"It's all right, and
nothing in the world to worry about. So good-night, old lady. I'll
be polite enough to him, never fear--if we happen to be thrown
together. So good-night!"
"But, George, dear--"
"I'm going to bed, old lady; so good-night."'
Thus the interview closed perforce. She kissed him again before going
slowly to her own room, her perplexity evidently not dispersed; but
the subject was not renewed between them the next day or subsequently.
Nor did Fanny make any allusion to the cryptic approbation she had
bestowed upon her nephew after the Major's "not very successful little
dinner"; though she annoyed George by looking at him oftener and
longer than he cared to be looked at by an aunt. He could not glance
her way, it seemed, without finding her red-rimmed eyes fixed upon him
eagerly, with an alert and hopeful calculation in them which he
declared would send a nervous man, into fits. For thus, one day, he
broke out, in protest:
"It would!" he repeated vehemently. "Given time it would--straight
into fits! What do you find the matter with me? Is my tie always
slipping up behind? Can't you look at something else? My Lord! We'd
better buy a cat for you to stare at, Aunt Fanny! A cat could stand
it, maybe.
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