Washington Square

Mrs. Montgomery quickly rose from her chair, following her visitor’s movements with a look of fascination.  But then, with a certain inconsequence—“I have never complained of him!” she said.

“You needn’t protest—you have not betrayed him.  But I advise you not to give him any more money.”

“Don’t you see it is in my interest that he should marry a rich person?” she asked.  “If, as you say, he lives on me, I can only wish to get rid of him, and to put obstacles in the way of his marrying is to increase my own difficulties.”

“I wish very much you would come to me with your difficulties,” said the Doctor.  “Certainly, if I throw him back on your hands, the least I can do is to help you to bear the burden.  If you will allow me to say so, then, I shall take the liberty of placing in your hands, for the present, a certain fund for your brother’s support.”

Mrs. Montgomery stared; she evidently thought he was jesting; but she presently saw that he was not, and the complication of her feelings became painful.  “It seems to me that I ought to be very much offended with you,” she murmured.

“Because I have offered you money?  That’s a superstition,” said the Doctor.  “You must let me come and see you again, and we will talk about these things.  I suppose that some of your children are girls.”

“I have two little girls,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

“Well, when they grow up, and begin to think of taking husbands, you will see how anxious you will be about the moral character of these gentlemen.  Then you will understand this visit of mine!”

“Ah, you are not to believe that Morris’s moral character is bad!”

The Doctor looked at her a little, with folded arms.  “There is something I should greatly like—as a moral satisfaction.  I should like to hear you say—‘He is abominably selfish!’”

The words came out with the grave distinctness of his voice, and they seemed for an instant to create, to poor Mrs. Montgomery’s troubled vision, a material image.  She gazed at it an instant, and then she turned away.  “You distress me, sir!” she exclaimed.  “He is, after all, my brother, and his talents, his talents—”  On these last words her voice quavered, and before he knew it she had burst into tears.

“His talents are first-rate!” said the Doctor.  “We must find a proper field for them!”  And he assured her most respectfully of his regret at having so greatly discomposed her.  “It’s all for my poor Catherine,” he went on.  “You must know her, and you will see.”

Mrs. Montgomery brushed away her tears, and blushed at having shed them.  “I should like to know your daughter,” she answered; and then, in an instant—“Don’t let her marry him!”

Dr. Sloper went away with the words gently humming in his ears—“Don’t let her marry him!”  They gave him the moral satisfaction of which he had just spoken, and their value was the greater that they had evidently cost a pang to poor little Mrs. Montgomery’s family pride.

XV

He had been puzzled by the way that Catherine carried herself; her attitude at this sentimental crisis seemed to him unnaturally passive.  She had not spoken to him again after that scene in the library, the day before his interview with Morris; and a week had elapsed without making any change in her manner.  There was nothing in it that appealed for pity, and he was even a little disappointed at her not giving him an opportunity to make up for his harshness by some manifestation of liberality which should operate as a compensation.  He thought a little of offering to take her for a tour in Europe; but he was determined to do this only in case she should seem mutely to reproach him.  He had an idea that she would display a talent for mute reproaches, and he was surprised at not finding himself exposed to these silent batteries.  She said nothing, either tacitly or explicitly, and as she was never very talkative, there was now no especial eloquence in her reserve.  And poor Catherine was not sulky—a style of behaviour for which she had too little histrionic talent; she was simply very patient.  Of course she was thinking over her situation, and she was apparently doing so in a deliberate and unimpassioned manner, with a view of making the best of it.

“She will do as I have bidden her,” said the Doctor, and he made the further reflexion that his daughter was not a woman of a great spirit.  I know not whether he had hoped for a little more resistance for the sake of a little more entertainment; but he said to himself, as he had said before, that though it might have its momentary alarms, paternity was, after all, not an exciting vocation.