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.