ny murderer is, and that Georgie's
mother is always right."

"I'm afraid she always has been," Morgan said lightly.

The friendly hand remained upon his shoulder. "She was wrong once, old
fellow. At least, so it seemed to me."

"No," said Morgan, a little awkwardly. "No--"

Kinney relieved the slight embarrassment that had come upon both of
them: he laughed again. "Wait till you know young Georgie a little
better," he said. "Something tells me you're going to change your mind
about his having an angel to show, if you see anything of him!"

"You mean beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and the angel is all in
the eye of the mother. If you were a painter, Fred, you'd paint mothers
with angels' eyes holding imps in their laps. Me. I'll stick to the Old
Masters and the cherubs."

Mr. Kinney looked at him musingly. "Somebody's eyes must have been
pretty angelic," he said, "if they've been persuading you that Georgie
Minnafer is a cherub!"

"They are," said Morgan heartily. "They're more angelic than ever." And
as a new flourish of music sounded overhead he threw away his cigarette,
and jumped up briskly. "Good-bye, I've got this dance with her."

"With whom?"

"With Isabel!"

The grizzled Mr. Kinney affected to rub his eyes. "It startles me, your
jumping up like that to go and dance with Isabel Amberson! Twenty years
seem to have passed--but have they? Tell me, have you danced with poor
old Fanny, too, this evening?"

"Twice!"

"My Lord!" Kinney groaned, half in earnest. "Old times starting all over
again! My Lord!"

"Old times?" Morgan laughed gaily from the doorway. "Not a bit! There
aren't any old times. When times are gone they're not old, they're dead!
There aren't any times but new times!"

And he vanished in such a manner that he seemed already to have begun
dancing.

Chapter VII

The appearance of Miss Lucy Morgan the next day, as she sat in George's
fast cutter, proved so charming that her escort was stricken to soft
words instantly, and failed to control a poetic impulse. Her rich little
hat was trimmed with black fur; her hair was almost as dark as the
fur; a great boa of black fur was about her shoulders; her hands were
vanished into a black muff; and George's laprobe was black. "You look
like--" he said. "Your face looks like--it looks like a snowflake on a
lump of coal. I mean a--a snowflake that would be a rose-leaf, too!"

"Perhaps you'd better look at the reins," she returne