“I don’t know,” Eugene said, smiling whimsically. “I don’t know. When I spoke of his being a human being—I don’t know. Perhaps it’s more like deity.”
“I wonder if I was like that!” Amberson groaned. “You don’t suppose every Amberson has had to go through it, do you?”
“Don’t worry! At least half of it is a combination of youth, good looks, and college; and even the noblest Ambersons get over their nobility and come to be people in time. It takes more than time, though.”
“I should say it did take more than time!” his friend agreed, shaking a rueful head.
Then they walked over to join the loveliest Amberson, whom neither time nor trouble seemed to have touched. She stood alone, thoughtful under the great trees, chaperoning George and Lucy at a distance; but, seeing the two friends approaching, she came to meet them.
“It’s charming, isn’t it!” she said, moving her black-gloved hand to indicate the summery dressed crowd strolling about them, or clustering in groups, each with its own hero. “They seem so eager and so confident, all these boys—it’s touching. But of course youth doesn’t know it’s touching.”
Amberson coughed. “No, it doesn’t seem to take itself as pathetic, precisely! Eugene and I were just speaking of something like that. Do you know what I think whenever I see these smooth, triumphal young faces? I always think: ‘Oh, how you’re going to catch it’!”
“George!”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Life’s most ingenious: it’s got a special walloping for every mother’s son of ’em!”
“Maybe,” said Isabel, troubled—“maybe some of the mothers can take the walloping for them.”