Washington Square

Catherine for some time never moved; she kept her eyes on the coals.  At last she raised her head and looked at her aunt.  “Why do you push me so?” she asked.

“I don’t push you.  When have I spoken to you before?”

“It seems to me that you have spoken to me several times.”

“I am afraid it is necessary, then, Catherine,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a good deal of solemnity.  “I am afraid you don’t feel the importance—”  She paused a little; Catherine was looking at her.  “The importance of not disappointing that gallant young heart!”  And Mrs. Penniman went back to her chair, by the lamp, and, with a little jerk, picked up the evening paper again.

Catherine stood there before the fire, with her hands behind her, looking at her aunt, to whom it seemed that the girl had never had just this dark fixedness in her gaze.  “I don’t think you understand—or that you know me,” she said.

“If I don’t, it is not wonderful; you trust me so little.”

Catherine made no attempt to deny this charge, and for some time more nothing was said.  But Mrs. Penniman’s imagination was restless, and the evening paper failed on this occasion to enchain it.

“If you succumb to the dread of your father’s wrath,” she said, “I don’t know what will become of us.”

“Did he tell you to say these things to me?”

“He told me to use my influence.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Catherine.  “He trusts me.”

“I hope he may never repent of it!”  And Mrs. Penniman gave a little sharp slap to her newspaper.  She knew not what to make of her niece, who had suddenly become stern and contradictious.

This tendency on Catherine’s part was presently even more apparent.  “You had much better not make any more appointments with Mr. Townsend,” she said.  “I don’t think it is right.”

Mrs. Penniman rose with considerable majesty.  “My poor child, are you jealous of me?” she inquired.

“Oh, Aunt Lavinia!” murmured Catherine, blushing.

“I don’t think it is your place to teach me what is right.”

On this point Catherine made no concession.  “It can’t be right to deceive.”

“I certainly have not deceived you!”

“Yes; but I promised my father—”

“I have no doubt you promised your father.  But I have promised him nothing!”

Catherine had to admit this, and she did so in silence.  “I don’t believe Mr. Townsend himself likes it,” she said at last.

“Doesn’t like meeting me?”

“Not in secret.”

“It was not in secret; the place was full of people.”

“But it was a secret place—away off in the Bowery.”

Mrs. Penniman flinched a little.  “Gentlemen enjoy such things,” she remarked presently.  “I know what gentlemen like.”

“My father wouldn’t like it, if he knew.”

“Pray, do you propose to inform him?” Mrs. Penniman inquired.

“No, Aunt Lavinia.  But please don’t do it again.”

“If I do it again, you will inform him: is that what you mean?  I do not share your dread of my brother; I have always known how to defend my own position.  But I shall certainly never again take any step on your behalf; you are much too thankless.  I knew you were not a spontaneous nature, but I believed you were firm, and I told your father that he would find you so.  I am disappointed—but your father will not be!”  And with this, Mrs. Penniman offered her niece a brief good-night, and withdrew to her own apartment.

XVIII

Catherine sat alone by the parlour fire—sat there for more than an hour, lost in her meditations.  Her aunt seemed to her aggressive and foolish, and to see it so clearly—to judge Mrs. Penniman so positively—made her feel old and grave.  She did not resent the imputation of weakness; it made no impression on her, for she had not the sense of weakness, and she was not hurt at not being appreciated.  She had an immense respect for her father, and she felt that to displease him would be a misdemeanour analogous to an act of profanity in a great temple; but her purpose had slowly ripened, and she believed that her prayers had purified it of its violence.  The evening advanced, and the lamp burned dim without her noticing it; her eyes were fixed upon her terrible plan.  She knew her father was in his study—that he had been there all the evening; from time to time she expected to hear him move.  She thought he would perhaps come, as he sometimes came, into the parlour.  At last the clock struck eleven, and the house was wrapped in silence; the servants had gone to bed.  Catherine got up and went slowly to the door of the library, where she waited a moment, motionless.  Then she knocked, and then she waited again.  Her father had answered her, but she had not the courage to turn the latch.  What she had said to her aunt was true enough—she was afraid of him; and in saying that she had no sense of weakness she meant that she was not afraid of herself.  She heard him move within, and he came and opened the door for her.

“What is the matter?” asked the Doctor.  “You are standing there like a ghost.”