Washington Square

“Too far to stop, I mean.”

The Doctor looked at him a moment; Morris had his hand on the door.  “There is a great deal of impertinence in your saying it.”

“I will say no more, sir!” Morris answered; and, making his bow, he left the room.

XIII

It may be thought the Doctor was too positive, and Mrs. Almond intimated as much.  But, as he said, he had his impression; it seemed to him sufficient, and he had no wish to modify it.  He had passed his life in estimating people (it was part of the medical trade), and in nineteen cases out of twenty he was right.

“Perhaps Mr. Townsend is the twentieth case,” Mrs. Almond suggested.

“Perhaps he is, though he doesn’t look to me at all like a twentieth case.  But I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and, to make sure, I will go and talk with Mrs. Montgomery.  She will almost certainly tell me I have done right; but it is just possible that she will prove to me that I have made the greatest mistake of my life.  If she does, I will beg Mr. Townsend’s pardon.  You needn’t invite her to meet me, as you kindly proposed; I will write her a frank letter, telling her how matters stand, and asking leave to come and see her.”

“I am afraid the frankness will be chiefly on your side.  The poor little woman will stand up for her brother, whatever he may be.”

“Whatever he may be?  I doubt that.  People are not always so fond of their brothers.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Almond, “when it’s a question of thirty thousand a year coming into a family—”

“If she stands up for him on account of the money, she will be a humbug.  If she is a humbug I shall see it.  If I see it, I won’t waste time with her.”

“She is not a humbug—she is an exemplary woman.  She will not wish to play her brother a trick simply because he is selfish.”

“If she is worth talking to, she will sooner play him a trick than that he should play Catherine one.  Has she seen Catherine, by the way—does she know her?”

“Not to my knowledge.  Mr. Townsend can have had no particular interest in bringing them together.”

“If she is an exemplary woman, no.  But we shall see to what extent she answers your description.”

“I shall be curious to hear her description of you!” said Mrs. Almond, with a laugh.  “And, meanwhile, how is Catherine taking it?”

“As she takes everything—as a matter of course.”

“Doesn’t she make a noise?  Hasn’t she made a scene?”

“She is not scenic.”

“I thought a love-lorn maiden was always scenic.”

“A fantastic widow is more so.  Lavinia has made me a speech; she thinks me very arbitrary.”

“She has a talent for being in the wrong,” said Mrs. Almond.  “But I am very sorry for Catherine, all the same.”

“So am I.  But she will get over it.”

“You believe she will give him up?”

“I count upon it.  She has such an admiration for her father.”

“Oh, we know all about that!  But it only makes me pity her the more.  It makes her dilemma the more painful, and the effort of choosing between you and her lover almost impossible.”

“If she can’t choose, all the better.”

“Yes, but he will stand there entreating her to choose, and Lavinia will pull on that side.”

“I am glad she is not on my side; she is capable of ruining an excellent cause.  The day Lavinia gets into your boat it capsizes.  But she had better be careful,” said the Doctor.  “I will have no treason in my house!”

“I suspect she will be careful; for she is at bottom very much afraid of you.”

“They are both afraid of me—harmless as I am!” the Doctor answered.  “And it is on that that I build—on the salutary terror I inspire!”

XIV

He wrote his frank letter to Mrs. Montgomery, who punctually answered it, mentioning an hour at which he might present himself in the Second Avenue.  She lived in a neat little house of red brick, which had been freshly painted, with the edges of the bricks very sharply marked out in white.  It has now disappeared, with its companions, to make room for a row of structures more majestic.  There were green shutters upon the windows, without slats, but pierced with little holes, arranged in groups; and before the house was a diminutive yard, ornamented with a bush of mysterious character, and surrounded by a low wooden paling, painted in the same green as the shutters.  The place looked like a magnified baby-house, and might have been taken down from a shelf in a toy-shop.  Dr. Sloper, when he went to call, said to himself, as he glanced at the objects I have enumerated, that Mrs. Montgomery was evidently a thrifty and self-respecting little person—the modest proportions of her dwelling seemed to indicate that she was of small stature—who took a virtuous satisfaction in keeping herself tidy, and had resolved that, since she might not be splendid, she would at least be immaculate.  She received him in a little parlour, which was precisely the parlour he had expected: a small unspeckled bower, ornamented with a desultory foliage of tissue-paper, and with clusters of glass drops, amid which—to carry out the analogy—the temperature of the leafy season was maintained by means of a cast-iron stove, emitting a dry blue flame, and smelling strongly of varnish.  The walls were embellished with engravings swathed in pink gauze, and the tables ornamented with volumes of extracts from the poets, usually bound in black cloth stamped with florid designs in jaundiced gilt.  The Doctor had time to take cognisance of these details, for Mrs. Montgomery, whose conduct he pronounced under the circumstances inexcusable, kept him waiting some ten minutes before she appeared.  At last, however, she rustled in, smoothing down a stiff poplin dress, with a little frightened flush in a gracefully-rounded cheek.

She was a small, plump, fair woman, with a bright, clear eye, and an extraordinary air of neatness and briskness.  But these qualities were evidently combined with an unaffected humility, and the Doctor gave her his esteem as soon as he had looked at her.  A brave little person, with lively perceptions, and yet a disbelief in her own talent for social, as distinguished from practical, affairs—this was his rapid mental résumé of Mrs. Montgomery, who, as he saw, was flattered by what she regarded as the honour of his visit.  Mrs. Montgomery, in her little red house in the Second Avenue, was a person for whom Dr. Sloper was one of the great men, one of the fine gentlemen of New York; and while she fixed her agitated eyes upon him, while she clasped her mittened hands together in her glossy poplin lap, she had the appearance of saying to herself that he quite answered her idea of what a distinguished guest would naturally be.  She apologised for being late; but he interrupted her.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said; “for while I sat here I had time to think over what I wish to say to you, and to make up my mind how to begin.”

“Oh, do begin!” murmured Mrs. Montgomery.

“It is not so easy,” said the Doctor, smiling.  “You will have gathered from my letter that I wish to ask you a few questions, and you may not find it very comfortable to answer them.”

“Yes; I have thought what I should say.  It is not very easy.”

“But you must understand my situation—my state of mind.  Your brother wishes to marry my daughter, and I wish to find out what sort of a young man he is.  A good way to do so seemed to be to come and ask you; which I have proceeded to do.”

Mrs. Montgomery evidently took the situation very seriously; she was in a state of extreme moral concentration.  She kept her pretty eyes, which were illumined by a sort of brilliant modesty, attached to his own countenance, and evidently paid the most earnest attention to each of his words.  Her expression indicated that she thought his idea of coming to see her a very superior conception, but that she was really afraid to have opinions on strange subjects.

“I am extremely glad to see you,” she said, in a tone which seemed to admit, at the same time, that this had nothing to do with the question.

The Doctor took advantage of this admission.  “I didn’t come to see you for your pleasure; I came to make you say disagreeable things—and you can’t like that.  What sort of a gentleman is your brother?”

Mrs. Montgomery’s illuminated gaze grew vague, and began to wander.  She smiled a little, and for some time made no answer, so that the Doctor at last became impatient.  And her answer, when it came, was not satisfactory.  “It is difficult to talk about one’s brother.”

“Not when one is fond of him, and when one has plenty of good to say.”

“Yes, even then, when a good deal depends on it,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

“Nothing depends on it, for you.”

“I mean for—for—” and she hesitated.

“For your brother himself.  I see!”

“I mean for Miss Sloper,” said Mrs. Montgomery.  The Doctor liked this; it had the accent of sincerity.  “Exactly; that’s the point.  If my poor girl should marry your brother, everything—as regards her happiness—would depend on his being a good fellow.  She is the best creature in the world, and she could never do him a grain of injury.  He, on the other hand, if he should not be all that we desire, might make her very miserable.  That is why I want you to throw some light upon his character, you know.  Of course you are not bound to do it.  My daughter, whom you have never seen, is nothing to you; and I, possibly, am only an indiscreet and impertinent old man.  It is perfectly open to you to tell me that my visit is in very bad taste and that I had better go about my business.  But I don’t think you will do this; because I think we shall interest you, my poor girl and I.  I am sure that if you were to see Catherine, she would interest you very much.  I don’t mean because she is interesting in the usual sense of the word, but because you would feel sorry for her.  She is so soft, so simple-minded, she would be such an easy victim!  A bad husband would have remarkable facilities for making her miserable; for she would have neither the intelligence nor the resolution to get the better of him, and yet she would have an exaggerated power of suffering.  I see,” added the Doctor, with his most insinuating, his most professional laugh, “you are already interested!”

“I have been interested from the moment he told me he was engaged,” said Mrs. Montgomery.