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

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 hardhearted 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,