his mother’s
      immutable silence was surely answering him as Isabel in life
      would never have answered him, and he was beginning to understand
      how eloquent the dead can be. They cannot stop their eloquence,
      no matter how they have loved the living: they cannot choose. And
      so, no matter in what agony George should cry out, “What else
      could I have done?” and to the end of his life no matter how
      often he made that wild appeal, Isabel was doomed to answer 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
      whistling some broken thoughts upon women, fried food and gin;
      then a group of high school boys, returning homeward after
      important initiations, were heard skylarking along the sidewalk,
      rattling sticks on the fences, squawking hoarsely, and even
      attempting to sing in the shocking new voices of uncompleted
      adolescence. For no reason, and just as a poultry yard falls into
      causeless agitation, they stopped in front of the house, and for
      half an hour produced the effect of a noisy multitude in full
      riot.

      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 sat at her desk again. She left the door
      open, and frequently glanced out into the hall, but gradually
      became once more absorbed in the figures which represented her
      prospective income from her great plunge in electric lights for
      automobiles. She did not hear George return to his own room.

      A superstitious person might have thought it unfortunate that her
      partner in this speculative industry (as in Wilbur’s disastrous
      rolling-mills) was that charming but too haphazardous man of the
      world, George Amberson. He was one of those optimists who believe
      that if you put money into a great many enterprises one of them
      is sure to turn out a fortune, and therefore, in order to find
      the lucky one, it is only necessary to go into a large enough
      number of them. Altogether gallant in spirit, and beautifully
      game under catastrophe, he had gone into a great 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
      that alone, a remarkable man; and he declared, with some
      earnestness, that there was no accounting for it except by the
      fact that there had been so much good luck in his family before
      he was born that something had to balance 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 had begun to look discouraging. “I feel the old familiar
      sinking that’s attended all my previous efforts to prove myself a
      business genius. I think it must be something like the feeling an
      aeronaut has when his balloon bursts, and, looking down, he sees
      below him the old home farm where he used to live—I mean the
      feeling he’d have just before he flattened out in that same old
      clay barnyard. Things do look bleak, and I’m only glad you didn’t
      go into this confounded thing to the extent I did.”

      Miss Fanny grew pink. “But it must go right!” she protested. “We
      saw with our own eyes how perfectly it worked in the shop. The
      light was so bright no one could face it, and so there can’t be
      any reason for it not to work. It simply—”

      “Oh, you’re right about that,” Amberson said. “It certainly was a
      perfect thing—in the shop! The only thing we didn’t know was how
      fast an automobile had to go to keep the light going. It appears
      that this was a matter of some importance.”

      “Well, how fast does one have to—”

      “To keep the light from going entirely out,” he informed her with
      elaborate deliberation, “it is computed by those enthusiasts who
      have bought our product—and subsequently returned it to us and
      got their money back—they compute that a motor car must maintain
      a speed of twenty-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 approaching automobile, they state the speed must
      be more than thirty miles an hour. At thirty-five, objects in the
      path of the light begin to become visible; at forty they are
      revealed distinctly; and at fifty and above we have a real
      headlight. Unfortunately many people don’t care to drive that
      fast at all times after dusk, especially in the traffic, or where
      policemen 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
      with his oratory, and you and Frank Bronson and I went whirling
      through the night at a speed that thrilled us. It was an
      intoxicating sensation: we were intoxicated by the lights, the
      lights and the music. We must never forget that drive, with the
      cool wind kissing our cheeks and the road lit up for miles ahead.
      We must never forget it and we never shall. It cost—”

      “But something’s got to be done.”

      “It has, indeed! My something would seem to be leaving my watch
      at my uncle’s. Luckily, you—”

      The pink of Fanny’s cheeks became deeper. “But isn’t that man
      going to do anything to remedy it? can’t he try to—”

      “He can try,” said Amberson. “He is trying, in fact. I’ve sat in
      the shop watching him try for several beautiful afternoons, while
      outside the windows all Nature was fragrant with spring and
      smoke. He hums ragtime to himself as he tries, and I think his
      mind is wandering to something else less tedious—to some new
      invention in which he’d take more interest.”

      “But you mustn’t let him,” she cried. “You must make him keep on
      trying!”

      “Oh, yes. He understands that’s what I sit there for. I’ll keep
      sitting!”

      However, in spite of the time he spent sitting in the shop,
      worrying the inventor of the fractious light, Amberson found
      opportunity to worry himself about another matter of business.
      This was the settlement of Isabel’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 she ever had to do with business was to deposit the cheques
      grandfather gave her 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 never gave her one, and he didn’t seem able to
      understand me at first. Then he finally said he thought he must
      have given her a deed long ago; but he wasn’t sure. I rather
      think he never did. I think it would be just as well to get him
      to execute one now in your favour. I’ll speak to him about it.”

      George sighed. “I don’t think I’d bother him about it: the house
      is mine, and you and I understand that it is. That’s enough for
      me, and there isn’t likely to be much trouble between you and me
      when we come to settling poor grandfather’s estate. I’ve just
      been with him, and I think it would only confuse him for you to
      speak to him about it again. I notice he seems distressed if
      anybody tries to get his attention—he’s a long way off,
      somewhere, and he likes to stay that way. I think—I think mother
      wouldn’t want us to bother him about it; I’m sure she’d tell us
      to let him alone. He looks so white and queer.”

      Amberson shook his head. “Not much whiter and queerer than you
      do, young fellow! You’d better begin to get some air and exercise
      and quit hanging about 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
      about as involved and mixed-up as an estate can well get, to the
      best of my knowledge; and I haven’t helped it any by what he let
      me have for this infernal headlight scheme which has finally gone
      trolloping forever to where the woodbine twineth. Leaves me flat,
      and poor old Frank Bronson just half flat, and Fanny—well, thank
      heaven! I kept her from going in so deep that it would leave her
      flat. It’s rough on her as it is, I suspect. 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 he seems to brighten up a little.”

      But Amberson waited too long. The Major had already taken eleven
      months since his daughter’s death to think important things out.
      He had got as far with them as he could, and there was nothing to
      detain him longer in the world. One evening his grandson sat with
      him—the Major seemed to like best to have young George with him,
      so far as they were able to guess his preferences—and the old
      gentleman made a queer gesture: he slapped his knee as if he had
      made a sudden discovery, or else remembered that he had forgotten
      something.

      George looked at him with an air of inquiry, but said nothing. He
      had grown to be almost as silent as his grandfather. However, the
      Major spoke without being questioned.

      “It must be in the sun,” he said. “There wasn’t anything here but
      the sun in the first place, and the earth came out of the sun,
      and we came out of the earth. So, whatever we are, we must have
      been in the sun. We go back to the earth we came out of, so the
      earth will go back to the sun that it came out of. And time means
      nothing—nothing at all—so in a little while we’ll all be back in
      the sun together. I wish—”

      He moved his hand uncertainly as if reaching for something, and
      George jumped 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 upon the arm of his chair, and he relapsed into silence; but
      a few minutes later 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
      son suggested calling the doctor, and Amberson let him have his
      own way so far, in fact, that after he had got up and dressed,
      the following morning, he was all alone when he went away to find
      out what he hadn’t been able to think out—all those things he had
      wished “somebody” would tell him.

      Old Sam, shuffling in with the breakfast tray, found the Major in
      his accustomed easy-chair by the fireplace—and yet even the old
      darkey could see instantly that the Major was not there.




      Chapter XXXI


      When the great Amberson Estate went into court for settlement,
      “there wasn’t any,” George Amberson said—that is, when the
      settlement was concluded there was no estate. “I guessed it,”
      Amberson went on. “As an expert on prosperity, my career is
      disreputable, but as a prophet of calamity I deserve a
      testimonial banquet.” He reproached himself bitterly for not
      having long ago discovered that his father had never given 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’t do anything. I’m sorry I gave them the opportunity of
      making a polished refusal. Amelia’s letter was about half in
      Italian; she couldn’t remember enough ways of saying no in
      English. One has to live quite a long while to realize there are
      people like that! The estate was badly crippled, even before they
      took out their ‘third,’ and the ‘third’ they took was the only
      good part of the rotten apple. Well, I didn’t ask them for
      restitution on my own account, and at least it will save you some
      trouble, young George. Never waste any time writing to them; you
      mustn’t count 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 fall back 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 an eighteen-hundred-dollar-a-year consulship.
      An ex-congressman can always be pretty sure of getting some such
      job, and I hear from Washington the matter’s about settled. I’ll
      live pleasantly enough with a pitcher of ice under a palm tree,
      and black folks to wait on me—that part of it will be like
      home—and I’ll manage to send you fifty dollars every now and
      then, after I once get settled. So much for me! But you—of course
      you’ve had a poor training for making your own way, but you’re
      only a boy after all, and the stuff of the old stock is in you.
      It’ll come out and do something. I’ll never forgive myself about
      that deed: it would have given you something substantial to start
      with. Still, you have a little tiny bit, and you’ll have a little
      tiny salary, too; and of course your Aunt Fanny’s here, and she’s
      got something you can fall back on if you get too pinched, until
      I can begin to send you a dribble now and then.”

      George’s “little tiny bit” was six hundred dollars which had come
      to him from 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 for services as a clerk and student-at-law. Old Frank
      would have offered more to the Major’s grandson, but since the
      death of that best of clients and his own experience with
      automobile headlights, he was not certain of being able to pay
      more and at the same time settle his own small bills for board
      and lodging. George had accepted haughtily, and thereby removed a
      burden from his uncle’s mind.

      Amberson himself, however, had not even a “tiny bit”; though he
      got his consular appointment; and to take him to his post he
      found it necessary to borrow two hundred of his nephew’s six
      hundred dollars. “It makes me sick, George,” he said. “But I’d
      better get there and get that salary started. Of course Eugene
      would do anything in the world, and the fact is he wanted to, but
      I felt that—ah—under the circumstances—”

      “Never!” George exclaimed, growing red. “I can’t imagine one of
      the family—” He paused, not finding it necessary to explain that
      “the family” shouldn’t turn a man from the door and then accept
      favours from him. “I wish you’d take more.”

      Amberson declined. “One thing I’ll say for you, young George; you
      haven’t a stingy bone in your body. That’s the Amberson stock in
      you—and I like it!”

      He added something to this praise of his nephew on the day he
      left for Washington. He was not to return, but to set forth from
      the capital on the long journey to his post. George went with him
      to the station, and their farewell was lengthened by the train’s
      being several minutes late.

      “I may not see you again, Georgie,” Amberson said; and his voice
      was a little husky as he set a kind hand on the young man’s
      shoulder. “It’s quite probable that from this time on we’ll only
      know each other by letter—until you’re notified as my next of kin
      that there’s an old valise to be forwarded to you, and perhaps
      some dusty curios from the consulate mantelpiece. Well, it’s an
      odd way for us to be saying good-bye: one wouldn’t have thought
      it, even a few years ago, but here we 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 where we’re
      standing now, to say good-bye to a pretty girl—only it was in the
      old station before this was built, and we called it the ‘depot.’
      She’d been visiting your mother, before Isabel was married, and I
      was wild about her, and she admitted she didn’t mind that. In
      fact, we decided we couldn’t live without each other, and we were
      to be married. But she had to go abroad first with her father,
      and when we came to say good-bye we knew we wouldn’t see each
      other again for almost a year. I thought I couldn’t live through
      it—and she stood here crying. Well, I don’t even know where she
      lives now, or if she is living—and I only happen to think 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
      the ballroom at the Amberson Mansion, and she probably thinks of
      the Mansion as still beautiful—still the finest house in town.
      Life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of
      cracks. And when they’re gone we can’t tell where—or what the
      devil we did with ’em! But I believe I’ll say now—while there
      isn’t much time left for either of us to get embarrassed about
      it—I believe I’ll say that I’ve always been fond of you, Georgie,
      but I can’t say that I always liked you. Sometimes I’ve felt you
      were distinctly not an acquired taste. Until lately, one had to
      be fond of you just naturally—this isn’t very ‘tactful,’ of
      course—for if he didn’t, well, he wouldn’t! We all spoiled you
      terribly when you were a little boy and let you grow up en
      prince—and I must say you took to it! But you’ve received a
      pretty heavy jolt, and I had enough of your disposition, myself,
      at your age, to understand a little of what cocksure youth has to
      go through inside when it finds that it can make terrible
      mistakes. Poor old fellow! You get both kinds of jolts together,
      spiritual and material—and you’ve taken them pretty quietly
      and—well, with my train coming into the shed, you’ll forgive me
      for saying that there have been times when I thought you ought to
      be hanged—but I’ve always been fond of you, and now I like you!
      And just for a last word: there may be somebody else in this town
      who’s always felt about you like that—fond of you, I mean, no
      matter how much it seemed you ought to be hanged. You might
      try—Hello, I must run. I’ll send back the money as fast as they
      pay me—so, good-bye and God bless you, Georgie!”

      He passed through the gates, waved his hat cheerily from the
      other side of the iron screen, and was lost from sight in the
      hurrying crowd. And as he disappeared, an unexpected poignant
      loneliness fell upon his nephew so heavily and so suddenly that
      he had no energy to recoil from the shock. It seemed to him that
      the last fragment of his familiar world had disappeared, leaving
      him all alone forever.

      He walked homeward slowly through what appeared to be the strange
      streets of a strange city; and, as a matter of fact, the city was
      strange 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 that he had been “scarcely outdoors at all,” as
      Fanny complained, warning him that his health would suffer, and
      he had been downtown only in a closed carriage. He had not
      realized the great change.

      The streets were thunderous; a vast energy heaved under the
      universal coating of dinginess. George walked through the
      begrimed crowds of hurrying strangers and saw no face that he
      remembered. Great numbers of 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 partly like types he knew abroad.
      He saw German eyes with American wrinkles at their 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 Jews who had
      been German Jews, Jews who had been Russian Jews, Jews who had
      been 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 nearly all seemed harried by something
      impending, though here and there a woman with bundles would be
      laughing to a companion about some adventure of the department
      stores, or perhaps an escape from the charging traffic of the
      streets—and not infrequently a girl, or a free-and-easy young
      matron, found time to throw an encouraging look to George.

      He took no note of these, and, leaving the crowded sidewalks,
      turned north into National Avenue, and presently reached the
      quieter but no less begrimed region of smaller shops and
      old-fashioned houses. Those latter had been the homes of his
      boyhood playmates; old friends of his grandfather had lived
      here;—in this alley he had fought with two boys at the same time,
      and whipped them; in that front yard he had been successfully
      teased into temporary insanity by a Sunday-school class of pinky
      little girls. On that sagging porch a laughing woman had fed him
      and other boys with doughnuts and gingerbread; yonder he saw the
      staggered relics of the iron picket fence he had made his white
      pony jump, on a dare, and in the shabby, stone-faced house behind
      the fence he had gone to children’s parties, and, when he was a
      little older he had danced there often, and fallen in love with
      Mary Sharon, and kissed her, apparently by force, under the
      stairs in the hall. The double front doors, of meaninglessly
      carved walnut, once so glossily varnished, had been painted smoke
      gray, but the smoke grime showed repulsively, even on the smoke
      gray; and over the doors a smoked sign proclaimed the place to be
      a “Stag Hotel.”

      Other houses had become boarding-houses too genteel for signs,
      but many were 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 of commercial display, showed forth two
      suspended petticoats and a pair of oyster-coloured flannel
      trousers to prove the claims of its black-and-gilt sign: “French
      Cleaning and Dye House.” Its next neighbour also sported a
      remodelled front and permitted no doubt that its mission in life
      was to attend cosily upon death: “J. M. Rolsener. Caskets. The
      Funeral Home.” And beyond that, a plain old honest four-square
      gray-painted brick house was flamboyantly decorated with a great
      gilt scroll on the railing of the old-fashioned veranda: “Mutual
      Benev’t Order Cavaliers and Dames of Purity.” This was the old
      Minafer house.

      George passed it without perceptibly wincing; in fact, he held
      his head up, and except for his gravity of countenance and the
      prison pallor he had acquired by too constantly remaining
      indoors, there was little to warn an acquaintance that he was not
      precisely the same George Amberson Minafer known aforetime. He
      was still so magnificent, indeed, that there came to his ears a
      waft of comment from a passing automobile. This was a fearsome
      red car, glittering in brass, with half-a-dozen young people in
      it whose motorism had reached an extreme manifestation in dress.
      The ladies of this party were favourably affected at sight of the
      pedestrian upon the sidewalk, and, as the machine was moving
      slowly, and close to the curb, they had time to observe him in
      detail, which they did with a frankness not pleasing to the
      object of their attentions. “One sees so many nice-looking people
      one doesn’t know nowadays,” said the youngest of 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 at a considerable distance. “I don’t know who he is, but
      from his looks I know who he thinks he is: he thinks he’s the
      Grand Duke Cuthbert!” There was a burst of tittering as the car
      gathered speed and rolled away, with the girl continuing to look
      back until her scandalized companions forced her to turn by
      pulling her hood over her face. She made an impression upon
      George, so deep a one, in fact, that he unconsciously put his
      emotion into a muttered word:

      Riffraff!

      This was the last “walk home” he was ever to take by the route he
      was now following: up National Avenue to Amberson Addition and
      the two big old houses at the foot of Amberson Boulevard; for
      tonight would be the last night that he and Fanny were to spend
      in the house which the Major had forgotten to deed to Isabel.
      To-morrow they were to “move out,” and George was to begin his
      work in Bronson’s office. He had not come to this 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
      retain a profile is that ideal which depends upon inheriting
      money. George Amberson, in spite of his record of failures in
      business, had spoken shrewdly when he realized at last that
      money, like life, was “like quicksilver in a nest of cracks.” And
      his nephew had the awakening experience of seeing the great
      Amberson Estate vanishing into such a nest—in a twinkling, it
      seemed, now that it was indeed so utterly vanished.

      His uncle had suggested that he might write to college friends;
      perhaps they could help him to something better than the prospect
      offered by Bronson’s office; but George flushed and shook his
      head, without explaining. In that small and quietly superior
      “crowd” of his he had too emphatically supported the ideal of
      being rather than doing. He could not appeal to one of its
      members now to help him to a job. Besides, they were not
      precisely the warmest-hearted crew in the world, and he had long
      ago dropped the last affectation of a correspondence with any of
      them. He was as aloof from any survival of intimacy with his
      boyhood friends in the city, and, in truth, had lost track of
      most of them. “The Friends of the Ace,” once bound by oath to
      succour one another in peril or poverty, were long ago dispersed;
      one or two had died; one or two had gone to live elsewhere; the
      others were disappeared into the smoky bigness of the heavy city.
      Of the brethren, there remained within his present cognizance
      only his old enemy, the red-haired Kinney, now married to Janie
      Sharon, and Charlie Johnson, who, out of deference to his
      mother’s memory, had passed the Amberson Mansion one day, when
      George stood upon the front steps, and, looking in fiercely, had
      looked away with continued fierceness—his only token of
      recognition.

      On this last homeward walk of his, when George reached the
      entrance to Amberson Addition—that is, when he came to where the
      entrance had formerly 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, marking the entrance, had been removed. Then
      he realized that for a long time he had been conscious of a
      queerness about this corner without being aware of what made the
      difference. National Avenue met Amberson Boulevard here at an
      obtuse angle, and the removal of the pillars made the Boulevard
      seem a cross-street of no overpowering importance—certainly it
      did not seem to be a boulevard!

      At the next corner Neptune’s Fountain remained, and one could
      still determine with accuracy what its designer’s intentions had
      been. It stood in sore need of just one last kindness; and if the
      thing had possessed any friends they would have done that doleful
      shovelling after dark.

      George did not let his eyes linger upon the relic; nor did he
      look steadfastly at the Amberson Mansion. Massive as the old
      house was, it managed to look gaunt: its windows stared with the
      skull emptiness of all windows in empty houses that are to be
      lived in no more. Of course the rowdy boys of the neighbourhood
      had been at work: many of these haggard windows were broken; the
      front door stood ajar, forced open; and idiot salacity, in white
      chalk, was smeared everywhere upon the pillars and stonework of
      the verandas.

      George walked by the Mansion hurriedly, and came home to his
      mother’s house for the last time.

      Emptiness was there, too, and the closing of the door resounded
      through bare rooms; for downstairs there was no furniture in the
      house except a kitchen table in the dining room, which Fanny had
      kept “for dinner,” she said, though as she was to cook and serve
      that meal herself George had his doubts about her name for it.
      Upstairs, she had retained her own furniture, and George had been
      living in his mother’s room, having sent everything from his own
      to the auction. Isabel’s room was still as it had been, but the
      furniture would be moved with Fanny’s to new quarters in the
      morning. Fanny had made plans for her nephew as well as herself;
      she had found a three-room “kitchenette apartment” in an
      apartment house where several old friends of hers had established
      themselves—elderly widows of citizens once “prominent” and other
      retired gentry. People used their own “kitchenettes” for
      breakfast and lunch, but there was a table-d’hote arrangement for
      dinner on the ground floor; and after dinner bridge was played
      all evening, an attraction powerful with Fanny. She had “made all
      the arrangements,” she reported, and nervously appealed for
      approval, asking if she hadn’t shown herself “pretty practical”
      in such matters. George acquiesced absent-mindedly, not thinking
      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-room apartment” with Fanny and eat breakfast and lunch
      with her (prepared by herself in the “kitchenette”) and dinner at
      the table d’hote in “such a pretty Colonial dining room” (so
      Fanny described it) at a little round table they would have all
      to themselves in the midst of a dozen little round tables which
      other relics of disrupted families would have all to themselves.
      For the first time, now that the change was imminent, George
      began 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 the sheerly unbearable, and that after all there were some
      things left that he just couldn’t stand. So he made up his mind
      to speak to his aunt about it at “dinner,” and tell her that he
      preferred to ask Bronson to let him put a sofa-bed, a trunk, and
      a folding rubber bathtub behind a screen in the dark rear room of
      the office. George felt that this would 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
      until later: she was so nervous, and so distressed about the
      failure of her efforts with sweetbreads and macaroni; and she was
      so eager in her talk of how comfortable they would be “by this
      time to-morrow night.” She fluttered on, her nervousness
      increasing, saying how “nice” it would be for him, when he came
      from work in the evenings, to be among “nice people—people who
      know who we are,” and to have a pleasant game of bridge with
      “people who are really old friends of the family?”

      When they stopped probing among the scorched fragments she had
      set forth, George lingered downstairs, waiting for a better
      opportunity to introduce his own subject, but when he heard
      dismaying sounds from the kitchen he gave up. There was a crash,
      then a shower of crashes; falling tin clamoured to be heard above
      the shattering of porcelain; and over all rose Fanny’s wail of
      lamentation for the treasures saved from the sale, but now lost
      forever to the “kitchenette.” Fanny was nervous indeed; so
      nervous that she could not trust her hands.

      For a moment George thought she might have been injured, but,
      before he reached the kitchen, he heard her sweeping at the
      fragments, and turned back. He put off speaking to Fanny until
      morning.

      Things more insistent than his vague plans for a sofa-bed in
      Bronson’s office had possession of his mind as he went upstairs,
      moving his hand slowly along the smooth walnut railing of the
      balustrade. Half way to the landing he stopped, turned, and stood
      looking down at the heavy doors masking the black emptiness that
      had been the library. Here he had stood on what he now knew was
      the worst day of his life; here he had stood when his mother
      passed through that doorway, hand-in-hand with her brother, to
      learn what her son had done.

      He went on more heavily, more slowly; and, more heavily and
      slowly still, entered Isabel’s room and shut the door. He did not
      come forth again, and bade Fanny good-night through the closed
      door when she stopped outside it later.

      “I’ve put all the lights out, George,” she said. “Everything’s
      all right.”

      “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 are altogether gloomy, George. I know everything’s
      going to turn out all right. 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 to notice it, and he heard her go to her own room and lock
      herself in with bolt and key against burglars. She had said the
      one thing she should not 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 for sleep that night. He would
      have slept little if she had not said it, but since she had said
      it, he could not sleep at all. For he knew that it was true—if it
      could be true—and that his mother, if she still lived in 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
      could come and “watch over him.”

      He felt that if there were such gates they were surely barred:
      they were like those awful library doors downstairs, which had
      shut her in to begin the suffering to which he had consigned her.

      The room was still Isabel’s. Nothing had been changed: even the
      photographs of George, of the Major, and of “brother George”
      still stood on her dressing-table, and in a drawer of her desk
      was an old picture of Eugene and Lucy, taken together, which
      George had found, but had slowly closed away again from sight,
      not touching it. To-morrow everything would be gone; and he had
      heard there was not long to wait before the house itself would be
      demolished. The very space which tonight was still Isabel’s room
      would be cut into new shapes by new walls and floors and
      ceilings; yet the room would always live, for it could not die
      out of George’s memory. It would live as long as he did, and it
      would always be murmurous with a tragic, wistful whispering.

      And if space itself can be haunted, as memory is haunted, then
      some time, when the space that was Isabel’s room came to be made
      into the small bedrooms and “kitchenettes” already designed as
      its destiny, that space might well be haunted and the new
      occupants come to feel that some seemingly causeless depression
      hung about it—a wraith of the passion that filled it throughout
      the last night that George Minafer spent there.

      Whatever remnants of the old high-handed arrogance were still
      within him, he did penance for his deepest sin that night—and it
      may be that to this day some impressionable, overworked woman in
      a “kitchenette,” after turning out the light will seem to see a
      young man kneeling in the darkness, shaking convulsively, and,
      with arms outstretched through the wall, clutching at the covers
      of a shadowy bed. It may seem to her that she 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
      house where he had been born was not occupied with his own
      disheartening future, but with sorrow for what sacrifices his
      pride and youth had demanded of others. And early in the morning
      he came downstairs and tried to help Fanny make coffee on the
      kitchen range.

      “There was something I wanted to say to you last night, Aunt
      Fanny,” he said, as she finally discovered that an amber fluid,
      more like tea than coffee, was as near ready to be taken into the
      human system as it would ever 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 apron between her fingers without any consciousness of
      what she was doing.

      “Why—why—” she stammered; but she knew what he was going to say,
      and that was why she had been more and more nervous.
      “Hadn’t—perhaps—perhaps we’d better get the—the things moved to
      the little new home first, George. Let’s—”

      He interrupted quietly, though at her phrase, “the little new
      home,” his pungent impulse was to utter one loud shout and run.
      “It was about this new place that I wanted to speak. I’ve been
      thinking it over, and I’ve decided. I want you to take all the
      things from mother’s room and use them and keep them for me, and
      I’m sure the little apartment will be just what you like; and
      with the extra bedroom probably you could find some woman friend
      to come and live there, and share the expense with you. But I’ve
      decided on another arrangement for myself, and so I’m not going
      with you. I don’t suppose you’ll mind much, and I don’t see why
      you should mind—particularly, that is. I’m not very lively
      company these days, or any days, for that matter. I can’t imagine
      you, or any one else, being much attached to me, so—”

      He stopped in amazement: no chair had been left in the kitchen,
      but Fanny gave a despairing glance around her, in search of one,
      then sank abruptly, 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
      the wrist he had seized to help her, she repeated the dismal
      prophecy which for days she had been matching against her hopes:
      “You’re going to leave me—in the lurch!”

      “Why no, Aunt Fanny!” he protested. “At first I’d have been
      something of a burden on you. I’m to get eight dollars a week;
      about thirty-two a month. The rent’s thirty-six dollars a month,
      and the table-d’hote dinner runs up to over twenty-two dollars
      apiece, so with my half of the rent—eighteen dollars—I’d have
      less than nothing left out of my salary to 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’d be 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
      laughed miserably. “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.
      There won’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 more than you should, in the headlight company, but he’d
      insisted that you should hold out enough to live on, and you’d
      very wisely followed his advice.”

      “I know,” she said weakly. “I told him so. He didn’t know, or
      else he’d forgotten, how much Wilbur’s insurance amounted to, and
      I—oh, it seemed such a sure way to make a real fortune out of a
      little—and I thought I could do something for you, George, if you
      ever came to need it—and it all looked so bright I just thought
      I’d put it all in. I did—every cent except my last interest
      payment—and it’s gone.”

      “Good Lord!” George began to pace up and down on the worn planks
      of the bare floor. “Why on earth did you wait till now to tell
      such a thing as this?”

      “I couldn’t tell till I had to,” she said piteously. “I couldn’t
      till George Amberson went away. He couldn’t do anything to help,
      anyhow, and I just didn’t want him to talk to me about it—he’s
      been at me so much about not putting more in than I could afford
      to lose, and said he considered he had my—my word I wasn’t
      putting more than that in it. So I thought: What was the use?
      What was the use of going over it all with 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 lace handkerchief
      and began to cry. “Nothing does any good, I guess, in this old
      world. Oh, how tired of this old world I am! I didn’t know what
      to do. I just tried to go ahead and be as practical as I could,
      and arrange some way for us to live. Oh, I knew you didn’t want
      me, George! You always teased me and berated me whenever you had
      a chance from the time you were a little boy—you did so! Later,
      you’ve tried to be kinder to me, but you don’t want me around—oh,
      I can see that much! You don’t suppose I want to thrust myself on
      you, do you? It isn’t very pleasant to be thrusting yourself on a
      person you know doesn’t want you—but I knew you oughtn’t to be
      left all alone in the world; it isn’t good. I knew your mother’d
      want me to watch over you and try to have something like 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, was
      tragically sincere. “I tried—I tried to be practical—to look
      after your interests—to make things as nice for you as I could—I
      walked my heels down looking for a place for us to live—I walked
      and walked over this town—I didn’t ride one block on a
      street-car—I wouldn’t use five cents no matter how tired I—Oh!”
      She sobbed uncontrollably. “Oh! and now—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,
      “quit spreading out your handkerchief and drying it and then
      getting it all wet again! I mean stop crying! Do! And for
      heaven’s sake, get up. Don’t sit there with your back against the
      boiler and—”

      “It’s not hot,” Fanny sniffled. “It’s cold; the plumbers
      disconnected it. 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 be done.”

      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 and seated her in one of the two kitchen chairs which
      had been placed at the rough table. “There!” he said, “get over
      it!” Then he brought the coffee-pot, some lumps of sugar in a tin
      pan, and, finding that all the coffee-cups were broken, set water
      glasses upon the table, and poured some of the pale coffee into
      them. By this time Fanny’s spirits had revived appreciably: she
      looked up with a plaintive eagerness. “I had bought all my fall
      clothes, George,” she said; “and I paid every bill I owed. I
      don’t owe a cent for clothes, George.”

      “That’s good,” he said wanly, and he had a moment of physical
      dizziness that decided him to sit down quickly. For an instant it
      seemed to him that he was not Fanny’s nephew, but married to her.
      He passed his pale hand over his paler forehead. “Well, let’s see
      where we stand,” he said feebly. “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 we could possibly have worked out, George—and it is a
      comfort to be among nice people. I think we’ll both enjoy it,
      because the truth is we’ve been keeping too much to ourselves for
      a long while. It isn’t good for people.”

      “I was thinking about the money, Aunt Fanny. You see—”

      “I’m sure we can manage it,” she interrupted quickly. “There
      really isn’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 to tell you, and it’s especially an economy for
      you, because you’re always too generous about such things: they
      don’t allow any tipping. They have signs that prohibit it.”

      “That’s good,” he said grimly. “But the rent is thirty-six
      dollars a month; the dinner is twenty-two and a half for each of
      us, and we’ve got to have some provision for other food. We won’t
      need any clothes for a year, perhaps—”

      “Oh, longer!” she exclaimed. “So you see—”

      “I see that forty-five and thirty-six make eighty-one,” he said.
      “At the lowest, we need a hundred dollars a month—and I’m going
      to make thirty-two.”

      “I thought of that, George,” she said confidently, “and I’m sure
      it will be 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,
      and that will be two years at the earliest.”

      Fanny’s confidence was not shaken. “I know you’ll be getting on
      faster than—”

      “Faster?” George echoed gravely. “We’ve got to have more than
      that to start with.”

      “Well, there’s the six hundred dollars from the sale. Six hundred
      and twelve dollars it was.”

      “It isn’t six hundred and twelve now,” said George. “It’s about
      one hundred and sixty.”

      Fanny showed a momentary dismay. “Why, how—”

      “I lent Uncle George two hundred; I gave fifty apiece to old Sam
      and those two other old darkies that worked for grandfather so
      long, and ten to each of the servants here—”

      “And you gave me thirty-six,” she said thoughtfully, “for the
      first month’s rent, in advance.”

      “Did I? I’d forgotten. Well, with about a hundred and sixty in
      bank and our 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 in
      advance, and it does seem to be the most practical—”

      George rose. “See here, Aunt Fanny,” he said decisively. “You
      stay here and 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-topped desk, was surprised when his prospective assistant
      and pupil walked in. He was pleased, as well as surprised,
      however, and rose, offering a cordial old hand. “The real flare!”
      he said. “The real flare for the law. That’s right! Couldn’t wait
      till afternoon to begin! I’m delighted that 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 deliver it. First of all, your grandfather was my old
      war-comrade and my best client; for years I prospered through my
      connection with his business, and his grandson is welcome in my
      office and to my best efforts in his behalf. But I want to
      confess, Georgie, that during your earlier youth I may have had
      some slight feeling of—well, prejudice, not altogether in your
      favour; but whatever slight feeling it was, it began to vanish on
      that afternoon, a good while ago, when you stood up to your Aunt
      Amelia Amberson as you did in the Major’s library, and talked to
      her as a man and a gentleman should. I saw then what good stuff
      was in you—and I always wanted to mention it. If my prejudice
      hadn’t altogether vanished after that, the last vestiges
      disappeared during these trying times that have come upon you
      this past year, when I have been a witness to the depth of
      feeling you’ve shown and your quiet consideration for your
      grandfather and for everyone else around you. I just want to add
      that I think you’ll find an honest pleasure now in industry and
      frugality that wouldn’t have come to you in a more frivolous
      career. The law is a jealous mistress and a stern mistress, but
      a—”

      George had stood before him in great and increasing
      embarrassment; and he 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. I can’t—”

      Old Frank got a little red. “Let’s sit down,” he said. “What’s
      the trouble?”

      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’s got some old cronies there, and I guess she’s been looking
      forward to the games of bridge and the kind of harmless gossip
      that goes on in such places. Really, it’s a life she’d like
      better than anything else—better than that she’s lived at home, I
      really believe. It struck me she’s just about got to have it, and
      after all she could hardly have anything less.”

      “This comes pretty heavily upon me, you know,” said old Frank. “I
      got her into that headlight company, and she fooled me about her
      resources as 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 some other lawyer arranged it—probably your
      father’s. But it comes pretty heavily 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
      is morally called upon to give up a career at the law to provide
      his aunt with a favourable opportunity to play bridge whist!”

      “No,” George agreed. “But I haven’t begun my ‘career at the law’
      so it can’t be said I’m making any considerable sacrifice. I’ll
      tell you how it is, sir.” He flushed, and, looking out of the
      streaked and smoky window beside which he was sitting, spoke with
      difficulty. “I feel as if—as if perhaps I had one or two pretty
      important things in my life to make up for. Well, I can’t. I
      can’t make them up to—to whom I would. It’s struck me that, as I
      couldn’t, I might be a little decent to somebody else, perhaps—if
      I could manage it! I never have been particularly decent to poor
      old Aunt Fanny.”

      “Oh, I don’t know: I shouldn’t say that. A little youthful
      teasing—I doubt if she’s minded so much. She felt your father’s
      death terrifically, of course, but it seems to me she’s had a
      fairly comfortable 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—and you see I can’t wait two years to be admitted to the bar
      and begin to practice. I’ve got to start in at something else
      that pays from the start, 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
      of anything 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. “I suppose I’m about as ignorant of business as
      anybody in the world,” he said. “But I’ve heard they pay very
      high wages to people in dangerous trades; I’ve always heard they
      did, and I’m sure it must be true. I mean people that handle
      touchy chemicals or high explosives—men in dynamite factories, 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
      something more about it, or else introduce me to someone who
      could, and then I thought I’d see if I couldn’t get something of
      the kind to do as soon as possible. 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 world that 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
      sharply incredulous; then it was grave; finally it developed into
      a threat of overwhelming laughter; a forked vein in his forehead
      became more visible and his eyes seemed about to protrude.

      But he controlled his impulse; and, rising, took up his hat and
      overcoat. “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 he said, but amazed that he did mean it, he added:
      “You certainly are the most 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; after that he would get twenty-eight. This settled the
      apartment question, and Fanny was presently established in a
      greater contentment than she had known for a long time. Early
      every morning she made something she called (and believed to be)
      coffee for George, and he was gallant enough not to undeceive
      her. She lunched alone in her “kitchenette,” for George’s place
      of employment was ten miles out of town on an interurban
      trolley-line, and he seldom returned before seven. Fanny found
      partners for bridge by two o’clock almost every afternoon, and
      she played until about six. Then she got George’s “dinner
      clothes” out for him—he maintained this habit—and she changed her
      own dress. When he arrived he usually denied that he was tired,
      though he sometimes looked tired, particularly during the first
      few months; and he explained to her frequently—looking bored
      enough with her insistence—that his work was “fairly light, and
      fairly congenial, too.” Fanny had the foggiest idea of what it
      was, though she noticed that it roughened his hands and stained
      them. “Something in those new chemical works,” she explained to
      casual inquirers. It was not more definite in her own mind.

      Respect for George undoubtedly increased within her, however, and
      she told him she’d always had a feeling he might “turn out to be
      a mechanical genius, or something.” George assented with a nod,
      as the easiest course open to him. He did not take a hand at
      bridge after dinner: his provisions for Fanny’s happiness refused
      to extend that far, and at the table d’hote he was a rather
      discouraging boarder. He was considered “affected” and absurdly
      “up-stage” by the one or two young men, and the three or four
      young women, who enlivened the elderly retreat; and was possibly
      less popular there than he had been elsewhere during his life,
      though he was now nothing worse than a coldly polite young man
      who kept to himself. After dinner he would escort his aunt from
      the table in some state (not wholly unaccompanied by a leerish
      wink or two from the wags of the place) and he would leave her at
      the door of the communal parlours and card rooms, with a
      formality in his bow of farewell which afforded an amusing
      contrast to Fanny’s always voluble protests. (She never failed to
      urge loudly that he really must come and play, just this once,
      and not go hiding from everybody in his room every evening like
      this!) At least some of the other inhabitants found the contrast
      amusing, for sometimes, as he departed stiffly toward the
      elevator, leaving her still entreating in the doorway (though
      with one eye already on her table, to see that it was not seized)
      a titter would follow him which he was no doubt meant to hear. He
      did not care whether they laughed or not.

      And once, as he passed the one or two young men of the place
      entertaining the three or four young women, who were elbowing and
      jerking on a settee in the lobby, he heard a voice inquiring
      quickly, as he passed:

      “What makes people tired?”

      “Work?”

      “No.”

      “Well, what’s the answer?”

      Then, with an intentional outbreak of mirth, the answer was given
      by two loudly whispering voices together:

      “A stuck-up boarder!”

      George didn’t care.

      On Sunday mornings Fanny went to church and George took long
      walks. He explored the new city, and found it hideous, especially
      in the early spring, before the leaves of the shade trees were
      out. Then the town was fagged with the long winter and blacked
      with the heavier smoke that had been held close to the earth by
      the smoke-fog it bred. Every-thing was damply streaked with the
      soot: the walls of the houses, inside and out, the gray curtains
      at the windows, the windows themselves, the dirty cement and
      unswept asphalt underfoot, the very sky overhead. Throughout this
      murky season he continued his explorations, never seeing a face
      he knew—for, on Sunday, those whom he remembered, or who might
      remember him, were not apt to be found within the limits of the
      town, but were congenially occupied with the new outdoor life
      which had come to be the mode since his boyhood. He and Fanny
      were pretty thoroughly buried away within 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 a perfection of miserableness, as he stood before
      the great dripping department store which now occupied the big
      plot of ground where once had stood both the Amberson Hotel and
      the Amberson Opera House. From there he drifted to the old
      “Amberson Block,” but this was fallen into a back-water; business
      had stagnated here. The old structure had not been replaced, but
      a cavernous entryway for trucks had been torn in its front, and
      upon the cornice, where the old separate metal letters had spelt
      “Amberson Block,” there was a long billboard sign: “Doogan
      Storage.”

      To spare himself nothing, he went out National Avenue and saw the
      piles of slush-covered wreckage where the Mansion and his
      mother’s house had been, and where the Major’s ill-fated five
      “new” houses had stood; for these were down, too, to make room
      for the great tenement already shaped in unending lines of
      foundation. But the Fountain of Neptune was gone at last—and
      George was glad that it was!

      He turned away from the devastated site, thinking bitterly that
      the only Amberson mark still left upon the town was the name of
      the boulevard—Amberson Boulevard. But he had reckoned without the
      city council of the new order, and by an unpleasant coincidence,
      while the thought was still in his mind, his eye fell upon a
      metal oblong sign upon the lamppost at the corner. There were two
      of these little signs upon the lamp-post, at an obtuse angle to
      each other, one to give passers-by the name of National Avenue,
      the other to acquaint them with Amberson 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 to the next corner and looked at the little sign there.
      “Tenth Street.”

      It had begun to rain, but George stood unheeding, staring at the
      little sign. “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 his mind. A week earlier he had happened to stroll into the
      large parlour of the apartment house, finding it empty, and on
      the center table he noticed a large, red-bound, gilt-edged book,
      newly printed, bearing the title: “A Civic History,” and beneath
      the title, the rubric, “Biographies of the 500 Most Prominent
      Citizens and Families in the History of the City.” He had glanced
      at it absently, merely noticing the title and sub-title, and
      wandered out of the room, thinking of other things and feeling no
      curiosity about the book. But he had thought of it several times
      since with a faint, vague uneasiness; and now when he entered the
      lobby he walked directly into the parlour where he had seen the
      book. The room was empty, as it always was on Sunday mornings,
      and the flamboyant volume was still upon the table—evidently a
      fixture as a sort of local Almanach de Gotha, or Burke, for the
      enlightenment of tenants and boarders.

      He opened it, finding a few painful steel engravings of placid,
      chin-bearded faces, some of which he remembered dimly; but much
      more numerous, and also more unfamiliar to him, were the pictures
      of neat, aggressive men, with clipped short hair and clipped
      short moustaches—almost all of them strangers to him. He delayed
      not long with these, but turned to the index where the names of
      the five hundred Most Prominent Citizens and Families in the
      History of the City were arranged in alphabetical order, and ran
      his finger down the column of A’s:

      Abbett Abbott Abrams Adam Adams Adler Akers Albertsmeyer
      Alexander Allen Ambrose Ambuhl Anderson Andrews Appenbasch Archer
      Arszman Ashcraft Austin Avey

      George’s eyes remained for some time fixed on the thin space
      between the names “Allen” and “Ambrose.” Then he closed the book
      quietly, and went up to his own room, agreeing with the elevator
      boy, on the way, that it was getting to be a mighty nasty wet and
      windy day outside.

      The elevator boy noticed nothing unusual about him and neither
      did Fanny, 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 the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of
      the town. They had thought of it, longed for it, hoping acutely
      that they might live to see the day when it would come to pass.
      And now it had happened at last: Georgie Minafer had got his
      come-upance.

      He had got it three times filled and running over. The city had
      rolled over his heart, burying it under, as it rolled over the
      Major’s and buried it under. The city had rolled over the
      Ambersons and buried them under to the last vestige; and it
      mattered little that George guessed easily enough that most of
      the five hundred Most Prominent had paid something substantial
      “to defray the cost of steel engraving, etc.”—the Five Hundred
      had heaved the final shovelful of soot upon that heap of
      obscurity wherein the Ambersons were lost forever from sight and
      history. “Quicksilver in a nest of cracks!”

      Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance, but the people who had
      so longed for it were not there to see it, and they never knew
      it. Those who 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 in his Sunday morning excursions. This was far out to
      the north where lay the new Elysian Fields of the millionaires,
      though he once went as far in that direction as the white house
      which Lucy had so admired long ago—her “Beautiful House.” George
      looked at it briefly and turned back, rumbling with an interior
      laugh of some grimness. The house was white no longer; nothing
      could be white which the town had reached, and the town reached
      far beyond the beautiful white house now. The owners had given up
      and painted it a despairing chocolate, suitable to the
      freight-yard life it was called upon to endure.

      George did not again risk going even so far as that, in the
      direction of the millionaires, although their settlement began at
      least two miles farther out. His thought of Lucy and her father
      was more a sensation than a thought, and may be compared to that
      of a convicted cashier beset by recollections of the bank he had
      pillaged—there are some thoughts to which one closes the mind.
      George had seen Eugene only once since their calamitous
      encounter. They had passed on opposite sides of the street,
      downtown; each had been aware of the other, and each had been
      aware that the other was aware of him, and yet each kept his eyes
      straight forward, and neither had shown a perceptible alteration
      of countenance. It seemed to George that he felt emanating from
      the outwardly imperturbable person of 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
      that Eugene 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 to speak to him of Eugene or Lucy. Nowadays Fanny
      almost never saw either of 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 thin and flatten out, as Fanny
      herself was thinning and flattening out; and she 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 whisperings
      of elderly ladies at corridor corners—those eager but suppressed
      conversations, all sibilance, of which the elevator boy declared
      he heard the words “she said” a million times and the word “she,”
      five million. The apartment house suited Fanny and swallowed her.

      The city was so big, now, that people disappeared into it
      unnoticed, and the disappearance of Fanny and her nephew was not
      exceptional. People no longer knew their neighbours as a matter
      of course; one lived for years next door to strangers—that
      sharpest of all the changes since the old days—and a friend would
      lose sight of a friend for a year, and not know it.

      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. A promotion 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 he had the strange experience. He had
      walked home from the station, and as he turned the corner which
      brought him in sight of the apartment house entrance, though two
      blocks distant from it, he saw a charming little figure come out,
      get into a shiny landaulet automobile, and drive away. Even at
      that distance no one could have any doubt that the little figure
      was charming; and the height, the quickness and decision of
      motion, even the swift gesture of a white glove toward the
      chauffeur—all were characteristic of Lucy. George was instantly
      subjected to a shock of indefinable nature, yet definitely a
      shock: he did not know what he felt—but he knew that he felt.
      Heat surged over him: probably he would not have come face to
      face with her if the restoration of all the ancient Amberson
      magnificence could have been his reward. He went on slowly, his
      knees shaky.

      But he found Fanny not at home; she had been out all afternoon;
      and there was no record of any caller—and he began to wonder,
      then to doubt if the small lady he had seen in the distance was
      Lucy. It might as well have been, he said to himself—since any
      one who looked like her could give 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 own mind. 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 by herself—an oddity contrived between
      the two ladies without either of them realizing how odd it was.
      For, naturally, while Fanny was with Lucy, Fanny thought of
      George, and what time Lucy had George’s aunt before her eyes she
      could not well avoid the thought of him. Consequently, both
      looked absent-minded as they talked, and each often gave 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. Her life was a busy one: she had the big house “to
      keep up”; she had a garden to keep up, too, a large and beautiful
      garden; she represented her father as a director for half a dozen
      public charity organizations, and did private charity work of her
      own, being a proxy mother of several large families; and she had
      “danced down,” as she said, groups from eight or nine classes of
      new graduates returned from the universities, without marrying
      any of them, but she still danced—and still did not marry.

      Her father, observing this circumstance happily, yet with some
      hypocritical concern, spoke of it to her one day as they stood in
      her garden. “I suppose I’d want to shoot him,” he said, with
      attempted lightness. “But I mustn’t be an old pig. I’d build you
      a beautiful house close by—just over yonder.”

      “No, no! That would be like—” she began impulsively; then checked
      herself. George Amberson’s comparison of the Georgian house to
      the Amberson Mansion had come into her mind, and she thought that
      another new house, built close by for her, would be like the
      house the Major built for Isabel.

      “Like what?”

      “Nothing.” She looked serious, and when he reverted to his idea
      of “some day” grudgingly surrendering her up to a suitor, she
      invented a legend. “Did you ever hear the Indian name for that
      little grove of beech trees on 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—getting ready for my bookish days when I’ll have to do
      something solid in the evenings and won’t be asked to dance any
      more, even by the very youngest boys 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
      grove before the white settlers came. He was the worst Indian
      that ever 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
      then fixed his eyes upon the end of the garden path. “Go on.”

      “Vendonah was an unspeakable case,” Lucy continued. “He was so
      proud that 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 decided that it wasn’t a good enough excuse for him
      that he was young and inexperienced—he’d have to go. They took
      him down to the river, and put him in a canoe, and pushed him out
      from shore; and then they ran along the bank and wouldn’t let him
      land, until at last the current carried the canoe out into the
      middle, and then on down to the ocean, and he never got back.
      They didn’t want him back, of course, and if he’d been able to
      manage it, they’d have put him in another canoe and shoved him
      out into the river again. But still, they didn’t elect another
      chief in his place. Other tribes thought that was curious, and
      wondered about it a lot, but finally they came to the conclusion
      that the beech grove people 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 real reason was that the tribe
      had led such an exciting life under Vendonah that they couldn’t
      settle down to anything tamer. He was awful, but he always kept
      things happening—terrible things, of course. They hated him, but
      they weren’t able to discover any other warrior that they wanted
      to make chief in his place. I suppose it was a little like
      drinking a glass of too strong wine and then trying to take the
      taste out of your mouth with barley water. They couldn’t help
      feeling that way.”

      “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 paths between your flower-beds, and growing to
      look like a pensive garden lady in a Victorian engraving.”

      “I suppose I’m like the tribe that lived here, papa. I had too
      much unpleasant excitement. It was unpleasant—but it was
      excitement. I don’t want any more; in fact, I don’t want anything
      but you.”

      “You don’t?” He looked at her keenly, and she laughed and shook
      her head; but he seemed perplexed, rather doubtful. “What was the
      name of the 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.
      “Perhaps you 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
      the house, leaving her bending over a rose-bush, and a shade more
      pensive than 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
      conversation between Eugene and his old friend Kinney, father of
      the fire-topped Fred. The two gentlemen found themselves smoking
      in neighbouring leather chairs beside a broad window at the club,
      after lunch.

      Mr. Kinney had remarked that he expected to get his family
      established at the seashore by the Fourth of July, and, following
      a train of thought, 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 the
      crispness of the utterance.

      “Well, sir,” Kinney chuckled again, “it beats the devil! My boy
      Fred told me about it yesterday. He’s a friend of this young
      Henry Akers, son of F. P. Akers of the Akers Chemical Company. It
      seems this young Akers asked Fred if he knew a fellow named
      Minafer, because he knew Fred had always lived here, and young
      Akers had heard some way that Minafer used to be an old family
      name here, and was sort of curious about it. Well, sir, you
      remember this young Georgie sort of disappeared, after his
      grandfather’s death, and nobody seemed to know much what had
      become of him—though I did hear, once or twice, that he was still
      around somewhere. Well, sir, he’s working for the Akers Chemical
      Company, out at their plant on the Thomasvile Road.”

      He paused, seeming to reserve something to be delivered only upon
      inquiry, and Eugene offered him the expected question, but only
      after a cold glance through the nose-glasses he had lately found
      it necessary to adopt. “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, a little 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 like a houn’-dog ever since he got started out at the
      works. They have a 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 carry it on the
      railroads, you know—have to team it. Young Akers says George
      rides around over the bumpy roads, sitting on as much as three
      hundred quarts of nitroglycerin! My Lord! Talk about romantic
      tumbles! If he gets blown sky-high some day he won’t have a
      bigger drop, when he comes down, than he’s already had! Don’t it
      beat the devil! Young Akers said he’s got all the nerve there is
      in the world. Well, he always did have plenty of that—from the
      time he used to ride around here on his white pony and fight all
      the Irish boys in Can-Town, with his long curls all handy to be
      pulled out. Akers says he gets a fair salary, and I should think
      he ought to! Seems to me I’ve heard the average life in that sort
      of work is somewhere around four years, and agents don’t write
      any insurance 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, I
      mean—and I suppose it would be pass-around-the-hat for old Fanny
      Minafer if he blew up. Fred told me that they’re living in some
      apartment house, and said Georgie supports her. He was going to
      study law, but couldn’t earn enough that way to take care of
      Fanny, so he gave it up. Fred’s wife told him all this. Says
      Fanny doesn’t do anything but play bridge these days. Got to
      playing too high for awhile and lost more than she wanted to tell
      Georgie about, and borrowed a little from old Frank Bronson. Paid
      him back, though. Don’t know how Fred’s wife heard it. Women do
      hear the darndest things!”

      “They do,” Eugene agreed.

      “I thought you’d probably heard about it—thought most likely
      Fred’s wife might have said something to your daughter,
      especially as they’re cousins.”

      “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 the poorhouse if he does blow up. From all I hear it’s
      usually only a question 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’t thought of finding something around your works for him.
      They say he’s an all-fired worker and he certainly does seem to
      have hid some decent stuff in him under all his damfoolishness.
      And you used to be such a tremendous friend of the family—I
      thought perhaps you—of course I know he’s a queer lot—I know—”

      “Yes, I think he is,” said Eugene. “No. I haven’t anything to
      offer him.”

      “I suppose not,” Kinney returned thoughtfully, as he went out. “I
      don’t know that I would myself. Well, we’ll probably see his name
      in the papers some day if he stays with that job!”

      However, the nitroglycerin expert of whom they spoke did not get
      into the papers as a consequence of being blown up, although his
      daily life was certainly a continuous exposure to that risk.
      Destiny has a constant passion for the incongruous, and it was
      George’s lot to manipulate wholesale quantities of terrific and
      volatile explosives in safety, and to be laid low by an accident
      so commonplace and inconsequent that it was a comedy. Fate had
      reserved for him the final insult of riding him down under the
      wheels of one of those juggernauts at which he had once shouted
      “Git a hoss!” Nevertheless, Fate’s ironic choice for Georgie’s
      undoing was not a big and swift and momentous car, such as Eugene
      manufactured; it was a specimen of the hustling little type that
      was flooding the country, the cheapest, commonest, hardiest
      little car ever made.

      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 a thing to happen. He had gone out for his Sunday
      morning walk, and he was thinking of an automobile at the very
      moment when the little car struck him; he was thinking of a shiny
      landaulet and a charming figure stepping into 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 he
      could not imagine anybody’s shouting at him, and he was too
      engrossed in the question “Was it Lucy?” He could not decide, and
      his lack of decision in this matter probably superinduced a lack
      of decision in another, more pressingly vital. At the second and
      louder shout he did look up; and the car was almost on him; but
      he could not make up his mind if the charming little figure he
      had seen was Lucy’s and he could not make up his mind whether to
      go backward or forward: these questions became entangled in his
      mind. Then, still not being able to decide which of 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 and
      concussion; of choking clouds of dust, shot with lightning, about
      his head; he heard snapping sounds as loud as shots from a small
      pistol, and was stabbed by excruciating pains in his legs. Then
      he became aware that the machine was being lifted off of him.
      People were gathering in a circle round him, gabbling.

      His forehead was bedewed with the sweat of anguish, and he tried
      to wipe off this dampness, but failed. He could not get his arm
      that far.

      “Nev’ mind,” a policeman said; and George could see above his
      eyes the skirts of the blue coat, covered with dust and sunshine.
      “Amb’lance be here in a minute. Nev’ mind tryin’ to move any. You
      want ’em to send for some 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,
      explaining and protesting, and a strident voiced girl, his
      companion, supported his argument, declaring to everyone her
      willingness to offer testimony in any 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
      on George. “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’d never think it—but I guess they ain’t much case
      ag’in this fella that was drivin’ it.”

      “You bet your life they ain’t no case on me!” the young man in
      the duster agreed, with great bitterness. He came and stood at
      George’s feet, addressing him heatedly: “I’m sorry fer you all
      right, and I don’t say I ain’t. I hold nothin’ against you, but
      it wasn’t any more my fault than the statehouse! You run into me,
      much as I run into you, and if you get well you ain’t goin’ to
      get not one single cent out o’ me! This lady here was settin’
      with me and we both yelled at you. Wasn’t goin’ a step over eight
      mile an hour! I’m perfectly willing to say I’m sorry for you
      though, 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
      fleetingly upon the two protesting motorists, and the old
      imperious spirit within him flickered up in a single word. Lying
      on his back in the middle of the street, where he was regarded by
      an increasing public as an unpleasant curiosity, he spoke this
      word clearly from a mouth filled with dust, and from lips smeared
      with blood.

      It was a word which interested the policeman. When the ambulance
      clanged away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him.
      “Funny what he says to the little cuss that done the damage.
      That’s all he did call him—nothin’ else at all—and the cuss had
      broke both his legs fer him and 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
      with Kinney in the club window, though he was somewhat disturbed.
      He was not disturbed by Kinney’s hint that Fanny Minafer might be
      left on the hands of her friends through her nephew’s present
      dealings with nitroglycerin, but he was surprised that Kinney had
      “led up” with intentional tact to the suggestion that a position
      might be made for George in the Morgan factory. Eugene did not
      care to have any suggestions about Georgie Minafer made to him.
      Kinney had represented Georgie as a new Georgie—at least in
      spots—a Georgie who was proving that decent stuff had been hid in
      him; in fact, a Georgie who was doing rather a handsome thing in
      taking a risky job for the sake of his aunt, poor old silly Fanny
      Minafer! Eugene didn’t care what risks Georgie took, or how much
      decent stuff he had in him: nothing that Georgie would ever do in
      this world or the next could change Eugene Morgan’s feeling
      toward him.

      If Eugene could possibly have brought himself to offer Georgie a
      position in the automobile business, he knew full well the proud
      devil wouldn’t have taken it from him; though Georgie’s proud
      reason would not have been the one attributed to him by Eugene.
      George would never reach the point where he could accept anything
      material from Eugene and preserve the self-respect he had begun
      to regain.

      But if Eugene had wished, he could easily have taken George out
      of the nitroglycerin branch of the chemical works. Always
      interested in apparent impossibilities of invention, Eugene had
      encouraged many experiments in such gropings as those for the
      discovery of substitutes for gasoline and rubber; and, though his
      mood had withheld the information from Kinney, he had recently
      bought from the elder Akers a substantial quantity of stock on
      the condition that the chemical company should establish an
      experimental laboratory. He intended to buy more; Akers was
      anxious to please him; and a word from Eugene would have placed
      George almost anywhere in the chemical works. George need never
      have known it, for Eugene’s purchases of stock were always quiet
      ones: the transaction remained, so far, between him and Akers,
      and could be kept between them.

      The possibility just edged itself into Eugene’s mind; that is, he
      let it become part of his perceptions long enough for it to prove
      to him that it was actually a possibility. Then he half started
      with disgust that he should be even idly considering such a thing
      over his last cigar for the night, in his library. “No!” And he
      threw the cigar into the empty fireplace and went to bed.

      His bitterness for himself might have worn away, but never his
      bitterness for Isabel. He took that thought to bed with him—and
      it was true that nothing George could do would ever change this
      bitterness of Eugene. 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 of ether” with no great nausea, and had fallen into a
      reverie, though now and then a white sailboat staggered foolishly
      into the small ward where he lay. After a time he discovered that
      this happened only when he tried to open his eyes and look about
      him; so he kept his eyes shut, and his thoughts were clearer.

      He thought of Eugene Morgan and of the Major; they seemed to be
      the same person for awhile, but he managed to disentangle them
      and even to understand why he had confused them. Long ago his
      grandfather had been the most striking figure of success in the
      town: “As rich as Major Amberson!” they used to say. Now it was
      Eugene. “If I had Eugene Morgan’s money,” he would hear the
      workmen day-dreaming at the chemical works; or, “If Eugene Morgan
      had hold of this place you’d see things hum!” 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 Amberson
      Mansion. His reverie went back to the palatial days of the
      Mansion, in his boyhood, when he would gallop his pony up the
      driveway and order the darkey stable-men about, while they
      whooped and obeyed, and his grandfather, observing from a window,
      would laugh and call out to him, “That’s right, Georgie. Make
      those lazy rascals jump!” He remembered his gay young uncles, and
      how the town was eager concerning everything about them, and
      about himself. What a clean, pretty town it had been! And in his
      reverie he saw like a pageant before him the magnificence of the
      Ambersons—its passing, and the passing of the Ambersons
      themselves. They had been slowly engulfed without knowing how to
      prevent it, and almost without knowing what was happening to
      them. The family lot, in the shabby older quarter, out at the
      cemetery, held most of them now; and the name was swept
      altogether from the new city. But the new great people who had
      taken their places—the Morgans and Akerses and Sheridans—they
      would go, too. George saw that. They would pass, as the Ambersons
      had passed, and though some of them might do better than the
      Major and leave the letters that spelled a name on a hospital or
      a street, it would be only a word and it would not stay forever.
      Nothing stays or holds or keeps where there is growth, he somehow
      perceived vaguely but truly. Great Caesar dead and turned to clay
      stopped no hole to keep the wind away. Dead Caesar was nothing
      but a tiresome bit of print in a book that schoolboys study for
      awhile and then forget. The Ambersons had passed, and the new
      people would pass, and the new people that came after them, and
      then the next new ones, and the next—and the next—

      He had begun to murmur, and the man on duty as night nurse for
      the ward came and bent over him.

      “Did you want something?”

      “There’s nothing in this family business,” George told him
      confidentially. “Even George Washington is only something in a
      book.”

      Eugene read a report of the accident in the next morning’s paper.
      He was on the train, having just left for New York, on business,
      and with less leisure would probably have overlooked the obscure
      item:

      LEGS BROKEN

      G. A. Minafer, an employee of the Akers Chemical Co., was run
      down by an automobile yesterday at the corner of Tennessee and
      Main and had both legs broken. Minafer was to blame for the
      accident according to patrolman F. A. Kax, who witnessed the
      affair. The automobile was a small one driven by Herbert
      Cottleman of 9173 Noble Avenue who stated that he was making less
      than 4 miles an hour. Minafer is said to belong to a family
      formerly of considerable prominence in the city. He was taken to
      the City Hospital where physicians stated later that he was
      suffering from internal injuries besides the fracture of his legs
      but might recover.

      Eugene read the item twice, then tossed the paper upon the
      opposite seat of his compartment, and sat looking out of the
      window. His feeling toward Georgie was changed not a jot by his
      human pity for Georgie’s human pain and injury. He thought of
      Georgie’s tall and graceful figure, and he shivered, but his
      bitterness was untouched. He had never blamed Isabel for the
      weakness which had cost them the few years of happiness they
      might have had together; he had put the blame all on the son, and
      it 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 on the other side of the glass, looking
      in at him—and then he thought of her as the pale figure of a
      woman, seen yet unseen, flying through the air, beside the train,
      over the fields of springtime green and through the woods that
      were just sprouting out their little leaves. He closed his 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 he came to town, a boy just out of the State College. He
      remembered—as he had remembered ten thousand times before—the
      look she gave him when her brother George introduced him to her
      at a picnic; it was “like hazel starlight” he had written her, in
      a poem, afterward. He remembered his first call at the Amberson
      Mansion, and what a great personage she seemed, at home in that
      magnificence; and yet so gay and friendly. He remembered the
      first time he had danced with her—and the old waltz song began to
      beat in his ears and in his heart. They laughed and sang it
      together as they danced to it:

      “Oh, love for a year, a week, a day, But alas for the love that
      lasts always—”

      Most plainly of all he could see her dancing; and he became
      articulate in the mourning whisper: “So graceful—oh, so
      graceful—”

      All the way to New York it seemed to him that Isabel was near
      him, and he wrote of her to Lucy from his hotel the next night:

      I saw an account of the accident to George Minafer. I’m sorry,
      though the paper states that it was plainly his own fault. I
      suppose it may have been as a result of my attention falling upon
      the item that I thought of his mother a great deal on the way
      here. It seemed to me that I 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
      from Lucy written a few hours after his departure from home. She
      enclosed the item 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 his mother 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 odd thing he did that day. Nothing could have been more
      natural than that both he and Lucy should have thought intently
      of Isabel after reading the account of George’s accident, but the
      fact that Lucy’s letter had crossed his own made Eugene begin to
      wonder if a phenomenon of telepathy might not be in question,
      rather than a chance coincidence. The reference to Isabel in the
      two letters was almost identical: he and Lucy, it appeared, had
      been thinking of Isabel at the same time—both said “constantly”
      thinking of her—and neither had ever “seen her more distinctly.”
      He remembered these phrases in his own letter accurately.

      Reflection upon the circumstance stirred a queer spot in Eugene’s
      brain—he had one. He was an adventurer; if he had lived in the
      sixteenth century he would have sailed the unknown new seas, but
      having been born in the latter part of the nineteenth, when
      geography was a fairly well-settled matter, he had become an
      explorer in mechanics. But the fact that he was a “hard-headed
      business man” as well as an adventurer did not keep him from
      having a queer spot in his brain, because hard-headed business
      men are as susceptible to such spots as adventurers are. Some of
      them are secretly troubled when they do not see the new moon over
      the lucky shoulder; some of them have strange, secret
      incredulities—they do not believe in geology, for instance; and
      some of them think they have had supernatural experiences. “Of
      course there was nothing in it—still it was queer!” they say.

      Two weeks after Isabel’s death, Eugene had come to New York on
      urgent business and found that the delayed arrival of a steamer
      gave him a day with nothing to do. His room at the hotel had
      become intolerable; outdoors was intolerable; everything was
      intolerable. It seemed to him that he must see Isabel once more,
      hear her voice once more; that he must find some way to her, or
      lose his mind. Under this pressure he had gone, with complete
      scepticism, to a “trance-medium” of whom he had heard wild
      accounts from the wife of a business acquaintance. He thought
      despairingly that at least such an excursion would be “trying to
      do something!” He remembered the woman’s name; found it in the
      telephone book, and made an appointment.

      The experience had been grotesque, and he came away with an
      encouraging message from his father, who had failed to identify
      himself satisfactorily, but declared that everything was “on a
      higher plane” in his present state of being, and that all life
      was “continuous and progressive.” Mrs. Horner spoke of herself as
      a “psychic”; but otherwise she seemed oddly unpretentious and
      matter-of-fact; and Eugene had no doubt at all of her sincerity.
      He was sure that she was not an intentional fraud, and though he
      departed in a state of annoyance with himself, he came to the
      conclusion that if any credulity were played upon by Mrs.
      Horner’s exhibitions, it was her own.

      Nevertheless, his queer spot having been stimulated to action by
      the coincidence of the letters, he went to Mrs. Horner’s after
      his directors’ meeting today. He used the telephone booth in the
      directors’ room to make the appointment; and he laughed feebly at
      himself, and wondered what the group of men in that mahogany
      apartment would think if they knew what he was doing. Mrs. Horner
      had changed her address, but he found the new one, and somebody
      purporting to be a niece of hers talked to him and made an
      appointment for a “sitting” at five o’clock. He was prompt, and
      the niece, a dull-faced fat girl with a magazine under her arm,
      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
      floor and no furniture except a table (with nothing on it) and
      two chairs: one a leather easy-chair and the other a stiff little
      brute with a wooden seat. There was one window with the shade
      pulled down to the sill, but the sun was bright outside, and the
      room had light enough.

      Mrs. Horner appeared in the doorway, a wan and unenterprising
      looking woman in brown, with thin hair artificially waved—but not
      recently—and parted in the middle over a bluish forehead. Her
      eyes were small and seemed weak, but she recognized the visitor.

      “Oh, you been here before,” she said, in a thin voice, not
      unmusical. “I recollect you. Quite a time ago, wa’n’t it?”

      “Yes, quite a long time.”

      “I recollect because I recollect you was disappointed. Anyway,
      you was kind of cross.” She laughed faintly.

      “I’m sorry if I seemed so,” Eugene said. “Do you happen to have
      found out my name?”

      She looked surprised and a little reproachful. “Why, no. I never
      try to find out people’s name. Why should I? I don’t claim
      anything for the power; I only know I have it—and some ways it
      ain’t always such a blessing, 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
      her back to the shaded window. “You better set down, too, I
      reckon. I hope you’ll get something this time so you won’t feel
      cross, but I dunno. I can’t never tell what they’ll do. Well—”

      She sighed, closed her eyes, and was silent, while Eugene, seated
      in the stiff chair across the table from her, watched her
      profile, thought himself an idiot, and called himself that and
      other names. And as the silence continued, and the impassive
      woman in the easy-chair remained impassive, he began to wonder
      what had led him to be such a fool. It became clear to him that
      the similarity of his letter and Lucy’s needed no explanation
      involving telepathy, and was not even an extraordinary
      coincidence. What, then, had brought him back to this absurd
      place and caused 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 slightest interest in Mrs. Horner’s naps—or in her
      teeth, which were being slightly revealed by the unconscious
      parting of her lips, as her breathing became heavier. If the
      vagaries of his own mind had brought him into such a grotesquerie
      as this, into what did the vagaries of other men’s minds take
      them? Confident that he was ordinarily saner than most people, he
      perceived that since he was capable of doing a thing like this,
      other men did even more idiotic things, in secret. And he had a
      fleeting vision of sober-looking bankers and manufacturers and
      lawyers, well-dressed church-going men, sound citizens—and all as
      queer as the deuce inside!

      How long was he going to sit here presiding over this unknown
      woman’s slumbers? It struck him that to make the picture complete
      he ought to be shooing 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 small chest heaved; she gasped, and the compressed lips
      relaxed to a slight contortion, then began to move, whispering
      and bringing forth indistinguishable 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
      from Mrs. Horner’s lips—but with such conviction that Eugene, in
      spite of everything, began to feel himself in the presence of a
      third party, who was none the less an individual, even though she
      might be another edition 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 was
      incongruously added a low laugh. “You came here once before. Lopa
      remembers.”

      “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 your grandfather—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
      wants to speak to you. See here. Lady. Not his wife, though. No.
      Very fine lady! Fine lady, fine lady!”

      “Is it my sister?” Eugene asked.

      “Sister? No. She is shaking her head. She has pretty brown hair.
      She is fond of you. She is someone who knows you very well but
      she is not your sister. She is very anxious to say something to
      you—very anxious. Very fond 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 to
      get—always very hard for Lopa. Name. She wants to tell me her
      name to tell you. She wants you to understand names are hard to
      make. She says you must think of something that makes a sound.”
      Here the voice seemed to put a question to an invisible presence
      and to receive an answer. “A little sound or a big sound? She
      says it might be a little sound or a big 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
      must think of a colour. What colour?” Again Lopa addressed the
      unknown, but this 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
      see through it.”

      “Amber?” he said, and was startled, for Mrs. Horner, with her
      eyes still closed, 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. She is 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 it
      lasted, he believed that Isabel Amberson, who was dead, had found
      means to speak to him. Though within ten minutes he doubted it,
      he believed it then.

      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
      great trouble! 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 be kind.”

      “Does she—”

      “She wants you to be kind,” said the voice. “She nods when I tell
      you this. 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
      any one else, I tell you!” he cried passionately. “If she is
      there I—” He caught his breath sharply, checked himself, and sat
      in amazement. Could his mind so easily accept so stupendous a
      thing as true? Evidently it could!

      Mrs. Horner spoke languidly in her own voice: “Did you get
      anything satisfactory?” she asked. “I certainly hope it wasn’t
      like that other time 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.
      Never did he so seem to move through a world of dream-stuff: for
      he knew that he was not more credulous than other men, and, if he
      could believe what he had believed, though he had believed it for
      no longer than a moment or two, what hold had he or any other
      human being on reality?

      His credulity vanished (or so he thought) with his recollection
      that it was he, and not the alleged “Lopa,” who had suggested the
      word “amber.” Going over the mortifying, plain facts of his
      experience, he found that Mrs. Horner, or the subdivision of Mrs.
      Horner known as “Lopa,” had told him to think of a bell and of a
      colour, and that being furnished with these scientific data, he
      had leaped to the conclusion that he spoke with Isabel Amberson!

      For a moment he had believed that Isabel was there, believed that
      she was close to him, entreating him—entreating him “to be kind.”
      But with this recollection a strange agitation came upon him.
      After all, had she not spoken to him? If his own unknown
      consciousness had told the “psychic’s” unknown consciousness how
      to make the picture of the pretty brown-haired, brown-eyed lady,
      hadn’t the picture been a true one? And hadn’t the true
      Isabel—oh, indeed her very soul!—called to him out of his own
      true memory of her?

      And as the train roared through the darkened evening he looked
      out beyond his window, and saw her as he had seen her on his
      journey, a few days ago—an ethereal figure flying beside the
      train, but now it seemed to him that she kept her face toward his
      window with an infinite wistfulness.

      “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 that question! “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
      passed through, whispering, “That’s Morgan.”

      Outside, the neat chauffeur stood at the door of the touring-car
      like a soldier in whip-cord.

      “I’ll not go home now, Harry,” said Eugene, when he had got in.
      “Drive to the City Hospital.”

      “Yes, sir,” the man returned. “Miss Lucy’s there. She said she
      expected you’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
      moved his lever into high speed, and the car went through the
      heavy traffic like some fast, faithful beast that knew its way
      about, and knew its master’s need of haste. Eugene did not speak
      again until they reached the 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 the pillow, almost it seemed the eyes of Isabel herself were
      looking at him: never before had the resemblance between mother
      and son been so strong—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 the coverlet. “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
      her father, 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
      had been true at last to his true love, and that through him she
      had brought her boy under shelter again. Her eyes would look
      wistful no more.

      The End




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