“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—”
But she clung to him savagely. “No, you don’t, Georgie Minafer! You’ll keep away from there! You will!”
“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 Fanny went on, always taking care to keep her voice from getting too loud, in spite of her most grievous agitation. “Do you dream I thought you’d go making such a fool of yourself at Mrs. Johnson’s? Oh, I saw her this morning! She wouldn’t talk to me, but I met George Amberson on my way back, and he told me what you’d done over there! And do you dream I thought you’d do what you’ve done here this afternoon to Eugene? Oh, I knew that, too! I was looking out of the front bedroom window, and I saw him drive up, and then go away again, and I knew you’d been to the door. Of course he went to George Amberson about it, and that’s why George is here. He’s got to tell Isabel the whole thing now, and you wanted to go in there interfering—God knows what! You stay here and let her brother tell her; he’s got some consideration for her!”