George guessed that his mother was speaking, but her
voice must have been very low, for it was entirely inaudible to him.

Suddenly he did hear her. Through the heavy doors her outcry came, clear
and loud:

"Oh, no!"

It was a cry of protest, as if something her brother told her must be
untrue, or, if it were true, the fact he stated must be undone; and it
was a sound of sheer pain.

Another sound of pain, close to George, followed it; this was a vehement
sniffling which broke out just above him, and, looking up, he saw Fanny
Minafer on the landing, leaning over the banisters and applying her
handkerchief to her eyes and nose.

"I can guess what that was about," she whispered huskily. "He's just
told her what you did to Eugene!"

George gave her a dark look over his shoulder. "You go on back to your
room!" he said; and he began to descend the stairs; but Fanny, guessing
his purpose, rushed down and caught his arm, detaining him.

"You're not going in there?", she whispered huskily. "You don't--"

"Let go of me!"

But she clung to him savagely. "No, you don't, Georgie Minafer! You'll
keep away from there! You will!"

"You let go of--"

"I won't! You come back here! You'll come upstairs and let them alone;
that's what you'll do!" And with such passionate determination did she
clutch and tug, never losing a grip of him somewhere, though George
tried as much as he could, without hurting her, to wrench away--with
such utter forgetfulness of her maiden dignity did she assault him, that
she forced him, stumbling upward, to the landing.

"Of all the ridiculous--" he began furiously; but she spared one hand
from its grasp of his sleeve and clapped it over his mouth.

"Hush up!" Never for an instant in this grotesque struggle did Fanny
raise her voice above a husky whisper. "Hush up! It's indecent--like
squabbling outside the door of an operating-room! Go on to the top of
the stairs--go on!"

And when George had most unwillingly obeyed, she planted herself in
his way, on the top step. "There!" she said. "The idea of your going in
there now! I never heard of such a thing!" And with the sudden departure
of the nervous vigour she had shown so amazingly, she began to cry
again. "I was an awful fool! I thought you knew what was going on or
I never, never would have done it. Do you suppose I dreamed you'd go
making everything into such a tragedy? Do you?"

"I don't care what you dreamed," George muttered.

But Fan