Washington Square

“Of course you must defend her—it’s the least you can do.  But I have known my child twenty years, and you have known her six weeks.  Even if she were not weak, however, you would still be a penniless man.”

“Ah, yes; that is my weakness!  And therefore, you mean, I am mercenary—I only want your daughter’s money.”

“I don’t say that.  I am not obliged to say it; and to say it, save under stress of compulsion, would be very bad taste.  I say simply that you belong to the wrong category.”

“But your daughter doesn’t marry a category,” Townsend urged, with his handsome smile.  “She marries an individual—an individual whom she is so good as to say she loves.”

“An individual who offers so little in return!”

“Is it possible to offer more than the most tender affection and a lifelong devotion?” the young man demanded.

“It depends how we take it.  It is possible to offer a few other things besides; and not only is it possible, but it’s usual.  A lifelong devotion is measured after the fact; and meanwhile it is customary in these cases to give a few material securities.  What are yours?  A very handsome face and figure, and a very good manner.  They are excellent as far as they go, but they don’t go far enough.”

“There is one thing you should add to them,” said Morris; “the word of a gentleman!”

“The word of a gentleman that you will always love Catherine?  You must be a very fine gentleman to be sure of that.”

“The word of a gentleman that I am not mercenary; that my affection for Miss Sloper is as pure and disinterested a sentiment as was ever lodged in a human breast!  I care no more for her fortune than for the ashes in that grate.”

“I take note—I take note,” said the Doctor.  “But having done so, I turn to our category again.  Even with that solemn vow on your lips, you take your place in it.  There is nothing against you but an accident, if you will; but with my thirty years’ medical practice, I have seen that accidents may have far-reaching consequences.”

Morris smoothed his hat—it was already remarkably glossy—and continued to display a self-control which, as the Doctor was obliged to admit, was extremely creditable to him.  But his disappointment was evidently keen.

“Is there nothing I can do to make you believe in me?”

“If there were I should be sorry to suggest it, for—don’t you see?—I don’t want to believe in you!” said the Doctor, smiling.

“I would go and dig in the fields.”

“That would be foolish.”

“I will take the first work that offers, to-morrow.”

“Do so by all means—but for your own sake, not for mine.”

“I see; you think I am an idler!” Morris exclaimed, a little too much in the tone of a man who has made a discovery.  But he saw his error immediately, and blushed.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, when once I have told you I don’t think of you as a son-in-law.”

But Morris persisted.  “You think I would squander her money.”

The Doctor smiled.  “It doesn’t matter, as I say; but I plead guilty to that.”

“That’s because I spent my own, I suppose,” said Morris.  “I frankly confess that.  I have been wild.  I have been foolish.  I will tell you every crazy thing I ever did, if you like.  There were some great follies among the number—I have never concealed that.  But I have sown my wild oats.  Isn’t there some proverb about a reformed rake?  I was not a rake, but I assure you I have reformed.  It is better to have amused oneself for a while and have done with it.  Your daughter would never care for a milksop; and I will take the liberty of saying that you would like one quite as little.  Besides, between my money and hers there is a great difference.  I spent my own; it was because it was my own that I spent it.  And I made no debts; when it was gone I stopped.  I don’t owe a penny in the world.”

“Allow me to inquire what you are living on now—though I admit,” the Doctor added, “that the question, on my part, is inconsistent.”

“I am living on the remnants of my property,” said Morris Townsend.

“Thank you!” the Doctor gravely replied.

Yes, certainly, Morris’s self-control was laudable.  “Even admitting I attach an undue importance to Miss Sloper’s fortune,” he went on, “would not that be in itself an assurance that I should take much care of it?”

“That you should take too much care would be quite as bad as that you should take too little.  Catherine might suffer as much by your economy as by your extravagance.”

“I think you are very unjust!”  The young man made this declaration decently, civilly, without violence.

“It is your privilege to think so, and I surrender my reputation to you!  I certainly don’t flatter myself I gratify you.”

“Don’t you care a little to gratify your daughter?  Do you enjoy the idea of making her miserable?”

“I am perfectly resigned to her thinking me a tyrant for a twelvemonth.”

“For a twelvemonth!” exclaimed Morris, with a laugh.

“For a lifetime, then!  She may as well be miserable in that way as in the other.”

Here at last Morris lost his temper.  “Ah, you are not polite, sir!” he cried.

“You push me to it—you argue too much.”

“I have a great deal at stake.”

“Well, whatever it is,” said the Doctor, “you have lost it!”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Morris; “are you sure your daughter will give me up?”

“I mean, of course, you have lost it as far as I am concerned.  As for Catherine’s giving you up—no, I am not sure of it.  But as I shall strongly recommend it, as I have a great fund of respect and affection in my daughter’s mind to draw upon, and as she has the sentiment of duty developed in a very high degree, I think it extremely possible.”

Morris Townsend began to smooth his hat again.  “I too have a fund of affection to draw upon!” he observed at last.

The Doctor at this point showed his own first symptoms of irritation.  “Do you mean to defy me?”

“Call it what you please, sir!  I mean not to give your daughter up.”

The Doctor shook his head.  “I haven’t the least fear of your pining away your life.  You are made to enjoy it.”

Morris gave a laugh.  “Your opposition to my marriage is all the more cruel, then!  Do you intend to forbid your daughter to see me again?”

“She is past the age at which people are forbidden, and I am not a father in an old-fashioned novel.  But I shall strongly urge her to break with you.”

“I don’t think she will,” said Morris Townsend.

“Perhaps not.  But I shall have done what I could.”

“She has gone too far,” Morris went on.

“To retreat?  Then let her stop where she is.”