it," he said, with obvious sincerity. "One of
the reasons I don't like you--much!--is you've got that way of seeming
quietly superior to everybody else."

"I!" she cried. "I have?"

"Oh, you think you keep it sort of confidential to yourself, but it's
plain enough! I don't believe in that kind of thing."

"You don't?"

"No," said George emphatically. "Not with me! I think the world's like
this: there's a few people that their birth and position, and so on,
puts them at the top, and they ought to treat each other entirely as
equals." His voice betrayed a little emotion as he added, "I wouldn't
speak like this to everybody."

"You mean you're confiding your deepest creed--or code, whatever it
is--to me?"

"Go on, make fun of it, then!" George said bitterly. "You do think
you're terribly clever! It makes me tired!"

"Well, as you don't like my seeming 'quietly superior,' after this I'll
be noisily superior," she returned cheerfully. "We aim to please!"

"I had a notion before I came for you today that we were going to
quarrel," he said.

"No, we won't; it takes two!" She laughed and waved her muff toward a
new house, not quite completed, standing in a field upon their right.
They had passed beyond Amberson Addition, and were leaving the northern
fringes of the town for the open country. "Isn't that a beautiful
house!" she exclaimed. "Papa and I call it our Beautiful House."

George was not pleased. "Does it belong to you?"

"Of course not! Papa brought me out here the other day, driving in
his machine, and we both loved it. It's so spacious and dignified and
plain."

"Yes, it's plain enough!" George grunted.

"Yet it's lovely; the gray-green roof and shutters give just enough
colour, with the trees, for the long white walls. It seems to me the
finest house I've seen in this part of the country."

George was outraged by an enthusiasm so ignorant--not ten minutes ago
they had passed the Amberson Mansion. "Is that a sample of your taste in
architecture?" he asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"Because it strikes me you better go somewhere and study the subject a
little!"

Lucy looked puzzled. "What makes you have so much feeling about it? Have
I offended you?"

"Offended' nothing!" George returned brusquely. "Girls usually think
they know it all as soon as they've learned to dance and dress and flirt
a little. They never know anything about things like architecture, for
instance. That house is about as bum a house