ople!"

"I beg your pardon."

"I want to ask you about them. You say you know of other people who talk
about this."

"I presume they do."

"How many?"

"What?"

"I want to know how many other people talk about it?"

"Dear, dear!" she protested. "How should I know that?"

"Haven't you heard anybody mention it?"

"I presume so."

"Well, how many have you heard?"

Mrs. Johnson was becoming more annoyed than apprehensive, and she
showed it. "Really, this isn't a court-room," she said. "And I'm not a
defendant in a libel-suit, either!"

The unfortunate young man lost what remained of his balance. "You may
be!" he cried. "I intend to know just who's dared to say these things,
if I have to force my way into every house in town, and I'm going to
make them take every word of it back! I mean to know the name of every
slanderer that's spoken of this matter to you and of every tattler
you've passed it on to yourself. I mean to know--"

"You'll know something pretty quick!" she said, rising with difficulty;
and her voice was thick with the sense of insult. "You'll know that
you're out in the street. Please to leave my house!"

George stiffened sharply. Then he bowed, and strode out of the door.

Three minutes later, disheveled and perspiring, but cold all over, he
burst into his Uncle George's room at the Major's without knocking.
Amberson was dressing.

"Good gracious, Georgie!" he exclaimed. "What's up?"

"I've just come from Mrs. Johnson's--across the street," George panted.

"You have your own tastes!" was Amberson's comment. "But curious as they
are, you ought to do something better with your hair, and button your
waistcoat to the right buttons--even for Mrs. Johnson! What were you
doing over there?"

"She told me to leave the house," George said desperately. "I went there
because Aunt Fanny told me the whole town was talking about my mother
and that man Morgan--that they say my mother is going to marry him and
that proves she was too fond of him before my father died--she said this
Mrs. Johnson was one that talked about it, and I went to her to ask who
were the others."

Amberson's jaw fell in dismay. "Don't tell me you did that!" he said, in
a low voice; and then, seeing that it was true, "Oh, now you have done
it!"

Chapter XXIII

"I've 'done it'?" George cried. "What do you mean: I've done it? And
what have I done?"

Amberson had collapsed into an easy chair beside his dressing-tabl