Washington Square

“Then you don’t love me—not as I love you.  If you fear your father more than you love me, then your love is not what I hoped it was.”

“Ah, my friend!” she said, going to him.

“Do I fear anything?” he demanded, turning round on her.  “For your sake what am I not ready to face?”

“You are noble—you are brave!” she answered, stopping short at a distance that was almost respectful.

“Small good it does me, if you are so timid.”

“I don’t think that I am—really,” said Catherine.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘really.’  It is really enough to make us miserable.”

“I should be strong enough to wait—to wait a long time.”

“And suppose after a long time your father should hate me worse than ever?”

“He wouldn’t—he couldn’t!”

“He would be touched by my fidelity?  Is that what you mean?  If he is so easily touched, then why should you be afraid of him?”

This was much to the point, and Catherine was struck by it.  “I will try not to be,” she said.  And she stood there submissively, the image, in advance, of a dutiful and responsible wife.  This image could not fail to recommend itself to Morris Townsend, and he continued to give proof of the high estimation in which he held her.  It could only have been at the prompting of such a sentiment that he presently mentioned to her that the course recommended by Mrs. Penniman was an immediate union, regardless of consequences.

“Yes, Aunt Penniman would like that,” Catherine said simply—and yet with a certain shrewdness.  It must, however, have been in pure simplicity, and from motives quite untouched by sarcasm, that, a few moments after, she went on to say to Morris that her father had given her a message for him.  It was quite on her conscience to deliver this message, and had the mission been ten times more painful she would have as scrupulously performed it.  “He told me to tell you—to tell you very distinctly, and directly from himself, that if I marry without his consent, I shall not inherit a penny of his fortune.  He made a great point of this.  He seemed to think—he seemed to think—”

Morris flushed, as any young man of spirit might have flushed at an imputation of baseness.

“What did he seem to think?”

“That it would make a difference.”

“It will make a difference—in many things.  We shall be by many thousands of dollars the poorer; and that is a great difference.  But it will make none in my affection.”

“We shall not want the money,” said Catherine; “for you know I have a good deal myself.”

“Yes, my dear girl, I know you have something.  And he can’t touch that!”

“He would never,” said Catherine.  “My mother left it to me.”

Morris was silent a while.  “He was very positive about this, was he?” he asked at last.  “He thought such a message would annoy me terribly, and make me throw off the mask, eh?”

“I don’t know what he thought,” said Catherine wearily.

“Please tell him that I care for his message as much as for that!”  And Morris snapped his fingers sonorously.

“I don’t think I could tell him that.”

“Do you know you sometimes disappoint me?” said Morris.

“I should think I might.  I disappoint every one—father and Aunt Penniman.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter with me, because I am fonder of you than they are.”

“Yes, Morris,” said the girl, with her imagination—what there was of it—swimming in this happy truth, which seemed, after all, invidious to no one.

“Is it your belief that he will stick to it—stick to it for ever, to this idea of disinheriting you?—that your goodness and patience will never wear out his cruelty?”

“The trouble is that if I marry you, he will think I am not good.  He will think that a proof.”

“Ah, then, he will never forgive you!”

This idea, sharply expressed by Morris’s handsome lips, renewed for a moment, to the poor girl’s temporarily pacified conscience, all its dreadful vividness.  “Oh, you must love me very much!” she cried.

“There is no doubt of that, my dear!” her lover rejoined.  “You don’t like that word ‘disinherited,’” he added in a moment.

“It isn’t the money; it is that he should—that he should feel so.”

“I suppose it seems to you a kind of curse,” said Morris.  “It must be very dismal.  But don’t you think,” he went on presently, “that if you were to try to be very clever, and to set rightly about it, you might in the end conjure it away?  Don’t you think,” he continued further, in a tone of sympathetic speculation, “that a really clever woman, in your place, might bring him round at last?  Don’t you think?”

Here, suddenly, Morris was interrupted; these ingenious inquiries had not reached Catherine’s ears.  The terrible word “disinheritance,” with all its impressive moral reprobation, was still ringing there; seemed indeed to gather force as it lingered.  The mortal chill of her situation struck more deeply into her child-like heart, and she was overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness and danger.  But her refuge was there, close to her, and she put out her hands to grasp it.  “Ah, Morris,” she said, with a shudder, “I will marry you as soon as you please.”  And she surrendered herself, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“My dear good girl!” he exclaimed, looking down at his prize.  And then he looked up again, rather vaguely, with parted lips and lifted eyebrows.

XXI

Dr. Sloper very soon imparted his conviction to Mrs. Almond, in the same terms in which he had announced it to himself.  “She’s going to stick, by Jove! she’s going to stick.”

“Do you mean that she is going to marry him?” Mrs. Almond inquired.

“I don’t know that; but she is not going to break down.  She is going to drag out the engagement, in the hope of making me relent.”

“And shall you not relent?”

“Shall a geometrical proposition relent?  I am not so superficial.”

“Doesn’t geometry treat of surfaces?” asked Mrs. Almond, who, as we know, was clever, smiling.

“Yes; but it treats of them profoundly.  Catherine and her young man are my surfaces; I have taken their measure.”

“You speak as if it surprised you.”

“It is immense; there will be a great deal to observe.”

“You are shockingly cold-blooded!” said Mrs. Almond.

“I need to be with all this hot blood about me.  Young Townsend indeed is cool; I must allow him that merit.”

“I can’t judge him,” Mrs. Almond answered; “but I am not at all surprised at Catherine.”