Magnificent Ambersons, The - Booth Tarkington [75]
"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