Washington Square

“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.

“Ah! he says that—he calls it an engagement?”

“Oh, he has told me you didn’t like it.”

“Did he tell you that I don’t like him?”

“Yes, he told me that too.  I said I couldn’t help it!” added Mrs. Montgomery.

“Of course you can’t.  But what you can do is to tell me I am right—to give me an attestation, as it were.”  And the Doctor accompanied this remark with another professional smile.

Mrs. Montgomery, however, smiled not at all; it was obvious that she could not take the humorous view of his appeal.  “That is a good deal to ask,” she said at last.

“There can be no doubt of that; and I must, in conscience, remind you of the advantages a young man marrying my daughter would enjoy.  She has an income of ten thousand dollars in her own right, left her by her mother; if she marries a husband I approve, she will come into almost twice as much more at my death.”

Mrs. Montgomery listened in great earnestness to this splendid financial statement; she had never heard thousands of dollars so familiarly talked about.  She flushed a little with excitement.  “Your daughter will be immensely rich,” she said softly.

“Precisely—that’s the bother of it.”

“And if Morris should marry her, he—he—”  And she hesitated timidly.

“He would be master of all that money?  By no means.  He would be master of the ten thousand a year that she has from her mother; but I should leave every penny of my own fortune, earned in the laborious exercise of my profession, to public institutions.”

Mrs. Montgomery dropped her eyes at this, and sat for some time gazing at the straw matting which covered her floor.

“I suppose it seems to you,” said the Doctor, laughing, “that in so doing I should play your brother a very shabby trick.”

“Not at all.  That is too much money to get possession of so easily, by marrying.  I don’t think it would be right.”

“It’s right to get all one can.  But in this case your brother wouldn’t be able.  If Catherine marries without my consent, she doesn’t get a penny from my own pocket.”

“Is that certain?” asked Mrs. Montgomery, looking up.

“As certain as that I sit here!”

“Even if she should pine away?”

“Even if she should pine to a shadow, which isn’t probable.”

“Does Morris know this?”

“I shall be most happy to inform him!” the Doctor exclaimed.

Mrs. Montgomery resumed her meditations, and her visitor, who was prepared to give time to the affair, asked himself whether, in spite of her little conscientious air, she was not playing into her brother’s hands.  At the same time he was half ashamed of the ordeal to which he had subjected her, and was touched by the gentleness with which she bore it.  “If she were a humbug,” he said, “she would get angry; unless she be very deep indeed.  It is not probable that she is as deep as that.”

“What makes you dislike Morris so much?” she presently asked, emerging from her reflexions.