The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington [best android ereader .TXT] 📗

‘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 redheaded 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 redheaded 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