Washington Square

HOUGH she had forced herself to be calm, she preferred practising this
virtue in private, and she forbore to show herself at tea—a repast which,
on Sundays, at six o’clock, took the place of dinner. Dr. Sloper and his
sister sat face to face, but Mrs. Penniman never met her brother’s eye.
Late in the evening she went with him, but without Catherine, to their
sister Almond’s, where, between the two ladies, Catherine’s unhappy
situation was discussed with a frankness that was conditioned by a good
deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penniman’s part.

“I am delighted he is not to marry her,” said Mrs. Almond, “but he ought
to be horsewhipped all the same.”

Mrs. Penniman, who was shocked at her sister’s coarseness, replied that
he had been actuated by the noblest of motives—the desire not to
impoverish Catherine.

“I am very happy that Catherine is not to be impoverished—but I hope he
may never have a penny too much! And what does the poor girl say to
you?” Mrs. Almond asked.

“She says I have a genius for consolation,” said Mrs. Penniman.

This was the account of the matter that she gave to her sister, and it
was perhaps with the consciousness of genius that, on her return that
evening to Washington Square, she again presented herself for admittance
at Catherine’s door. Catherine came and opened it; she was apparently
very quiet.

“I only want to give you a little word of advice,” she said. “If your
father asks you, say that everything is going on.”

Catherine stood there, with her hand on the knob looking at her aunt, but
not asking her to come in. “Do you think he will ask me?”

“I am sure he will. He asked me just now, on our way home from your Aunt
Elizabeth’s. I explained the whole thing to your Aunt Elizabeth. I said
to your father I know nothing about it.”

“Do you think he will ask me when he sees—when he sees—?” But here
Catherine stopped.

“The more he sees the more disagreeable he will be,” said her aunt.

“He shall see as little as possible!” Catherine declared.

“Tell him you are to be married.”

“So I am,” said Catherine softly; and she closed the door upon her aunt.

She could not have said this two days later—for instance, on Tuesday,
when she at last received a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an
epistle of considerable length, measuring five large square pages, and
written at Philadelphia. It was an explanatory document, and it
explained a great many things, chief among which were the considerations
that had led the writer to take advantage of an urgent “professional”
absence to try and banish from his mind the image of one whose path he
had crossed only to scatter it with ruins. He ventured to expect but
partial success in this attempt, but he could promise her that, whatever
his failure, he would never again interpose between her generous heart
and her brilliant prospects and filial duties. He closed with an
intimation that his professional pursuits might compel him to travel for
some months, and with the hope that when they should each have
accommodated themselves to what was sternly involved in their respective
positions—even should this result not be reached for years—they should
meet as friends, as fellow-sufferers, as innocent but philosophic victims
of a great social law. That her life should be peaceful and happy was
the dearest wish of him who ventured still to subscribe himself her most
obedient servant. The letter was beautifully written, and Catherine, who
kept it for many years after this, was able, when her sense of the
bitterness of its meaning and the hollowness of its tone had grown less
acute, to admire its grace of expression. At present, for a long time
after she received it, all she had to help her was the determination,
daily more rigid, to make no appeal to the compassion of her father.

He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, in the morning, at an
hour at which she rarely saw him, he strolled into the back parlour. He
had watched his time, and he found her alone. She was sitting with some
work, and he came and stood in front of her. He was going out, he had on
his hat and was drawing on his gloves.

“It doesn’t seem to me that you are treating me just now with all the
consideration I deserve,” he said in a moment.

“I don’t know what I have done,” Catherine answered, with her eyes on her
work.

“You have apparently quite banished from your mind the request I made you
at Liverpool, before we sailed; the request that you would notify me in
advance before leaving my house.”

“I have not left your house!” said Catherine.

“But you intend to leave it, and by what you gave me to understand, your
departure must be impending. In fact, though you are still here in body,
you are already absent in spirit. Your mind has taken up its residence
with your prospective husband, and you might quite as well be lodged
under the conjugal roof, for all the benefit we get from your society.”

“I will try and be more cheerful!” said Catherine.

“You certainly ought to be cheerful, you ask a great deal if you are not.
To the pleasure of marrying a brilliant young man, you add that of having
your own way; you strike me as a very lucky young lady!”

Catherine got up; she was suffocating. But she folded her work,
deliberately and correctly, bending her burning face upon it. Her father
stood where he had planted himself; she hoped he would go, but he
smoothed and buttoned his gloves, and then he rested his hands upon his
hips.

“It would be a convenience to me to know when I may expect to have an
empty house,” he went on. “When you go, your aunt marches.”

She looked at him at last, with a long silent gaze, which, in spite of
her pride and her resolution, uttered part of the appeal she had tried
not to make. Her father’s cold grey eye sounded her own, and he insisted
on his point.

“Is it to-morrow? Is it next week, or the week after?”

“I shall not go away!” said Catherine.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “Has he backed out?”

“I have broken off my engagement.”

“Broken it off?”

“I have asked him to leave New York, and he has gone away for a long
time.”

The Doctor was both puzzled and disappointed, but he solved his
perplexity by saying to himself that his daughter simply
misrepresented—justifiably, if one would? but nevertheless
misrepresented—the facts; and he eased off his disappointment, which was
that of a man losing a chance for a little triumph that he had rather
counted on, by a few words that he uttered aloud.

“How does he take his dismissal?”

“I don’t know!” said Catherine, less ingeniously than she had hitherto
spoken.

“You mean you don’t care? You are rather cruel, after encouraging him
and playing with him for so long!”

The Doctor had his revenge, after all.