XXII
HE had slightly misrepresented the matter in saying that Catherine hadconsented to take the great step. We left her just now declaring thatshe would burn her ships behind her; but Morris, after having elicitedthis declaration, had become conscious of good reasons for not taking itup. He avoided, gracefully enough, fixing a day, though he left herunder the impression that he had his eye on one. Catherine may have hadher difficulties; but those of her circumspect suitor are also worthy ofconsideration. The prize was certainly great; but it was only to be wonby striking the happy mean between precipitancy and caution. It would beall very well to take one’s jump and trust to Providence; Providence wasmore especially on the side of clever people, and clever people wereknown by an indisposition to risk their bones. The ultimate reward of aunion with a young woman who was both unattractive and impoverished oughtto be connected with immediate disadvantages by some very palpable chain.Between the fear of losing Catherine and her possible fortune altogether,and the fear of taking her too soon and finding this possible fortune asvoid of actuality as a collection of emptied bottles, it was notcomfortable for Morris Townsend to choose; a fact that should beremembered by readers disposed to judge harshly of a young man who mayhave struck them as making but an indifferently successful use of finenatural parts. He had not forgotten that in any event Catherine had herown ten thousand a year; he had devoted an abundance of meditation tothis circumstance. But with his fine parts he rated himself high, and hehad a perfectly definite appreciation of his value, which seemed to himinadequately represented by the sum I have mentioned. At the same timehe reminded himself that this sum was considerable, that everything isrelative, and that if a modest income is less desirable than a large one,the complete absence of revenue is nowhere accounted an advantage. Thesereflexions gave him plenty of occupation, and made it necessary that heshould trim his sail. Dr. Sloper’s opposition was the unknown quantityin the problem he had to work out. The natural way to work it out was bymarrying Catherine; but in mathematics there are many short cuts, andMorris was not without a hope that he should yet discover one. WhenCatherine took him at his word and consented to renounce the attempt tomollify her father, he drew back skilfully enough, as I have said, andkept the wedding-day still an open question. Her faith in his sinceritywas so complete that she was incapable of suspecting that he was playingwith her; her trouble just now was of another kind. The poor girl had anadmirable sense of honour; and from the moment she had brought herself tothe point of violating her father’s wish, it seemed to her that she hadno right to enjoy his protection. It was on her conscience that sheought to live under his roof only so long as she conformed to his wisdom.There was a great deal of glory in such a position, but poor Catherinefelt that she had forfeited her claim to it. She had cast her lot with ayoung man against whom he had solemnly warned her, and broken thecontract under which he provided her with a happy home. She could notgive up the young man, so she must leave the home; and the sooner theobject of her preference offered her another the sooner her situationwould lose its awkward twist. This was close reasoning; but it wascommingled with an infinite amount of merely instinctive penitence.Catherine’s days at this time were dismal, and the weight of some of herhours was almost more than she could bear. Her father never looked ather, never spoke to her. He knew perfectly what he was about, and thiswas part of a plan. She looked at him as much as she dared (for she wasafraid of seeming to offer herself to his observation), and she pitiedhim for the sorrow she had brought upon him. She held up her head andbusied her hands, and went about her daily occupations; and when thestate of things in Washington Square seemed intolerable, she closed hereyes and indulged herself with an intellectual vision of the man forwhose sake she had broken a sacred law. Mrs. Penniman, of the threepersons in Washington Square, had much the most of the manner thatbelongs to a great crisis. If Catherine was quiet, she was quietlyquiet, as I may say, and her pathetic effects, which there was no one tonotice, were entirely unstudied and unintended. If the Doctor was stiffand dry and absolutely indifferent to the presence of his companions, itwas so lightly, neatly, easily done, that you would have had to know himwell to discover that, on the whole, he rather enjoyed having to be sodisagreeable. But Mrs. Penniman was elaborately reserved andsignificantly silent; there was a richer rustle in the very deliberatemovements to which she confined herself, and when she occasionally spoke,in connexion with some very trivial event, she had the air of meaningsomething deeper than what she said. Between Catherine and her fathernothing had passed since the evening she went to speak to him in hisstudy. She had something to say to him—it seemed to her she ought to sayit; but she kept it back, for fear of irritating him. He also hadsomething to say to her; but he was determined not to speak first. Hewas interested, as we know, in seeing how, if she were left to herself,she would “stick.” At last she told him she had seen Morris Townsendagain, and that their relations remained quite the same.
“I think we shall marry—before very long. And probably, meanwhile, Ishall see him rather often; about once a week, not more.”
The Doctor looked at her coldly from head to foot, as if she had been astranger. It was the first time his eyes had rested on her for a week,which was fortunate, if that was to be their expression. “Why not threetimes a day?” he asked. “What prevents your meeting as often as youchoose?”
She turned away a moment; there were tears in her eyes. Then she said,“It is better once a week.”
“I don’t see how it is better. It is as bad as it can be. If youflatter yourself that I care for little modifications of that sort, youare very much mistaken. It is as wrong of you to see him once a week asit would be to see him all day long. Not that it matters to me,however.”
Catherine tried to follow these words, but they seemed to lead towards avague horror from which she recoiled. “I think we shall marry prettysoon,” she repeated at last.
Her father gave her his dreadful look again, as if she were some oneelse. “Why do you tell me that? It’s no concern of mine.”
“Oh, father!” she broke out, “don’t you care, even if you do feel so?”
“Not a button. Once you marry, it’s quite the same to me when or whereor why you do it; and if you think to compound for your folly by hoistingyour flag in this way, you may spare yourself the trouble.”
With this he turned away. But the next day he spoke to her of his ownaccord, and his manner was somewhat changed. “Shall you be marriedwithin the next four or five months?” he asked.
“I don’t know, father,” said Catherine. “It is not very easy for us tomake up our minds.”
“Put it off, then, for six months, and in the meantime I will take you toEurope. I should like you very much to go.”
It gave her such delight, after his words of the day before, to hear thathe should “like” her to do something, and that he still had in his heartany of the tenderness of preference, that she gave a little exclamationof joy. But then she became conscious that Morris was not included inthis proposal, and that—as regards really going—she would greatly preferto remain at home with him. But she blushed, none the less, morecomfortably than she had done of late. “It would be delightful to go toEurope,” she remarked, with a sense that the idea was not original, andthat her tone was not all it might be.
“Very well, then, we will go. Pack up your clothes.”
“I had better tell Mr. Townsend,” said Catherine.
Her father fixed his cold eyes upon her. “If you mean that you hadbetter ask his leave, all that remains to me is to hope he will give it.”
The girl was sharply touched by the pathetic ring of the words; it wasthe most calculated, the most dramatic little speech the Doctor had everuttered. She felt that it was a great thing for her, under thecircumstances, to have this fine opportunity of showing him her respect;and yet there was something else that she felt as well, and that shepresently expressed. “I sometimes think that i
f I do what you dislike somuch, I ought not to stay with you.”
“To stay with me?”
“If I live with you, I ought to obey you.”
“If that’s your theory, it’s certainly mine,” said the Doctor, with a drylaugh.
“But if I don’t obey you, I ought not to live with you—to enjoy yourkindness and protection.”
This striking argument gave the Doctor a sudden sense of havingunderestimated his daughter; it seemed even more than worthy of a youngwoman who had revealed the quality of unaggressive obstinacy. But itdispleased him—displeased him deeply, and he signified as much. “Thatidea is in very bad taste,” he said. “Did you get it from Mr. Townsend?”
“Oh no; it’s my own!” said Catherine eagerly.
“Keep it to yourself, then,” her father answered, more than everdetermined she should go to Europe.