“What?”
“I wonder just how she happened to marry Mr. Minafer.”
“Oh, Minafer’s all right,” said Eugene. “He’s a quiet sort of man, but he’s a good man and a kind man. He always was, and those things count.”
“But in a way—well, I’ve heard people say there wasn’t anything to him at all except business and saving money. Miss Fanny Minafer herself told me that everything George and his mother have of their own—that is, just to spend as they like—she says it has always come from Major Amberson.”
“Thrift, Horatio!” said Eugene lightly. “Thrift’s an inheritance, and a common enough one here. The people who settled the country had to save, so making and saving were taught as virtues, and the people, to the third generation, haven’t found out that making and saving are only means to an end. Minafer doesn’t believe in money being spent. He believes God made it to be invested and saved.”
“But George isn’t saving. He’s reckless, and even if he is arrogant and conceited and bad-tempered, he’s awfully generous.”
“Oh, he’s an Amberson,” said her father. “The Ambersons aren’t saving. They’re too much the other way, most of them.”
“I don’t think I should have called George bad-tempered,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “No. I don’t think he is.”
“Only when he’s cross about something?” Morgan suggested, with a semblance of sympathetic gravity.
“Yes,” she said brightly, not perceiving that his intention was humorous. “All the rest of the time he’s really very amiable. Of course, he’s much more a perfect child, the whole time, than he realizes! He certainly behaved awfully to-night.” She jumped up, her indignation returning. “He did, indeed, and it won’t do to encourage him in it. I think he’ll find me pretty cool—for a week or so!”