Washington Square

“Be married when you come back.  You can buy your wedding clothes in Paris.”  And then Morris, with great kindness of tone, explained his view of the matter.  It would be a good thing that she should go; it would put them completely in the right.  It would show they were reasonable and willing to wait.  Once they were so sure of each other, they could afford to wait—what had they to fear?  If there was a particle of chance that her father would be favourably affected by her going, that ought to settle it; for, after all, Morris was very unwilling to be the cause of her being disinherited.  It was not for himself, it was for her and for her children.  He was willing to wait for her; it would be hard, but he could do it.  And over there, among beautiful scenes and noble monuments, perhaps the old gentleman would be softened; such things were supposed to exert a humanising influence.  He might be touched by her gentleness, her patience, her willingness to make any sacrifice but that one; and if she should appeal to him some day, in some celebrated spot—in Italy, say, in the evening; in Venice, in a gondola, by moonlight—if she should be a little clever about it and touch the right chord, perhaps he would fold her in his arms and tell her that he forgave her.  Catherine was immensely struck with this conception of the affair, which seemed eminently worthy of her lover’s brilliant intellect; though she viewed it askance in so far as it depended upon her own powers of execution.  The idea of being “clever” in a gondola by moonlight appeared to her to involve elements of which her grasp was not active.  But it was settled between them that she should tell her father that she was ready to follow him obediently anywhere, making the mental reservation that she loved Morris Townsend more than ever.

She informed the Doctor she was ready to embark, and he made rapid arrangements for this event.  Catherine had many farewells to make, but with only two of them are we actively concerned.  Mrs. Penniman took a discriminating view of her niece’s journey; it seemed to her very proper that Mr. Townsend’s destined bride should wish to embellish her mind by a foreign tour.

“You leave him in good hands,” she said, pressing her lips to Catherine’s forehead.  (She was very fond of kissing people’s foreheads; it was an involuntary expression of sympathy with the intellectual part.)  “I shall see him often; I shall feel like one of the vestals of old, tending the sacred flame.”

“You behave beautifully about not going with us,” Catherine answered, not presuming to examine this analogy.

“It is my pride that keeps me up,” said Mrs. Penniman, tapping the body of her dress, which always gave forth a sort of metallic ring.

Catherine’s parting with her lover was short, and few words were exchanged.

“Shall I find you just the same when I come back?” she asked; though the question was not the fruit of scepticism.

“The same—only more so!” said Morris, smiling.

It does not enter into our scheme to narrate in detail Dr. Sloper’s proceedings in the eastern hemisphere.  He made the grand tour of Europe, travelled in considerable splendour, and (as was to have been expected in a man of his high cultivation) found so much in art and antiquity to interest him, that he remained abroad, not for six months, but for twelve.  Mrs. Penniman, in Washington Square, accommodated herself to his absence.  She enjoyed her uncontested dominion in the empty house, and flattered herself that she made it more attractive to their friends than when her brother was at home.  To Morris Townsend, at least, it would have appeared that she made it singularly attractive.  He was altogether her most frequent visitor, and Mrs. Penniman was very fond of asking him to tea.  He had his chair—a very easy one at the fireside in the back parlour (when the great mahogany sliding-doors, with silver knobs and hinges, which divided this apartment from its more formal neighbour, were closed), and he used to smoke cigars in the Doctor’s study, where he often spent an hour in turning over the curious collections of its absent proprietor.  He thought Mrs. Penniman a goose, as we know; but he was no goose himself, and, as a young man of luxurious tastes and scanty resources, he found the house a perfect castle of indolence.  It became for him a club with a single member.  Mrs. Penniman saw much less of her sister than while the Doctor was at home; for Mrs. Almond had felt moved to tell her that she disapproved of her relations with Mr. Townsend.  She had no business to be so friendly to a young man of whom their brother thought so meanly, and Mrs. Almond was surprised at her levity in foisting a most deplorable engagement upon Catherine.

“Deplorable?” cried Lavinia.  “He will make her a lovely husband!”