“Hear! Hear!” George applauded. “We seem to have a lady orator among us. I hope the waiters won’t mind.”
Isabel laughed, not discouraged. “It’s beautiful to see such a thing,” she said. “It makes us all happy, dear old Eugene!”
And with a brave gesture she stretched out her hand to him across the small table. He took it quickly, giving her a look in which his laughter tried to remain, but vanished before a gratitude threatening to become emotional in spite of him. Isabel, however, turned instantly to Fanny. “Give him your hand, Fanny,” she said gayly; and, as Fanny mechanically obeyed, “There!” Isabel cried. “If brother George were here, Eugene would have his three oldest and best friends congratulating him all at once. We know what brother George thinks about it, though. It’s just beautiful, Eugene!”
Probably if her brother George had been with them at the little table, he would have made known what he thought about herself, for it must inevitably have struck him that she was in the midst of one of those “times” when she looked “exactly fourteen years old.” Lucy served as a proxy for Amberson, perhaps, when she leaned toward George and whispered: “Did you ever see anything so lovely?”
“As what?” George inquired, not because he misunderstood, but because he wished to prolong the pleasant neighbourliness of whispering.
“As your mother! Think of her doing that! She’s a darling! And papa”—here she imperfectly repressed a tendency to laugh—“papa looks as if he were either going to explode or utter loud sobs!”
Eugene commanded his features, however, and they resumed their customary apprehensiveness. “I used to write verse,” he said—“if you remember—”
“Yes,” Isabel interrupted gently. “I remember.”
“I don’t recall that I’ve written any for twenty years or so,” he continued. “But I’m almost thinking I could do it again, to thank you for making a factory visit into such a kind celebration.”
“Gracious!” Lucy whispered, giggling. “Aren’t they sentimental”
“People that age always are,” George returned. “They get sentimental over anything at all. Factories or restaurants, it doesn’t matter what!”
And both of them were seized with fits of laughter which they managed to cover under the general movement of departure, as Isabel had risen to go.