w darker still. "Do you think I'd be much of a man," he
said, slowly, "if I let any other man dictate to me my own way of life?"

"George! Who's 'dictating' your--"

"It seems to me it amounts to that!" he returned.

"Oh, no! I only know how papa thinks about things. He's never, never
spoken unkindly, or 'dictatingly' of you." She lifted her hand in
protest, and her face was so touching in its distress that for the
moment George forgot his anger. He seized that small, troubled hand.

"Lucy," he said huskily. "Don't you know that I love you?"

"Yes--I do."

"Don't you love me?"

"Yes--I do."

"Then what does it matter what your father thinks about my doing
something or not doing anything? He has his way, and I have mine. I
don't believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes and selling potatoes
and trying law cases. Why, look at your father's best friend, my Uncle
George Amberson--he's never done anything in his life, and--"

"Oh, yes, he has," she interrupted. "He was in politics."

"Well, I'm glad he's out," George said. "Politics is a dirty business
for a gentleman, and Uncle George would tell you that himself. Lucy,
let's not talk any more about it. Let me tell mother when I get home
that we're engaged. Won't you, dear?"

She shook her head.

"Is it because--"

For a fleeting instant she touched to her cheek the hand that held hers.
"No," she said, and gave him a sudden little look of renewed gayety.
"Let's let it stay 'almost'."

"Because your father--"

"Oh, because it's better!"

George's voice shook. "Isn't it your father?"

"It's his ideals I'm thinking of--yes."

George dropped her hand abruptly and anger narrowed his eyes. "I know
what you mean," he said. "I dare say I don't care for your father's
ideals any more than he does for mine!"

He tightened the reins, Pendennis quickening eagerly to the trot; and
when George jumped out of the runabout before Lucy's gate, and assisted
her to descend, the silence in which they parted was the same that had
begun when Pendennis began to trot.

Chapter XVIII

That evening, after dinner, George sat with his mother and his Aunt
Fanny upon the veranda. In former summers, when they sat outdoors in the
evening, they had customarily used an open terrace at the side of the
house, looking toward the Major's, but that more private retreat now
afforded too blank and abrupt a view of the nearest of the new houses;
so, without consultation, they ha