The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington [41]
Well, a letter is no place for deep discussions, so I will not go into the subject. From several letters from my mother, and one from Aunt Fanny, I hear you are seeing a good deal of the family since I left. I hope sometimes you think of the member who is absent. I got a silver frame for your photograph in New York, and I keep it on my desk. It is the only girl’s photograph I ever took the trouble to have framed, though, as I told you frankly, I have had any number of other girls’ photographs, yet all were only passing fancies, and oftentimes I have questioned in years past if I was capable of much friendship toward the feminine sex, which I usually found shallow until our own friendship began. When I look at your photograph, I say to myself, “At last, at last here is one that will not prove shallow.”
My faithful briar has gone out. I will have to rise and fill it, then once more in the fragrance of My Lady Nicotine, I will sit and dream the old dreams over, and think, too, of the true friend at home awaiting my return in June for the summer vacation.
Friend, this is from your friend,
G.A.M.
George’s anticipations were not disappointed. When he came home in June his friend was awaiting him; at least, she was so pleased to see him again that for a few minutes after their first encounter she was a little breathless, and a great deal glowing, and quiet withal. Their sentimental friendship continued, though sometimes he was irritated by her making it less sentimental than he did, and sometimes by what he called her “air of superiority.” Her air was usually, in truth, that of a fond but amused older sister; and George did not believe such an attitude was warranted by her eight months of seniority.
Lucy and her father were living at the Amberson Hotel, while Morgan got his small machine-shops built in a western outskirt of the town; and George grumbled about the shabbiness and the old-fashioned look of the hotel, though it was “still the best in the place, of course.” He remonstrated with his grandfather, declaring that the whole Amberson Estate would be getting “run-down and out-at-heel, if things weren’t taken in hand pretty soon.” He urged the general need of rebuilding, renovating, varnishing, and lawsuits. But the Major, declining to hear him out, interrupted querulously, saying that he had enough to bother him without any advice from George; and retired to his library, going so far as to lock the door audibly.
“Second childhood!” George muttered, shaking his head; and he thought sadly that the Major had not long to live. However, this surmise depressed him for only a moment or so. Of course, people couldn’t be expected to live forever, and it would be a good thing to have someone in charge of the Estate who wouldn’t let it get to looking so rusty that riffraff dared to make fun of it. For George had lately undergone the annoyance of calling upon the Morgans, in the rather stuffy red velours and gilt parlour of their apartment at the hotel, one evening when Mr. Frederick Kinney also was a caller, and Mr. Kinney had not been tactful. In fact, though he adopted a humorous tone of voice, in expressing his sympathy for people who, through the city’s poverty in hotels, were obliged to stay at the Amberson, Mr. Kinney’s intention was interpreted by the other visitor as not at all humorous, but, on the contrary, personal and offensive.
George rose abruptly, his face the colour of wrath. “Good-night, Miss Morgan. Good-night, Mr. Morgan,” he said. “I shall take pleasure in calling at some other time when a more courteous sort of people may be present.”
“Look here!” the hot-headed Fred burst out. “Don’t you try to make me out a boor, George Minafer! I wasn’t hinting anything at you; I simply forgot all about your grandfather owning this old building. Don’t you try to put me in the light of a boor! I won’t—”
But George walked out