“Well, I’m glad he’s out,” George said. “Politics is a dirty business for a gentleman, and Uncle George would tell you that himself. Lucy, let’s not talk any more about it. Let me tell mother when I get home that we’re engaged. Won’t you, dear?”
She shook her head.
“Is it because—”
For a fleeting instant she touched to her cheek the hand that held hers. “No,” she said, and gave him a sudden little look of renewed gayety. “Let’s let it stay ‘almost’.”
“Because your father—”
“Oh, because it’s better!”
George’s voice shook. “Isn’t it your father?”
“It’s his ideals I’m thinking of—yes.”
George dropped her hand abruptly and anger narrowed his eyes. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I dare say I don’t care for your father’s ideals any more than he does for mine!”
He tightened the reins, Pendennis quickening eagerly to the trot; and when George jumped out of the runabout before Lucy’s gate, and assisted her to descend, the silence in which they parted was the same that had begun when Pendennis began to trot.