The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington (top novels of all time TXT) 📗

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, without 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.”

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 tonight 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