The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington [35]
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 their 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 sombreness deepened. “I suppose you don’t know why father doesn’t want to go to-night,” 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