Washington Square

He came very soon again, and Mrs. Penniman had of course great pleasure in executing this mission.  Morris Townsend accepted her invitation with equal good grace, and the dinner took place a few days later.  The Doctor had said to himself, justly enough, that they must not have the young man alone; this would partake too much of the nature of encouragement.  So two or three other persons were invited; but Morris Townsend, though he was by no means the ostensible, was the real, occasion of the feast.  There is every reason to suppose that he desired to make a good impression; and if he fell short of this result, it was not for want of a good deal of intelligent effort.  The Doctor talked to him very little during dinner; but he observed him attentively, and after the ladies had gone out he pushed him the wine and asked him several questions.  Morris was not a young man who needed to be pressed, and he found quite enough encouragement in the superior quality of the claret.  The Doctor’s wine was admirable, and it may be communicated to the reader that while he sipped it Morris reflected that a cellar-full of good liquor—there was evidently a cellar-full here—would be a most attractive idiosyncrasy in a father-in-law.  The Doctor was struck with his appreciative guest; he saw that he was not a commonplace young man.  “He has ability,” said Catherine’s father, “decided ability; he has a very good head if he chooses to use it.  And he is uncommonly well turned out; quite the sort of figure that pleases the ladies.  But I don’t think I like him.”  The Doctor, however, kept his reflexions to himself, and talked to his visitors about foreign lands, concerning which Morris offered him more information than he was ready, as he mentally phrased it, to swallow.  Dr. Sloper had travelled but little, and he took the liberty of not believing everything this anecdotical idler narrated.  He prided himself on being something of a physiognomist, and while the young man, chatting with easy assurance, puffed his cigar and filled his glass again, the Doctor sat with his eyes quietly fixed on his bright, expressive face.  “He has the assurance of the devil himself,” said Morris’s host; “I don’t think I ever saw such assurance.  And his powers of invention are most remarkable.  He is very knowing; they were not so knowing as that in my time.  And a good head, did I say?  I should think so—after a bottle of Madeira and a bottle and a half of claret!”

After dinner Morris Townsend went and stood before Catherine, who was standing before the fire in her red satin gown.

“He doesn’t like me—he doesn’t like me at all!” said the young man.

“Who doesn’t like you?” asked Catherine.

“Your father; extraordinary man!”

“I don’t see how you know,” said Catherine, blushing.

“I feel; I am very quick to feel.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken.”

“Ah, well; you ask him and you will see.”

“I would rather not ask him, if there is any danger of his saying what you think.”

Morris looked at her with an air of mock melancholy.

“It wouldn’t give you any pleasure to contradict him?”

“I never contradict him,” said Catherine.

“Will you hear me abused without opening your lips in my defence?”

“My father won’t abuse you.  He doesn’t know you enough.”

Morris Townsend gave a loud laugh, and Catherine began to blush again.

“I shall never mention you,” she said, to take refuge from her confusion.

“That is very well; but it is not quite what I should have liked you to say.  I should have liked you to say: ‘If my father doesn’t think well of you, what does it matter?’”

“Ah, but it would matter; I couldn’t say that!” the girl exclaimed.

He looked at her for a moment, smiling a little; and the Doctor, if he had been watching him just then, would have seen a gleam of fine impatience in the sociable softness of his eye.  But there was no impatience in his rejoinder—none, at least, save what was expressed in a little appealing sigh.  “Ah, well, then, I must not give up the hope of bringing him round!”

He expressed it more frankly to Mrs. Penniman later in the evening.  But before that he sang two or three songs at Catherine’s timid request; not that he flattered himself that this would help to bring her father round.  He had a sweet, light tenor voice, and when he had finished every one made some exclamation—every one, that is, save Catherine, who remained intensely silent.  Mrs. Penniman declared that his manner of singing was “most artistic,” and Dr. Sloper said it was “very taking—very taking indeed”; speaking loudly and distinctly, but with a certain dryness.

“He doesn’t like me—he doesn’t like me at all,” said Morris Townsend, addressing the aunt in the same manner as he had done the niece.  “He thinks I’m all wrong.”

Unlike her niece, Mrs. Penniman asked for no explanation.  She only smiled very sweetly, as if she understood everything; and, unlike Catherine too, she made no attempt to contradict him.  “Pray, what does it matter?” she murmured softly.