t know that Isabel takes George's side simply
because he's Eugene Morgan's best friend?"

"It seems to me you're talking pure nonsense," said Bronson sharply.
"Not impure nonsense, I hope!"

Amelia became shrill. "I thought you were a man of the world: don't
tell me you're blind! For nearly two years Isabel's been pretending
to chaperone Fanny Minafer with Eugene, and all the time she's been
dragging that poor fool Fanny around to chaperone her and Eugene! Under
the circumstances, she knows people will get to thinking Fanny's a
pretty slim kind of chaperone, and Isabel wants to please George because
she thinks there'll be less talk if she can keep her own brother around,
seeming to approve. 'Talk!' She'd better look out! The whole town will
be talking, the first thing she knows! She--"

Amelia stopped, and stared at the doorway in a panic, for her nephew
stood there.

She kept her eyes upon his white face for a few strained moments, then,
regaining her nerve, looked away and shrugged her shoulders.

"You weren't intended to hear what I've been saying, George," she
said quietly. "But since you seem to--"

"Yes, I did."

"So!" She shrugged her shoulders again. "After all, I don't know but
it's just as well, in the long run."

He walked up to where she sat. "You--you--" he said thickly. "It
seems--it seems to me you're--you're pretty common!"

Amelia tried to give the impression of an unconcerned person laughing
with complete indifference, but the sounds she produced were disjointed
and uneasy. She fanned herself, looking out of the open window near her.
"Of course, if you want to make more trouble in the family than we've
already got, George, with your eavesdropping, you can go and repeat--"

Old Bronson had risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt was
talking nonsense because she's piqued over a business matter, George,"
he said. "She doesn't mean what she said, and neither she nor any one
else gives the slightest credit to such foolishness--no one in the
world!"

George gulped, and wet lines shone suddenly along his lower eyelids.
"They--they'd better not!" he said, then stalked out of the room, and
out of the house. He stamped fiercely across the stone slabs of the
front porch, descended the steps, and halted abruptly, blinking in the
strong sunshine.

In front of his own gate, beyond the Major's broad lawn, his mother was
just getting into her victoria, where sat already his Aunt Fanny
and L