Washington Square

RS. PENNIMAN told Catherine that evening—the two ladies were sitting in
the back parlour—that she had had an interview with Morris Townsend; and
on receiving this news the girl started with a sense of pain. She felt
angry for the moment; it was almost the first time she had ever felt
angry. It seemed to her that her aunt was meddlesome; and from this came
a vague apprehension that she would spoil something.

“I don’t see why you should have seen him. I don’t think it was right,”
Catherine said.

“I was so sorry for him—it seemed to me some one ought to see him.”

“No one but I,” said Catherine, who felt as if she were making the most
presumptuous speech of her life, and yet at the same time had an instinct
that she was right in doing so.

“But you wouldn’t, my dear,” Aunt Lavinia rejoined; “and I didn’t know
what might have become of him.”

“I have not seen him, because my father has forbidden it,” Catherine said
very simply.

There was a simplicity in this, indeed, which fairly vexed Mrs. Penniman.
“If your father forbade you to go to sleep, I suppose you would keep
awake!” she commented.

Catherine looked at her. “I don’t understand you. You seem to be very
strange.”

“Well, my dear, you will understand me some day!” And Mrs. Penniman, who
was reading the evening paper, which she perused daily from the first
line to the last, resumed her occupation. She wrapped herself in
silence; she was determined Catherine should ask her for an account of
her interview with Morris. But Catherine was silent for so long, that
she almost lost patience; and she was on the point of remarking to her
that she was very heartless, when the girl at last spoke.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“He said he is ready to marry you any day, in spite of everything.”

Catherine made no answer to this, and Mrs. Penniman almost lost patience
again; owing to which she at last volunteered the information that Morris
looked very handsome, but terribly haggard.

“Did he seem sad?” asked her niece.

“He was dark under the eyes,” said Mrs. Penniman. “So different from
when I first saw him; though I am not sure that if I had seen him in this
condition the first time, I should not have been even more struck with
him. There is something brilliant in his very misery.”

This was, to Catherine’s sense, a vivid picture, and though she
disapproved, she felt herself gazing at it. “Where did you see him?” she
asked presently.

“In—in the Bowery; at a confectioner’s,” said Mrs. Penniman, who had a
general idea that she ought to dissemble a little.

“Whereabouts is the place?” Catherine inquired, after another pause.

“Do you wish to go there, my dear?” said her aunt.

“Oh no!” And Catherine got up from her seat and went to the fire, where
she stood looking a while at the glowing coals.

“Why are you so dry, Catherine?” Mrs. Penniman said at last.

“So dry?”

“So cold—so irresponsive.”

The girl turned very quickly. “Did he say that?”

Mrs. Penniman hesitated a moment. “I will tell you what he said. He
said he feared only one thing—that you would be afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of your father.”

Catherine turned back to the fire again, and then, after a pause, she
said—“I am afraid of my father.”

Mrs. Penniman got quickly up from her chair and approached her niece.
“Do you mean to give him up, then?”

Catherine for some time never moved; she kept her eyes on the coals. At
last she raised her head and looked at her aunt. “Why do you push me
so?” she asked.

“I don’t push you. When have I spoken to you before?”

“It seems to me that you have spoken to me several times.”

“I am afraid it is necessary, then, Catherine,” said Mrs. Penniman, with
a good deal of solemnity. “I am afraid you don’t feel the importance—”
She paused a little; Catherine was looking at her. “The importance of
not disappointing that gallant young heart!” And Mrs. Penniman went back
to her chair, by the lamp, and, with a little jerk, picked up the evening
paper again.

Catherine stood there before the fire, with her hands behind her, looking
at her aunt, to whom it seemed that the girl had never had just this dark
fixedness in her gaze. “I don’t think you understand—or that you know
me,” she said.

“If I don’t, it is not wonderful; you trust me so little.”

Catherine made no attempt to deny this charge, and for some time more
nothing was said. But Mrs. Penniman’s imagination was restless, and the
evening paper failed on this occasion to enchain it.

“If you succumb to the dread of your father’s wrath,” she said, “I don’t
know what will become of us.”

“Did he tell you to say these things to me?”

“He told me to use my influence.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Catherine. “He trusts me.”

“I hope he may never repent of it!” And Mrs. Penniman gave a little
sharp slap to her newspaper. She knew not what to make of her niece, who
had suddenly become stern and contradictious.

This tendency on Catherine’s part was presently even more apparent. “You
had much better not make any more appointments with Mr. Townsend,” she
said. “I don’t think it is right.”

Mrs. Penniman rose with considerable majesty. “My poor child, are you
jealous of me?” she inquired.

“Oh, Aunt Lavinia!” murmured Catherine, blushing.

“I don’t think it is your place to teach me what is right.”

On this point Catherine made no concession. “It can’t be right to
deceive.”

“I certainly have not deceived you!”

“Yes; but I promised my father—”

“I have no doubt you promised your father. But I have promised him
nothing!”

Catherine had to admit this, and she did so in silence. “I don’t believe
Mr. Townsend himself likes it,” she said at last.

“Doesn’t like meeting me?”

“Not in secret.”

“It was not in secret; the place was full of people.”

“But it was a secret place—away off in the Bowery.”

Mrs. Penniman flinched a little. “Gentlemen enjoy such things,” she
remarked presently. “I know what gentlemen like.”

“My father wouldn’t like it, if he knew.”

“Pray, do you propose to inform him?” Mrs. Penniman inquired.

“No, Aunt Lavinia. But please don’t do it again.”

“If I do it again, you will inform him: is that what you mean? I do not
share your dread of my brother; I have always known how to defend my own
position. But I shall certainly never again take any step on your
behalf; you are much too thankless. I knew you were not a spontaneous
nature, but I believed you were firm, and I told your father that he
would find you so. I am disappointed—but your father will not be!” And
with this, Mrs. Penniman offered her niece a brief good-night, and
withdrew to her own apartment.