Washington Square

“Well, so long as I haven’t—” said Catherine illogically.  Her conception of her prospective wealth was as yet very indefinite.

“So long as you haven’t you shouldn’t look as if you had.  Have you enjoyed your party?”

Catherine hesitated a moment; and then, looking away, “I am rather tired,” she murmured.  I have said that this entertainment was the beginning of something important for Catherine.  For the second time in her life she made an indirect answer; and the beginning of a period of dissimulation is certainly a significant date.  Catherine was not so easily tired as that.

Nevertheless, in the carriage, as they drove home, she was as quiet as if fatigue had been her portion.  Dr. Sloper’s manner of addressing his sister Lavinia had a good deal of resemblance to the tone he had adopted towards Catherine.

“Who was the young man that was making love to you?” he presently asked.

“Oh, my good brother!” murmured Mrs. Penniman, in deprecation.

“He seemed uncommonly tender.  Whenever I looked at you, for half an hour, he had the most devoted air.”

“The devotion was not to me,” said Mrs. Penniman.  “It was to Catherine; he talked to me of her.”

Catherine had been listening with all her ears.  “Oh, Aunt Penniman!” she exclaimed faintly.

“He is very handsome; he is very clever; he expressed himself with a great deal—a great deal of felicity,” her aunt went on.

“He is in love with this regal creature, then?” the Doctor inquired humorously.

“Oh, father,” cried the girl, still more faintly, devoutly thankful the carriage was dark.

“I don’t know that; but he admired her dress.”

Catherine did not say to herself in the dark, “My dress only?” Mrs. Penniman’s announcement struck her by its richness, not by its meagreness.

“You see,” said her father, “he thinks you have eighty thousand a year.”

“I don’t believe he thinks of that,” said Mrs. Penniman; “he is too refined.”

“He must be tremendously refined not to think of that!”

“Well, he is!” Catherine exclaimed, before she knew it.

“I thought you had gone to sleep,” her father answered.  “The hour has come!” he added to himself.  “Lavinia is going to get up a romance for Catherine.  It’s a shame to play such tricks on the girl.  What is the gentleman’s name?” he went on, aloud.

“I didn’t catch it, and I didn’t like to ask him.  He asked to be introduced to me,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a certain grandeur; “but you know how indistinctly Jefferson speaks.”  Jefferson was Mr. Almond.  “Catherine, dear, what was the gentleman’s name?”

For a minute, if it had not been for the rumbling of the carriage, you might have heard a pin drop.

“I don’t know, Aunt Lavinia,” said Catherine, very softly.  And, with all his irony, her father believed her.

V

He learned what he had asked some three or four days later, after Morris Townsend, with his cousin, had called in Washington Square.  Mrs. Penniman did not tell her brother, on the drive home, that she had intimated to this agreeable young man, whose name she did not know, that, with her niece, she should be very glad to see him; but she was greatly pleased, and even a little flattered, when, late on a Sunday afternoon, the two gentlemen made their appearance.  His coming with Arthur Townsend made it more natural and easy; the latter young man was on the point of becoming connected with the family, and Mrs. Penniman had remarked to Catherine that, as he was going to marry Marian, it would be polite in him to call.  These events came to pass late in the autumn, and Catherine and her aunt had been sitting together in the closing dusk, by the firelight, in the high back parlour.

Arthur Townsend fell to Catherine’s portion, while his companion placed himself on the sofa, beside Mrs. Penniman.  Catherine had hitherto not been a harsh critic; she was easy to please—she liked to talk with young men.  But Marian’s betrothed, this evening, made her feel vaguely fastidious; he sat looking at the fire and rubbing his knees with his hands.  As for Catherine, she scarcely even pretended to keep up the conversation; her attention had fixed itself on the other side of the room; she was listening to what went on between the other Mr. Townsend and her aunt.  Every now and then he looked over at Catherine herself and smiled, as if to show that what he said was for her benefit too.  Catherine would have liked to change her place, to go and sit near them, where she might see and hear him better.  But she was afraid of seeming bold—of looking eager; and, besides, it would not have been polite to Marian’s little suitor.  She wondered why the other gentleman had picked out her aunt—how he came to have so much to say to Mrs. Penniman, to whom, usually, young men were not especially devoted.  She was not at all jealous of Aunt Lavinia, but she was a little envious, and above all she wondered; for Morris Townsend was an object on which she found that her imagination could exercise itself indefinitely.  His cousin had been describing a house that he had taken in view of his union with Marian, and the domestic conveniences he meant to introduce into it; how Marian wanted a larger one, and Mrs. Almond recommended a smaller one, and how he himself was convinced that he had got the neatest house in New York.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said; “it’s only for three or four years.  At the end of three or four years we’ll move.  That’s the way to live in New York—to move every three or four years.  Then you always get the last thing.  It’s because the city’s growing so quick—you’ve got to keep up with it.  It’s going straight up town—that’s where New York’s going.  If I wasn’t afraid Marian would be lonely, I’d go up there—right up to the top—and wait for it.  Only have to wait ten years—they’d all come up after you.  But Marian says she wants some neighbours—she doesn’t want to be a pioneer.  She says that if she’s got to be the first settler she had better go out to Minnesota.  I guess we’ll move up little by little; when we get tired of one street we’ll go higher.  So you see we’ll always have a new house; it’s a great advantage to have a new house; you get all the latest improvements.  They invent everything all over again about every five years, and it’s a great thing to keep up with the new things.  I always try and keep up with the new things of every kind.  Don’t you think that’s a good motto for a young couple—to keep ‘going higher’?  That’s the name of that piece of poetry—what do they call it?—Excelsior!”

Catherine bestowed on her junior visitor only just enough attention to feel that this was not the way Mr. Morris Townsend had talked the other night, or that he was talking now to her fortunate aunt.  But suddenly his aspiring kinsman became more interesting.  He seemed to have become conscious that she was affected by his companion’s presence, and he thought it proper to explain it.

“My cousin asked me to bring him, or I shouldn’t have taken the liberty.  He seemed to want very much to come; you know he’s awfully sociable.  I told him I wanted to ask you first, but he said Mrs. Penniman had invited him.  He isn’t particular what he says when he wants to come somewhere!  But Mrs. Penniman seems to think it’s all right.”

“We are very glad to see him,” said Catherine.  And she wished to talk more about him; but she hardly knew what to say.  “I never saw him before,” she went on presently.

Arthur Townsend stared.

“Why, he told me he talked with you for over half an hour the other night.”

“I mean before the other night.  That was the first time.”

“Oh, he has been away from New York—he has been all round the world.  He doesn’t know many people here, but he’s very sociable, and he wants to know every one.”

“Every one?” said Catherine.

“Well, I mean all the good ones.  All the pretty young ladies—like Mrs. Penniman!” and Arthur Townsend gave a private laugh.

“My aunt likes him very much,” said Catherine.

“Most people like him—he’s so brilliant.”

“He’s more like a foreigner,” Catherine suggested.

“Well, I never knew a foreigner!” said young Townsend, in a tone which seemed to indicate that his ignorance had been optional.

“Neither have I,” Catherine confessed, with more humility.  “They say they are generally brilliant,” she added vaguely.

“Well, the people of this city are clever enough for me.  I know some of them that think they are too clever for me; but they ain’t!”

“I suppose you can’t be too clever,” said Catherine, still with humility.

“I don’t know.  I know some people that call my cousin too clever.”

Catherine listened to this statement with extreme interest, and a feeling that if Morris Townsend had a fault it would naturally be that one.  But she did not commit herself, and in a moment she asked: “Now that he has come back, will he stay here always?”

“Ah,” said Arthur, “if he can get something to do.”

“Something to do?”

“Some place or other; some business.”

“Hasn’t he got any?” said Catherine, who had never heard of a young man—of the upper class—in this situation.

“No; he’s looking round.  But he can’t find anything.”

“I am very sorry,” Catherine permitted herself to observe.