she cried. “You'll catch cold; you mustn't catch cold!” And she continued to brush him.
Amberson had brought Lucy's hat; Miss Fanny acted as lady's-maid; and both victims of the accident were presently restored to about their usual appearance and condition of apparel. In fact, encouraged by the two older gentlemen, the entire party, with one exception, decided that the episode was after all a merry one, and began to laugh about it. But George was glummer than the December twilight now swiftly closing in.
“That darned horse!” he said.
“I wouldn't bother about Pendennis, Georgie,” said his uncle. “You can send a man out for what's left of the cutter tomorrow, and Pendennis will gallop straight home to his stable: he'll be there a long while before we will, because all we've got to depend on to get us home is Gene Morgan's broken-down chafing-dish yonder.”
They were approaching the machine as he spoke, and his friend, again underneath it, heard him. He emerged, smiling. “She'll go,” he said.
“What!”
“All aboard!”
He offered his hand to Isabel. She was smiling but still pale, and her eyes, in spite of the smile, kept upon George in a shocked anxiety. Miss Fanny had already mounted to the rear seat, and George, after helping Lucy Morgan to climb up beside his aunt, was following. Isabel saw that his shoes were light things of patent leather, and that snow was clinging to them. She made a little rush toward him, and, as one of his feet rested on the iron step of the machine, in mounting, she began to clean the snow from his shoe with her almost aerial lace handkerchief. “You mustn't catch cold!” she cried.
“Stop that!” George shouted, and furiously withdrew his foot.
“Then stamp the snow off,” she begged. “You mustn't ride with wet feet.”
“They're not!” George roared, thoroughly outraged. “For heaven's sake get in! You're standing in the snow yourself. Get in!”
Isabel consented, turning to Morgan, whose habitual expression of apprehensiveness was somewhat accentuated. He climbed up after her, George Amberson having gone to the other side. “You're the same Isabel I used to know!” he said in a low voice. “You're a divinely ridiculous woman.”
“Am I, Eugene?” she said, not displeased. “'Divinely' and 'ridiculous' just counterbalance each other, don't they? Plus one and minus one equal nothing; so you mean I'm nothing in particular?”
“No,” he answered, tugging at a lever. “That doesn't seem to be precisely what I meant. There!” This exclamation referred to the subterranean machinery, for dismaying sounds came from beneath the floor, and the vehicle plunged, then rolled noisily forward.
“Behold!” George Amberson exclaimed. “She does move! It must be another accident.”
“Accident?” Morgan shouted over the din. “No! She breathes, she stirs; she seems to feel a thrill of life along her keel!” And he began to sing “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Amberson joined him lustily, and sang on when Morgan stopped. The twilight sky cleared, discovering a round moon already risen; and the musical congressman hailed this bright presence with the complete text and melody of “The Danube River.”
His nephew, behind, was gloomy. He had overheard his mother's conversation with the inventor: it seemed curious to him that this Morgan, of whom he had never heard until last night, should be using the name “Isabel” so easily; and George felt that it was not just the thing for his mother to call Morgan “Eugene;” the resentment of the previous night came upon George again. Meanwhile, his mother and Morgan continued their talk; but he could no longer hear what they said; the noise of the car and his uncle's songful mood prevented. He marked how animated Isabel seemed; it was not strange to see his mother so gay, but it was strange that a man not of the family should be the cause of her gaiety. And George sat frowning.
Fanny Minafer had begun to talk to Lucy. “Your father wanted to prove that his horseless carriage would run, even in the snow,” she said. “It really does, too.”
“Of course!”
“It's so interesting! He's been telling us how he's going to change it. He says he's going to have wheels all made of rubber and blown up with air. I don't understand what he means at all; I should think they'd explode—but Eugene seems to be very confident. He always was confident, though. It seems so like old times to hear him talk!”
She became thoughtful, and Lucy turned to George. “You tried to swing underneath me and break the fall for me when we went over,” she said. “I knew you were doing that, and—it was nice of you.”
“Wasn't any fall to speak of,” he returned brusquely. “Couldn't have hurt either of us.”
“Still it was friendly of you—and awfully quick, too. I'll not—I'll not forget it!”
Her voice had a sound of genuineness, very pleasant; and George began to forget his annoyance with her father. This annoyance of his had not been alleviated by the circumstance that neither of the seats of the old sewing-machine was designed for three people, but when his neighbour spoke thus gratefully, he no longer minded the crowding—in fact, it pleased him so much that he began to wish the old sewing-machine would go even slower. And she had spoken no word of blame for his letting that darned horse get the cutter into the ditch. George presently addressed her hurriedly, almost tremulously, speaking close to her ear:
“I forgot to tell you something: you're pretty nice! I thought so the first second I saw you last night. I'll come for you tonight and take you to the Assembly at the Amberson Hotel. You're going, aren't you?”
“Yes, but I'm going with papa and the Sharons. I'll see you there.”
“Looks to me as if you were awfully conventional,” George grumbled; and his disappointment was deeper than he was willing to let her see—though she probably did see. “Well, we'll dance the cotillion together, anyhow.”
“I'm afraid not. I promised Mr. Kinney.”
“What!” George's tone was shocked, as at incredible news. “Well, you could break that engagement, I guess, if you wanted to! Girls always can get out of things when they want to. Won't you?”
“I don't think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because I promised him. Several days ago.”
George gulped, and lowered his pride, “I don't—oh, look here! I only want to go to that thing tonight to get to see something of you; and if you don't dance the cotillion with me, how can I? I'll only be here two weeks, and the others have got all the rest of your visit to see you. Won't you do it, please?”
“I couldn't.”
“See here!” said the stricken George. “If you're going to decline to dance that cotillion with me simply because you've promised a—a—a miserable red-headed outsider like Fred Kinney, why we might as well quit!”
“Quit what?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean,” he said huskily.
“I
