Washington Square

“It may turn out better than you think.  Catherine is, after all, so very peculiar.”  And she thought she might take it upon herself to assure him that, whatever happened, the girl would be very quiet—she wouldn’t make a noise.  They extended their walk, and, while they proceeded, Mrs. Penniman took upon herself other things besides, and ended by having assumed a considerable burden; Morris being ready enough, as may be imagined, to put everything off upon her.  But he was not for a single instant the dupe of her blundering alacrity; he knew that of what she promised she was competent to perform but an insignificant fraction, and the more she professed her willingness to serve him, the greater fool he thought her.

“What will you do if you don’t marry her?” she ventured to inquire in the course of this conversation.

“Something brilliant,” said Morris.  “Shouldn’t you like me to do something brilliant?”

The idea gave Mrs. Penniman exceeding pleasure.

“I shall feel sadly taken in if you don’t.”

“I shall have to, to make up for this.  This isn’t at all brilliant, you know.”

Mrs. Penniman mused a little, as if there might be some way of making out that it was; but she had to give up the attempt, and, to carry off the awkwardness of failure, she risked a new inquiry.

“Do you mean—do you mean another marriage?”

Morris greeted this question with a reflexion which was hardly the less impudent from being inaudible.  “Surely, women are more crude than men!”  And then he answered audibly:

“Never in the world!”

Mrs. Penniman felt disappointed and snubbed, and she relieved herself in a little vaguely-sarcastic cry.  He was certainly perverse.

“I give her up, not for another woman, but for a wider career!” Morris announced.

This was very grand; but still Mrs. Penniman, who felt that she had exposed herself, was faintly rancorous.

“Do you mean never to come to see her again?” she asked, with some sharpness.

“Oh no, I shall come again; but what is the use of dragging it out?  I have been four times since she came back, and it’s terribly awkward work.  I can’t keep it up indefinitely; she oughtn’t to expect that, you know.  A woman should never keep a man dangling!” he added finely.

“Ah, but you must have your last parting!” urged his companion, in whose imagination the idea of last partings occupied a place inferior in dignity only to that of first meetings.

XXIX