 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. Washington Square by Henry James. Read for LibriVox by Dawn Murphy and Elsa Gundo, California. Chapter 30 It was almost the last outbreak of passion of her life. At least, she never indulged in another, that the world knew anything about. But this one was long and terrible. She flung herself on the sofa and gave herself up to grief. She hardly knew what had happened. Ostensibly, she had only had a difference with her lover, as other girls had had before. And the thing was not only not a rupture, but she was under no obligation to regard it even as a menace. Nevertheless, she felt a wound, even if he had not dealt it. It seemed to her that a mask had suddenly fallen from his face. He had wished to get away from her. He had been angry and cruel and said strange things with strange looks. She was smothered and stunned. She buried her head in the cushions, sobbing and talking to herself. But at last she raised herself with the fear that either her father or Mrs. Penningman would come in. And then she sat there, staring before her, while the room grew darker. She said to herself that perhaps he would come back to tell her he had not meant what he said. And she listened for his ring at the door, trying to believe that this was probable. A long time passed, but Morris remained absent. The shadows gathered. The evening settled down on the meager elegance of the light, clear-colored room. The fire went out. When it had grown dark, Catherine went to the window and looked out. She stood there for half an hour on the mere chance that he would come up the steps. At last she turned away, for she saw her father come in. He had seen her at the window looking out, and he stopped a moment at the bottom of the white steps and gravely gave an air of exaggerated courtesy. He lifted his hat to her. The gesture was so incredulous to the condition she was in. The stately tribute of respect to a poor girl despised and forsaken was so out of place that the thing gave her a kind of horror and she hurried away to her room. It seemed to her that she had given Morris up. She had to show herself half an hour later, and she was sustained at table by the immensity of her desire that her father should not perceive that anything had happened. This was a great help to her afterward, and it served her, though never as much as she supposed, from the first. On this occasion Dr. Sloper was rather talkative. He told a great many stories about a wonderful poodle that he had seen at the house of an old lady whom he visited professionally. Catherine not only tried to appear to listen to the anecdotes of the poodle, but she endeavored to interest herself in them. So was not to think of her scene with Morris. That perhaps was a hallucination. He was mistaken. She was jealous. People didn't change like that from one day to another. Then she knew that she had had doubts before, strange suspicions that were at once vague and acute, and that he had been different ever since her return from Europe. Whereupon she tried again to listen to her father, who told a story so remarkably well. Afterward she went straight to her own room. It was beyond her strength to undertake to spend the evening with her aunt. All the evening alone she questioned herself. Her trouble was terrible. But was it a thing of her imagination engendered by an extravagant sensibility, or did it represent a clear cut reality, and had the worst that was possible actually come to pass? Mrs. Pennyman, with a degree of tact that was as unusual as was commendable, took the line of leaving her alone. The truth is, that her suspicions having been aroused, she indalled a desire, natural to a timid person, that the explosion should be localized, so long as the air still vibrated, she kept out of the way. She passed and repast Catherine's door several times in the course of the evening, as if she expected to hear a plaintive moan behind it. But the room remained perfectly still, and accordingly, the last thing before retiring to her own couch, she applied for admittance. Catherine was sitting up and had a book that she pretended to be reading. She had no wish to go to bed, for she had no expectation of sleeping. After Mrs. Pennyman had left her, she sat up half the night, and she offered her visitor no inducement to remain. Her aunt came stealing in very gently, and approached her with great solemnity. I am afraid you are in trouble, my dear. Can I do anything to help you? I am not in any trouble, whatever, and do not need any help," said Catherine, fibbing roundly, and proving thereby that not only our faults, but our most involuntary misfortunes, tend to corrupt our morals. Has nothing happened to you? Nothing, whatever. Are you very sure, dear? Perfectly sure. And can I really do nothing for you? Nothing, aunt, but kindly leave me alone," said Catherine. Mrs. Pennyman, though she had been afraid of too warm a welcome before, was now disappointed at so cold a one, and in relating afterward, as she did to many persons, and with considerable variations of detail, the history of the termination of her niece's engagement, she was usually careful to mention that the young lady on a certain occasion had hustled her out of the room. It was characteristic of Mrs. Pennyman that she related this fact, not in the least, out of malignity to Catherine, whom she very sufficiently pitied, but simply from a natural disposition to embellish any subject that she touched. Catherine, as I said, sat up half the night, as if she still expected to hear Morris Townsend ring at the door. On the morrow this expectation was less unreasonable, but it was not gratified by the reappearance of the young man. Neither had he written there was not a word of explanation or reassurance. Fortunately for Catherine she could take refuge from her excitement, which had now become intense in her determination that her father should see nothing of it. Although well she deceived her father we shall have occasion to learn, but her innocent arts were of little avail before a person of rare, perspicacity of Mrs. Pennyman. This lady easily saw that she was agitated, and if there was any agitation going forward Mrs. Pennyman was not a person to forfeit her natural share in it. She returned to the charge the next evening and requested her niece to confide in her, to unburden her heart. Perhaps she should be able to explain certain things that now seem dark, and that she knew more about than Catherine supposed. If Catherine had been rigid the night before, to-day she was haughty. You are completely mistaken, and I have not the least idea what you mean. I don't know what you are trying to fasten on me, and I have never had less need of any one's explanations in my life. In this way the girl delivered herself, and from hour to hour kept her aunt at bay. From hour to hour Mrs. Pennyman's curiosity grew. She would have given her little finger to know what Morris had said and done, what tone he had taken, what pretext he had found. She wrote to him, naturally, to request an interview, but she received, as naturally, no answer to her petition. Morris was not in a writing mood, for Catherine had addressed him two short notes, which met with no acknowledgement. These notes were so brief that I may give them entire. Won't you give me some sign that you didn't mean to be so cruel as you seemed on Tuesday? That was the first. The other was a little longer. If I was unreasonable or suspicious on Tuesday, if I annoyed you or troubled you in any way, I beg your forgiveness and I promise never again to be so foolish. I am punished enough and I don't understand. Dear Morris, you are killing me. These notes were dispatched on the Friday and Saturday, but Saturday and Sunday passed without bringing the poor girl the satisfaction she desired. Her punishment accumulated. She continued to bear it, however, with a good deal of superficial fortitude. On Saturday morning the doctor, who had been watching in silence, spoke to his sister Lavinia. The thing has happened. The scoundrel has backed out. Never, cried Mrs. Pennyman, who had bethought herself what she should say to Catherine, but was not provided with a line of defense against her brother, so that indignant negation was the only weapon in her hands. He is begged for a reprieve, then, if you like that better. It seems to make you very happy that your daughter's affections have been trifled with. It does, said the doctor, for I had foretold it. It's a great pleasure to be in the right. Your pleasures make one shudder, his sister exclaimed. Catherine went rigidly through her usual occupations, that is, up to the point of going with her aunt to church on Sunday morning. She generally went to afternoon service as well, but on this occasion her courage faltered, and she begged of Mrs. Pennyman to go without her. I am sure you have a secret, said Mrs. Pennyman, with great significance, looking at her rather grimly. If I have, I shall keep it, Catherine answered, turning away. Mrs. Pennyman started for church, but before she had arrived she stopped and turned back, and before twenty minutes had elapsed, she re-entered the house, looked into the empty parlours, and then went upstairs and knocked at Catherine's door. She got no answer. Catherine was not in her room, and Mrs. Pennyman presently asserted that she was not in the house. She has gone to him. She has fled, Lavinia cried, clasping her hands with admiration and envy, but she soon perceived that Catherine had taken nothing with her. All her personal property in her room was intact, and then she jumped at the hypothesis that the girl had gone forth, not in tenderness, but in resentment. She has followed him to his own door. She has burst upon him in his own apartment. It was in these terms that Mrs. Pennyman depicted to herself her nieces errand, which, viewed in this light, gratified her sense of the picturesque only a shade less strongly than the idea of a clandestine marriage. To visit one's lover with tears and reproaches at his own residence was an image so agreeable to Mrs. Pennyman's mind that she felt a sort of aesthetic disappointment at its lacking, in this case, the harmonious accompaniments of darkness and storm. A quiet Sunday afternoon appeared an inadequate setting for it, and indeed Mrs. Pennyman was quite out of humor with the conditions of the time, which passed very slowly as she sat in the front parlor in her bonnet and her cashmere shawl, awaiting Catherine's return. This event, at last, took place. She saw her at the window, mount the steps, and she went to await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her into the parlor, closing the door with solemnity. Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright. Mrs. Pennyman hardly knew what to think. May I venture to ask you where you have been, she demanded? I have been to take a walk, said Catherine. I thought you had gone to church. I did go to church, but the service was shorter than usual, and pray where did you walk? I don't know, said Catherine. Your ignorance is most extraordinary, dear Catherine. You can trust me. What am I to trust you with? With your secret, your sorrow. I have no sorrow, said Catherine fiercely. My poor child, Mrs. Pennyman insisted, you can't deceive me. I know everything. I have been requested to, uh, to converse with you. I don't want to converse. It will relieve you. Don't you know Shakespeare's lines? The grief that does not speak? My dear girl, it is better as it is. What is better, Catherine asked? She was really too perverse. A certain amount of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady whose lover had thrown her over, but not such an amount as would prove inconvenient to his apologist. That you should be reasonable, said Mrs. Pennyman, with some sternness. That you should take counsel of worldly prudence and submit to practical considerations. That you should agree to a separate— Catherine had been ice up to this moment, but at this word she flamed up. Separate? What do you know about our separating? Mrs. Pennyman shook her head with a sadness in which there was almost a sense of injury. Your pride is my pride. Your susceptibilities are mine. I see your side perfectly, but I also—and she smiled with melancholy suggestiveness—I also see the situation as a whole. This suggestiveness was lost upon Catherine, who repeated her violent inquiry. Why do you talk of separation? What do you know about it? We must study resignation, said Mrs. Pennyman, hesitating, but sententious at a venture. Resignation to what? To a change of our plans. My plans have not changed, said Catherine, with a little laugh. Ah! But Mr. Townsend's have, her aunt answered very gently. What do you mean? There was an imperious brevity in the tone of this inquiry, against which Mrs. Pennyman felt bound to protest. The information with which she had undertaken to supply her niece was, after all, a favour. She had tried sharpness, and she had tried sternness, but neither would do. She was shocked at the girl's obscenency. Ah, well, she said, if he hasn't told you—and she turned away. Catherine watched her a moment in silence, then hurried after her, stopping her before she reached the door. Told me what? What do you mean? What are you hinting at and threatening me with? Isn't it broken off? asked Mrs. Pennyman. My engagement? Not in the least. I beg your pardon in that case. I have spoken too soon. Too soon? Soon or late, Catherine broke out. You speak foolishly and cruelly. What has happened between you, then? asked her aunt, struck by the sincerity of this cry, for something certainly has happened. Nothing has happened, but that I love him more and more. Mrs. Pennyman was silent and instant. I suppose that's the reason you went to see him this afternoon. Catherine flushed as if she had been struck. Yes, I did go to see him, but that's my own business. Very well, then. We won't talk about it. And Mrs. Pennyman moved toward the door again. But she was stopped by a sudden, imploring cry from the girl. Aunt Lavinia, where has he gone? Ah, you admit that he has gone away. Don't they know at his house? They said he had left town. I asked no more questions. I was ashamed, said Catherine simply enough. You needn't have taken so compromising a step if you had had a little more confidence in me, Mrs. Pennyman observed, with a good deal of grandeur. Is it to New Orleans? Catherine went on irrevenly. It was the first time Mrs. Pennyman had heard of New Orleans in this connection, but she was adverse to letting Catherine know that she was in the dark. She attempted to strike an illumination from the instructions she had received from Morris. My dear Catherine, she said, when a separation has been agreed upon, the farther he goes away, the better. Agreed upon? Has he agreed upon it with you? A consummate sense of her aunt's meddlesome folly had come over her during the last five minutes, and she was sickened at the thought that Mrs. Pennyman had been let loose, as it were, upon her happiness. He certainly has sometimes advised with me, said Mrs. Pennyman. Is it you, then, that has changed him and made him so unnatural? Catherine cried. Is it you that have worked on him and taken him from me? He doesn't belong to you, and I don't see how you have anything to do with what is between us. Is it you that have made this plot and told him to leave me? How could you be so wicked, so cruel? What have I ever done to you? Why can't you leave me alone? I was afraid you would spoil everything, for you do spoil everything you touch. I was afraid of you all the time we were abroad. I had no rest when I thought that you were always talking to him. Catherine went on with growing vehemence, pouring out in her bitterness and in the clairvoyance of her passion, which suddenly, jumping all processes, made her judge her aunt finally and without appeal, the uneasiness which had lain for so many months upon her heart. Mrs. Pennyman was scared and bewildered. She saw no prospect of introducing her little account of the purity of Morris's motives. You are a most ungrateful girl, she cried. Do you scold me for talking with him? I am sure we never talked of anything but you. Yes, and that was the way you worried him. You made him tired of my very name. I wish you had never spoken of me to him. I never asked your help. I am sure if it hadn't been for me, he would never have come to the house and you would never have known that he thought of you. Mrs. Pennyman rejoined with a good deal of justice. I wish he had never come to the house and that I never had known it. That's better than this, said poor Catherine. You are a very ungrateful girl, Aunt Lavinia repeated. Catherine's outbreak of anger and the sense of wrong gave her, while they lasted, the satisfaction that comes from all assertion of force. They hurried her along and there is always a sort of pleasure in cleaving the air. But at bottom she hated to be violent. She was conscious of no aptitude for organized resentment. She calmed herself with a great effort but with great rapidity and walked about the room a few moments, trying to say to herself that her aunt had meant everything for the best. She did not succeed in saying it with much conviction, but after a little she was able to speak quietly enough. I am not ungrateful, but I am very unhappy. It's hard to be grateful for that, she said. Will you please tell me where he is? I haven't the least idea. I am not in secret correspondence with him. And Mrs. Penningham wished, indeed, that she were, so that she might let him know how Catherine abused her, after all she had done. Was it a plan of his then to break off? By this time Catherine had become completely quiet. Mrs. Penningham began again to have a glimpse of her chance for explaining. He shrunk. He shrunk, she said. He lacked courage, but it was the courage to injure you. He couldn't bear to bring down on you your father's curse. Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed upon her aunt and continued to gaze at her for some time afterward. Did he tell you to say that? He told me to say many things, all so delicate, so discriminating, and he told me to tell you he hoped you wouldn't despise him. I don't, said Catherine, and then she added. And will he stay away forever? Oh, forever is a long time. Your father perhaps won't live forever. Perhaps not. I am sure you appreciate. You understand, even though your heart bleeds, said Mrs. Penningham. You doubtless think him too scrupulous. So do I, but I respect his scruples. What he asks of you is that you should do the same. Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she spoke at last as if she had not heard or not understood her. It has been a regular plan then. He has broken it off deliberately. He has given me up. For the present, dear Catherine, he has put it off only. He has left me alone, Catherine went on. Haven't you me? asked Mrs. Penningham with some solemnity. Catherine shook her head slowly. I don't believe it. And she left the room. This has been a LibriVox recording of Washington Square, a novel by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. Washington Square by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. Chapter 31 Though she had forced herself to be calm, she preferred practicing this virtue in private, and she forebore to show herself at tea. A repast which, on Sundays at six o'clock, took place of dinner. Dr. Sloper and his sister set face to face. But Mrs. Penningham never met her brother's eye. Late in the evening she went with him, but without Catherine, to their sister Almond's, where between the two ladies Catherine's unhappy situation was discussed with a frankness that was conditioned by a good deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penningham's part. I am delighted he is not to marry her, said Mrs. Almond, but he ought to be horse-whipped all the same. Mrs. Penningham, who was shocked at her sister's coarseness, replied that he had been actuated by the noblest of motives—the desire not to impoverish Catherine. I am very happy that Catherine is not to be impoverished, but I hope he may never have a penny too much. What does the poor girl say to you, Mrs. Almond asked? She says I have a genius for consolation, said Mrs. Penningham. This was the account of the matter that she gave to her sister, and it was perhaps with the consciousness of genius that, on her return that evening to Washington Square, she again presented herself for admittance at Catherine's door. Catherine came and opened it. She was apparently very quiet. I only want to give you a little word of advice, she said. If your father asks you, say that everything is going on. Catherine stood there with her hand on the knob, looking at her aunt, but not asking her to come in. Do you think he will ask me? I am sure he will. He asked me just now on our way home from your aunt Elizabeth's. I explained the whole thing to your aunt Elizabeth. I said to your father I knew nothing about it. Do you think he will ask me when he sees, when he sees? But here Catherine stopped. The more he sees, the more disagreeable he will be, said her aunt. He shall see as little as possible, Catherine declared. Tell him you are to be married. So I am, said Catherine softly, and she closed the door upon her aunt. She could not have said this two days later, for instance on Tuesday, when she at last received a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an epistle of considerable length, measuring five large square pages and written at Philadelphia. It was an explanatory document, and it explained a great many things. Chief among which were the considerations that had led the writer to take advantage of an urgent, professional, absence, to try and banish from his mind the image of one whose path he had crossed, only to shatter it with ruins. He ventured to expect but partial success in this attempt, but he could promise her that, whatever his failure, he would never again interpose between her generous heart and her brilliant prospects and filial duties. He closed with an intimation that his professional pursuits might compel him to travel for some months, and with the hope that when they should each have accommodated themselves to what was sternly involved in their respective positions, even should this result not be reached for years, they should meet as friends, as fellow sufferers, as innocent but philosophic victims of a great social law. That her life should be peaceful and happy was the dearest wish of him who ventured still to subscribe himself, her most obedient servant. The letter was beautifully written, and Catherine, who kept it for many years after this, was able, win her sense of the bitterness of its meaning and the hollowness of its tone had grown less acute, to admire its grace of expression. At present, for a long time after she received it, all she had to help her was the determination, daily, more rigid, to make no appeal to the compassion of her father. He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, in the morning, at an hour at which she rarely saw him, he strolled into the back parlor. He had watched his time, and he found her alone. She was sitting with some work, and he came and stood in front of her. He was going out. He had on his hat, and was drawing on his gloves. It doesn't seem to me that you are treating me just now with all the consideration I deserve," he said in a moment. I don't know what I have done," Catherine answered, with her eyes on her work. You have apparently quite banished from your mind the request I made you at Liverpool before we sailed, the request that you would notify me in advance before leaving my house. I have not left your house," said Catherine, but you intend to leave it, and, by what you gave me to understand, your departure must be impending. In fact, though you are still here in body, you are already absent in spirit. Your mind has taken up its residence with your prospective husband, and you might quite as well be lodged under the conjugal roof for all the benefit we get from your society. I will try to be more cheerful," said Catherine. You certainly ought to be cheerful. You ask a great deal if you are not. To the pleasure of marrying a charming young man you add that of having your own way. You strike me as a very lucky young lady. Catherine got up. She was suffocating. But she folded her work deliberately and correctly, bending her burning face upon it. Her father stood where he had planted himself. She hoped he would go, but he smoothed and buttoned his gloves, and then he rested his hands upon his hips. It would be a convenience to me to know when I may expect to have an empty house, he went on. When you go, your aunt marches. She looked at him at last, with a long, silent gaze, which in spite of her pride and her resolution, uttered part of the appeal she had tried not to make. Her father's cold, gray eye sounded her own, and he insisted on his point. Is it tomorrow? Is it next week, or the week after? I shall not go away, said Catherine. The doctor raised his eyebrows. Has he backed out? I have broken off my engagement. Broken it off? I have asked him to leave New York, and he has gone away for a long time. The doctor was both puzzled and disappointed, but he solved his perplexity by saying to himself that his daughter simply misrepresented, justifiably, if one would, but nevertheless misrepresented the facts. And he eased off his disappointment, which was that of a man losing a chance for a little triumph, that he had rather counted on, by a few words that he uttered aloud. How does he take his dismissal? I don't know, said Catherine, less ingeniously than she had hitherto spoken. Do you mean you don't care? You are rather cruel after encouraging him and playing with him for so long. The doctor had his revenge, after all. End of Chapter 31 This has been a LibriVox recording of Washington Square, a novel by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. Washington Square by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. Chapter 32 Our story has hitherto moved with very short steps, but as it approaches its termination it must take a long stride. As time went on it might have appeared to the doctor that his daughter's account of her rupture with Morris Townsend, mere bravado as he had deemed it, was in some degree justified by the sequel. Morris remained as rigidly and unremittingly absent as if he had died of a broken heart, and Catherine had apparently buried the memory of this fruitless episode as deep as if it had terminated by her own choice. We know that she had been deeply and incurably wounded, but the doctor had no means of knowing it. He was certainly curious about it and would have given a good deal to discover the exact truth. But it was his punishment that he never knew. His punishment, I mean, for the abuse of sarcasm in his relations with his daughter. There was a good deal of effective sarcasm in her keeping him in the dark, and the rest of the world conspired with her, in this sense, to be sarcastic. Mrs. Pennyman told him nothing, partly because he never questioned her. He made too light of Mrs. Pennyman for that, and partly because she flattered herself that a tormenting reserve and a serene profession of ignorance would avenge her for his theory that she had meddled in the matter. He went two or three times to see Mrs. Montgomery, but Mrs. Montgomery had nothing to impart. She simply knew that her brother's engagement was broken off, and now that Miss Sloper was out of danger, she preferred not to bear witness in any way against Morris. She had done so before, however unwillingly, because she was sorry for Miss Sloper. But she was not sorry for Miss Sloper now, not at all sorry. Morris had told her nothing about his relations with Miss Sloper at the time, and he had told her nothing since. He was always away, and he very seldom wrote to her. She believed he had gone to California. Mrs. Almond had, in her sister's phrase, taken up Catherine violently since the recent catastrophe. But though the girl was very grateful to her for her kindness, she revealed no secrets, and the good lady could give the doctor no satisfaction. Even, however, had she been able to narrate to him the private history of his daughter's unhappy love affair, it would have given her a certain comfort to leave him in ignorance, for Mrs. Almond was at this time not altogether in sympathy with her brother. She had guessed for herself that Catherine had been cruelly jilted. She knew nothing from Mrs. Pennyman, for Mrs. Pennyman had not ventured to lay the famous explanation of Morris's motives before Mrs. Almond. Though she had thought it, good enough for Catherine, and she pronounced her brother too consistently, indifferent to what the poor creature must have suffered and must still be suffering. Dr. Sloper had his theory, and he rarely altered his theories. The marriage would have been an abominable one, and the girl had had a blessed escape. She was not to be pitied for that, and to pretend to condole with her would have been to make concessions to the idea that she had ever had a right to think of Morris. I put my foot on this idea from the first. And I keep it there now," said the doctor. I don't see anything cruel in that. One can't keep it there too long. To this, Mrs. Almond, more than once, replied that, if Catherine had not rid of her congruous lover, she deserved the credit of it, and that to bring herself to her father's enlightened view of the matter must have cost her an effort that he was bound to appreciate. I am by no means sure she has got rid of him," said the doctor. There is not the smallest probability that, after having been as obstinate as a mule for two years, she suddenly became amenable to reason. It is infinitely more probable that he got rid of her. All the more reason you should be gentle with her. I am gentle with her, but I can't do the pathetic. I can't pump up tears to look graceful over the most fortunate thing that ever happened to her. You have no sympathy, said Mrs. Almond. That was never your strong point. You have only to look at her to see that, right or wrong, and whether the rupture came from herself or from him. Her poor little heart is grievously bruised. Handling bruises, and even dropping tears on them, doesn't make them any better. My business is to see she gets no more knocks, and that I shall carefully attend to. But I don't at all recognize your description of Catherine. She doesn't strike me in the least as a young woman going about in search of a moral politus. In fact, she seems to me much better than while the fellow was hanging about. She is perfectly comfortable and blooming. She eats, and sleeps, takes her usual exercise, and overloads herself as usual with finery. She is always knitting some purse or embroidery, some handkerchief, and it seems to me she turns these articles out about as fast as ever. She hasn't much to say, but when had she anything to say? She had her little dance, and now as she is sitting down to rest—I suspect that—on the whole she enjoys it. She enjoys it as people enjoy getting rid of a leg that has been crushed. The state of mind after amputation is doubtless when of comparative repose. If your leg is a metaphor for young Townsend, I can assure you he has never been crushed. Crushed? Not he. He is alive and perfectly intact. And that's why I am not satisfied. Should you have liked to kill him, as Mrs. Almond? Yes. Very much. I think it is quite possible that it is all a blind—a blind? An arrangement between them. Il fait la mort, as they say in France, but he is looking out of the corner of his eye. You can depend upon it. He has not burnt his ships. He has kept one to come back in. When I am dead, he will set sail again, and then she will marry him. It is interesting to know that you accuse your only daughter of being the vilest of hypocrites, said Mrs. Almond. I don't see what difference her being my only daughter makes. It is better to accuse one than a dozen, but I don't accuse anyone. There is not the smallest hypocrisy about Catherine, and I deny that she even pretends to be miserable. The doctor's idea that the thing was a blind had its intermissions and revivals, but it may be said on the whole to have increased as he grew older, together with his impressions of Catherine's blooming and comfortable condition. Naturally, if he had not found grounds for viewing her as a love-lorn maiden during the year or two that followed her great trouble, he found none at a time when she had completely recovered her self-possession. He was obliged to recognize the fact that, if the two young people were waiting for him to get out of the way, they were at least waiting very patiently. He had heard from time to time that Morris was in New York, but he never remained there long, and to the best of the doctor's belief had no communication with Catherine. He was sure they never met, and he had reason to suspect that Morris never wrote to her. After the letter that had been mentioned, she heard from him twice again, at considerable intervals. But on none of these occasions did she write herself. On the other hand, as the doctor observed, she averted herself rigidly from the idea of marrying other people. Her opportunities for doing so were not numerous, but they occurred often enough to test her disposition. She refused a widower, a man with a genial temperament, a handsome fortune, and three little girls. He had heard that she was very fond of children, and he pointed to his own with some confidence. And she turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a clever young lawyer, who, with the prospect of a great practice, and the reputation of a most agreeable man, had had the shrewdness, when he came to look about him, for a wife, to believe that she would suit him better than several younger and prettier girls. Mr. McAllister, the widower, had desired to make a marriage of reason, and had chosen Catherine for what he supposed to be her latent matronly qualities. But John Ludlow, who was a year the girl's junior, and spoken of always as a young man who might have had his pick, was seriously in love with her. Catherine, however, would never look at him. She made it plain to him that she thought he came to see her too often. He offered a word, consoled himself, and married a very different person. Little Miss Sturtavent, whose attractions were obvious to the doll's comprehension. Catherine, at the time of these events, had left her thirtieth year well behind her, and had quite taken her place as an old maid. Her father would have preferred she should marry, and he once told her that he hoped she would not be too fastidious. I should like to see you an honest man's wife before I die, he said. This was after John Ludlow had been compelled to give it up, though the doctor had advised him to persevere. The doctor exercised no further pressure, and had the credit of not worrying at all over his daughter's singleness. In fact he worried rather more than appeared, and there were considerable periods during which he felt sure that Morris Townsend was hidden behind some door. If he is not, why doesn't she marry? he asked himself. Limited as her intelligence may be, she must understand perfectly well that she is made to do the usual thing. Catherine, however, became an admirable old maid. She formed habits, regulated her days upon a system of her own, interested herself in charitable institutions, asylums, hospitals, and aid societies, and went generally with an even and noiseless step about the rigid business of her life. This life had, however, a secret history as well as a public one. If I may talk of the public history of a mature and diffident spinster for whom publicity had always a combination of terrors. From her own point of view the great facts of her career were that Morris Townsend had trifled with her affection, and that her father had broken its spring. Nothing could ever alter these facts. They were always there, like her name, her age, her plain face. Nothing could ever undo the wrong or cure the pain that Morris had inflicted on her, and nothing could ever make her feel toward her father as she felt in her younger years. There was something dead in her life, and her duty was to try and fill the void. Catherine recognized this duty to the utmost. She had a great disapproval of brooding and moping. She had, of course, no faculty for quenching memory and dissipation, but she mingled freely in the usual gayities of the town, and she became at last an inevitable figure at all respectable entertainments. She was greatly liked, and as time went on she grew to be a sort of kindly maiden aunt to the younger portion of society. Young girls were apt to confide to her their love affairs, which they never did to Mrs. Pennyman, and young men to be fond of her without knowing why. She developed a few harmless eccentricities. Her habits, once formed, were rather stiffly maintained. Her opinions, on all moral and social matters, were extremely conservative, and before she was forty she was regarded as an old-fashioned person. And an authority on customs that had passed away, Mrs. Pennyman, in comparison, was quite a girlish figure, as she grew younger as she advanced in life. She lost none of her relish for beauty and mystery, but she had little opportunity to exercise it. With Catherine's later wooers she failed to establish relations as intimate as those which had given her so many interesting hours in the society of Morris Townsend. These gentlemen had an indefinable mistrust of her good offices, and they never talked to her about Catherine's charms. Her ringlets, her buckles and bangles glistened more brightly with each succeeding year, and she remained quite the same officious and imaginative Mrs. Pennyman, and the odd mixture of impetuosity and circumspection that we have hitherto known. As regards one point, however, her circumspection prevailed, and she must be given due credit for it. For upward of seventeen years she never mentioned Morris Townsend's name to her niece. Catherine was grateful to her, but this consistent silence, so little in accord with her aunt's character, gave her a certain alarm, and she could never wholly rid herself of a suspicion that Mrs. Pennyman sometimes had news of him. End of Chapter 32 Washington Square by Henry James Read for LibriVox by Dawn Murphy and Elsa Gundot, California Chapter 33 Little by little Dr. Sloper had retired from his profession. He visited only those patients in whose symptoms he recognized a certain originality. He went again to Europe and remained two years. Catherine went with him, and on this occasion Mrs. Pennyman was of the party. Europe apparently had few surprises for Mrs. Pennyman, who frequently remarked in the most romantic sights, You know, I am very familiar with this. It should be added that such remarks were usually not addressed to her brother, or yet to her niece, but to fellow tourists who happened to be at hand, or even to the Ciceroan or the goat herd in the foreground. One day after his return from Europe the doctor said something to his daughter that made her start. It seemed to come from so far out of the past. I should like you to promise me something before I die. Why do you talk of dying? she asked, because I am sixty-eight years old. I hope you will live a long time, said Catherine. I hope I shall. But some day I shall take a bad cold, and then it will not matter much what anyone hopes. That will be the matter of my exit, and when it takes place remember I told you so. Promise me not to marry Morris Townsend after I am gone. This was what made Catherine start, as I have said, but her start was a silent one, and for some moment she said nothing. Why do you speak of him? she asked, at last. You challenge everything I say. I speak of him because he's a topic, like any other. He's to be seen, like anyone else, and he is still looking for a wife. Having had one and got rid of her, I don't know by what means. He has lately been in New York, and at your cousin Marion's house. Your Aunt Elizabeth saw him there. They neither of them told me, said Catherine. That's their merit. It's not yours. He has grown fat and bald. And he has not made his fortune. But I can't trust those facts alone to steal your heart against him, and that's why I ask you to promise. Fat and bald? These words presented a strange image to Catherine's mind, out of which the memory of the most beautiful young man in the world had never faded. I don't think you understand, she said. I very seldom think of Mr. Townsend. It will be very easy for you to go on then. Promise me, after my death, to do the same. Again, for some moments Catherine was silent, her father's request deeply amazed her. It opened an old wound, and made it ache afresh. I don't think I can promise that, she answered. It would be a great satisfaction, said her father. You don't understand. I can't promise that. The doctor was silent a minute. I ask you for a particular reason. I am altering my will. This reason failed to strike Catherine, and indeed she scarcely understood it. All her feelings were merged in the sense that he was trying to treat her as he had treated her years before. She had suffered from it then, and now all her experience, all her acquired tranquility and rigidity, protested. She had been so humble in her youth, that she could now afford to have a little pride, and there was something in this request, and in her father's thinking himself so free to make it, that seemed an injury to her dignity. Poor Catherine's dignity was not aggressive. It never sat in state. But if you pushed far enough, you could find it. Her father had pushed very far. I can't promise, she simply repeated. You are very obstinate, said the doctor. I don't think you understand. Please explain then. I can't explain, said Catherine, and I can't promise. Upon my word, her father exclaimed, I had no idea how obstinate you are. She knew herself that she was obstinate, and it gave her a certain joy. She was now a middle-aged woman. About a year after this, the accident that the doctor had spoken of occurred. He took a violent cold. Driving out to Bloomingdale one April day to see a patient of unsound mind, who was confined in a private asylum for the insane, whose family greatly desired a medical opinion from an eminent source. He was caught in a spring shower and being in a buggy without a hood. He found himself soaked to the skin. He came home with an ominous chill, and on the morrow he was seriously ill. It is congestion of the lungs, he said to Catherine. I shall need very good nursing. It will make no difference, for I shall not recover, but I wish everything to be done to the smallest detail as if I should. I hate an ill-conducted sick-room, and you will be so good as to nurse me, on the hypothesis that I shall get well. He told her which of his fellow physicians to send for, and gave her a multitude of minute directions. It was quite on the optimistic hypothesis that she nursed him. But he had never been wrong in his life, and he was not wrong now. He was touching his seventieth year, and though he had a very well-tempered constitution, his hold upon life had lost its firmness. He died after three weeks' illness, during which Mrs. Pennyman, as well as his daughter, had been assiduous at his bedside. On his will being opened, after a decent interval, it was found to consist of two portions. The first of these dated from ten years back, and consisted of a series of dispositions by which he left the great mass of his property to his daughter, with becoming legacies to his two sisters. The second was a codicil of recent origin, maintaining the annuities to Mrs. Pennyman and Mrs. Almond, but reducing Catherine's share to a fifth of what he had first bequeathed her. She is simply provided for from her mother's side, the document ran, never having spent more than a fraction of her income from this source, so that her fortune is already more than sufficient to attract those unscrupulous adventurers whom she has given me reason to believe that she persists in regarding as an interesting class. The large remainder of his property, therefore, Dr. Sloper had divided into seven unequal parts, which he left as endowments to as many different hospitals and schools of medicine in various cities of the Union. To Mrs. Pennyman it seemed monstrous that a man should play such tricks with other people's money, for after his death, of course, as she said, it was other people's. Of course you will immediately break the will, she remarked to Catherine. Oh no, Catherine answered, I like it very much. Only I wish it had been expressed a little differently. End of Chapter 33 As a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. Washington Square by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Dawn Murphy and Elsa Gundot California. Chapter 34 It was her habit to remain in town very late in the summer. She preferred the house in Washington Square to any other habitation, whatever, and it was under protest that she used to go to the seaside for the month of August. At the sea she spent her month at a hotel. The year that her father died she intermitted this custom altogether, not thinking it consistent with deep mourning, and the year after that she put off her departure till so late that the middle of August found her still in the heated solitude of Washington Square. Mrs. Penningman, who was fond of a change, was usually eager for a visit to the country, but this year she appeared quite content with such rural impressions as she could gather at the parlor window from the elanthus trees behind the wooden paling. The particular fragrance of this vegetation used to diffuse itself in the evening air, and Mrs. Penningman, on the warm nights of July, often sat at the open window and inhaled it. It was a happy moment for Mrs. Penningman. After the death of her brother she felt more free to obey her impulses. A vague oppression had disappeared from her life, and she enjoyed a sense of freedom of which she had not been conscious since the memorable time so long ago when the doctor went abroad with Catherine and left her at home to entertain Morris Townsend. The year that had elapsed since her brother's death reminded her of that happy time, because, although Catherine, in growing older, had become a person to reckon with, yet her society was a very different thing, as Mrs. Penningman said, from that of a tank of cold water. The elder lady hardly knew what used to make of this larger margin of her life. She sat and looked at it very much as she had often sat with her poised needle in her hand before her tapestry frame. She had a confident hope, however, that her rich impulses, her talent for embroidery, would still find their application, and this confidence was justified before many months elapsed. Catherine continued to live in her father's house, in spite of its being represented to her, that a maiden lady of quiet habits might find a more convenient abode in one of the smaller dwellings with brownstone fronts, which had, at this time, begun to adorn the traversed thoroughfares in the upper part of the town. She liked the earlier structure. It had begun, by this time, to be called an old house, and proposed to herself to end her days in it. If it was too large for a pair of unpretending gentle women, this was better than the opposite fault, for Catherine had no desire to find herself in closer quarters with her aunt. She expected to spend the rest of her life in Washington Square and to enjoy Mrs. Pennyman's society for the whole of this period. As she had a conviction that, long as she might live, her aunt would live at least as long, and always retain her brilliancy and activity. Mrs. Pennyman suggested to her the idea of a rich vitality. On one of those warm evenings in July of which mention has been made, the two ladies sat together at an open window, looking out on the quiet square. It was too hot for lighted lamps, for reading, or for work. It might have appeared too hot even for conversation, Mrs. Pennyman having long been speechless. She sat forward in the window, half on the balcony, humming a little song. Catherine was within the room, in a low, rocking chair, dressed in white and slowly using a large, palmetto fan. It was in this way, at this season, that the aunt and niece, after they had had tea, habitually spent their evenings. Catherine, said Mrs. Pennyman, at last, I am going to say something that will surprise you. Pray do, Catherine answered, I like surprises, and it is so quiet now. Well then, I have seen Morris Townsend. If Catherine was surprised, she checked the expression of it. She gave neither a start nor an exclamation. She remained, indeed, for some moments intensely still, and this may very well have been a symptom of emotion. I hope he is well, she said at last. I don't know. He is a great deal changed. He would like very much to see you. I would rather not see him, said Catherine quickly. I was afraid you would say that, but you don't seem surprised. I am, very much. I met him at Miriams, said Mrs. Pennyman. He goes to Miriams, and they are so afraid you will meet him there. It's my belief that that's why he goes. He wants so much to see you. Catherine made no response to this, and Mrs. Pennyman went on. I didn't know him at first. He is so remarkably changed, but he knew me in a minute. He says I am not in the least changed. You know how polite he always was. He was coming away when I came, and we walked a little distance together. He is still very handsome, only, of course, he looks older, and he is not so animated as he used to be. There was a touch of sadness about him, but there was a touch of sadness about him before, especially when he went away. I am afraid he has not been very successful, that he has never got thoroughly established. I don't suppose he is sufficiently plotting, and that, after all, is what succeeds in this world. Mrs. Pennyman had not mentioned Morris Townsend's name to her niece for upwards of the fifth of the century. But now that she had broken the spell, she seemed to wish to make up for lost time as if there had been a sort of exhilaration in hearing herself talk of him. She proceeded, however, with considerable caution, pausing occasionally to let Catherine give some sign. Catherine gave no other sign than to stop the rocking of her chair and the swaying of her fan. She sat motionless and silent. It was on Tuesday last, said Mrs. Pennyman, and I have been hesitating ever since about telling you. I didn't know how you might like it. At last I thought it was so long ago that you would probably not have any particular feeling. I saw him again after meeting him at Miriam's. I met him in the street, and he went a few steps with me. The first thing he said was about you. He asked ever so many questions. Miriam didn't want me to speak to you. She didn't want you to know that they receive him. I told him I was sure that after all these years you wouldn't have any feeling about that. You couldn't grudge him the hospitality of his own cousin's house. I said you would be bitter indeed if you did that. Miriam has the most extraordinary ideas about what happened between you. She seems to think he behaved in some very unusual manner. I took the liberty of reminding her of the real facts and placing the story in its true light. He has no bitterness, Catherine. I can assure you, and he might be excused for it, for things have not gone well with him. He has been all over the world and tried to establish himself everywhere, but his evil star was against him. It is most interesting to hear him talk of his evil star. Everything failed. Everything but his—you know, you remember—his proud, high spirit. I believe he married some lady somewhere in Europe. You know they marry in such a peculiar matter of course way in Europe—a marriage of reason they call it. She died soon afterward, as he said to me. She only flitted across his life. He has not been in New York for ten years. He came back a few days ago. The first thing he did was to ask me about you. He had heard you had never married. He seemed very much interested about that. He said you had been the real romance of his life. Catherine had suffered her companion to proceed from point to point and pause to pause without interrupting her. She fixed her eyes on the ground and listened. But the last phrase I have quoted was followed by a pause of peculiar significance. And then at last Catherine spoke. It will be observed that, before doing so, she had received a good deal of information about Morris Townsend. Please say no more. Please don't follow up that subject. Doesn't it interest you, as Mrs. Pennyman, with a certain to Morris archness? It pains me, said Catherine. I was afraid you would say that. But don't you think you could get used to it? He wants so much to see you. Please don't, Aunt LaVenia, said Catherine, getting up from her seat. She moved quickly away and went to the other window which stood open to the balcony. And here, in the embrasure, concealed from her aunt from the white curtains, she remained a long time. Looking out into the warm darkness, she had had a great shock. It was as if the gulf of the past had suddenly opened and a spectral figure had risen out of it. There were some things she had believed she got over, some feelings that she had thought of as dead. But apparently there was a certain vitality in them still. Mrs. Pennyman had made them stir themselves. It was but a momentary agitation, Catherine said to herself. It would presently pass away. She was trembling, and her heart was beating so that she could feel it, but this also would subside. Then suddenly, while she waited for a return of her calmness, she burst into tears. But her tears flowed very silently so that Mrs. Pennyman had no observation of them. It was perhaps, however, because Mrs. Pennyman suspected them that she said no more that evening about Morris Townsend. End of Chapter 34 This has been a LibriVox recording of Washington Square, a novel by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. Washington Square by Henry James, read for LibriVox by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California. Chapter 35 Her refreshed attention to this gentleman had not those limits of which Catherine desired. For herself to be conscious, it lasted long enough to enable her to wait another week before speaking of him again. It was under the same circumstances that she once more attacked the subject. She had been sitting with her niece in the evening. Only on this occasion, as the night was not so warm, the lamp had been lighted and Catherine had placed herself near it with a morsel, a fancy work. Mrs. Pennyman went and sat alone for half an hour on the balcony. Then she came in, moving vaguely about the room. At last she sunk into a seat near Catherine with clasped hands and a little look of excitement. Shall you be angry if I speak to you again about him? She asked. Catherine looked up at her quietly. Who is he? He whom you once loved. I shall not be angry, but I shall not like it. He sent you a message, said Mrs. Pennyman. I promised him to deliver it, and I must keep my promise. In all these years Catherine had had time to forget how little she had to thank her aunt for in the season of her misery. She had long ago forgiven Mrs. Pennyman for taking too much upon herself, but for a moment this attitude of interposition and disinterestedness, this carrying of messages and redeeming of promises, brought back the sense that her companion was a dangerous woman. She had said she would not be angry, but for an instant she felt sore. I don't care what you do with your promise, she answered. Mrs. Pennyman, however, with her high conception of the sanctity of pledges, carried her point. I have gone too far to retreat, she said, though precisely what this meant she was not at pains to explain. Mr. Townsend wishes most particularly to see you, Catherine. He believes that if you knew how much and why he wishes it, you would consent to do so. There can be no reason, said Catherine, no good reason. His happiness depends upon it. Is not that a good reason? asked Mrs. Pennyman impressively. Not for me. My happiness does not. I think you will be happier after you have seen him. He is going away again, going to resume his wanderings. It is a very lonely, restless, joyless life. Before he goes he wishes to speak to you. It is a fixed idea with him. He is always thinking of it. He has something very important to say to you. He believes that you never understood him, that you never judged him rightly, and the belief has always weighed upon him terribly. He wishes to justify himself. He believes that in a very few words he could do so. He wishes to meet you as a friend. Catherine listened to this wonderful speech without pausing in her work. She had now had several days to accustom herself to think of Morris Townsend again as an actuality. When it was over she said simply, Please say to Mr. Townsend that I wish he would leave me alone. She had hardly spoken when a sharp, firm ring at the door vibrated through the summer night. Catherine looked up at the clock. It marked a quarter past nine. A very late hour for visitors, especially in the empty condition of the town. Mrs. Pennyman at the same moment gave a little start and then Catherine's eyes turned quickly to her aunt. They met Mrs. Pennyman's and sounded them for a moment sharply. Mrs. Pennyman was blushing. Her look was a conscious one. It seemed to confess something. Catherine guessed its meaning and rose quickly from her chair. Aunt Pennyman, she said in a tone that scared her companion. Have you taken the liberty? My dearest Catherine, stammered Mrs. Pennyman, just wait till you see him. Catherine had frightened her aunt, but she was also frightened herself. She was on the point of rushing to give orders to the servant who was passing to the door to admit no one. But the fear of meeting her visitor checked her. Mr. Morris Townsend. This was what she heard, vaguely but recognizably, articulated by the domestic while she hesitated. She had her back turned to the door of the parlor, and for some moment she kept it turned, feeling that he had come in. He had not spoken, however, and at last she faced about. Then she saw a gentleman standing in the middle of the room from which her aunt had discreetly retired. She would have never known him. He was forty-five years old and his figure was not that of the straight, slim young man she remembered, but it was a very fine presence, an affair and lustrous beard spreading itself upon a well-presented chest contributed to its effect. After a moment Catherine recognized the upper half of the face, which though her visitor's clustering locks had grown thin, was still remarkably handsome. He stood in a deeply differential attitude, with his eyes on her face. I have ventured. I have ventured, he said, and then he paused looking about him as if he expected her to ask him to sit down. It was the old voice, but it was not the old charm. Catherine for a minute was conscious of the distinct determination not to invite him to take a seat. Why had he come? It was wrong for him to come. Morris was embarrassed, but Catherine gave him no help. It was not that she was glad of his embarrassment. On the contrary, it excited all her own liabilities of this kind and gave her great pain. But how could she welcome him when she felt so vividly that he ought not to have come? I wanted so much. I was determined, Morris went on, but he stopped again. It was not easy. Catherine still said nothing, and he may well have recalled with apprehension her ancient faculty of silence. She continued to look at him, however, and as she did so she made the strangest observation. It seemed to be he, and yet not he. It was the man who had been everything, and yet this person was nothing. How long ago it was, how old she had grown, how much she had lived. She had lived on something that was connected with him, and she had consumed it in doing so. This person did not look unhappy. He was fair and well preserved, perfectly dressed, mature and complete. As Catherine looked at him, the story of his life defined itself in his eyes. He had made himself comfortable, and he had never been caught. But even while her perception opened itself to this, she had no desire to catch him. His presence was painful to her, and she only wished he would go. Will you not sit down? he asked. I think we had better not, said Catherine. I offend you by coming? He was very grave. He spoke in a tone of richest respect. I don't think you ought to have come. Did not Miss Pennyman tell you, did she not give you my message? She told me something, but I did not understand. I wish you would let me tell you, let me speak for myself. I don't think it's necessary, said Catherine. Not for you perhaps, but for me. It would be a great satisfaction, and I have not many. He seemed to be coming nearer. Catherine turned away. Can we not be friends again? he asked. We are not enemies, said Catherine. I have none but friendly feelings to you. Ah, I wonder whether you know the happiness it gives me to hear you say that. Catherine uttered no intimation that she measured the influence of her words, and he presently went on. You have not changed. The years have passed happily for you. They have passed very quietly, said Catherine. They have left no marks. You are admirably young. This time he succeeded in coming nearer. He was close to her. She saw his glossy, perfumed beard, and his eyes above it looking strange and hard. It was very different from his old—from his young face. If she had first seen him this way she would not have liked him. It seemed to her that he was smiling or trying to smile. Catherine, he said, lowering his voice, I have never ceased to think of you. Please don't say these things, she answered. Do you hate me? Oh, no, said Catherine. Something in her tone discouraged him, but in a moment he recovered himself. Have you still some kindness for me, then? I don't know why you have come here to ask me such things, Catherine exclaimed. Because for many years it has been the desire of my life that we should be friends again. That is impossible. Why so? Not if you will allow it. I will not allow it, said Catherine. He looked at her again in silence. I see my presence troubles you and pains you. I will go away, but you must give me leave to come again. Please don't come again, she said. Never? Never? She made a great effort. She wished to say something that would make it impossible he should ever again cross her threshold. It is wrong of you. There is no propriety in it, no reason for it. Ah, dearest lady, you do me injustice, cried Morris Townsend. We have only waited, and now we are free. You treated me badly, said Catherine. Not if you think of it rightly. You had your quiet life with your father, which was just what I could not make up my mind to rob you of. Yes, I had that. Morris felt it to be a considerable damage to his cause that he could not add that she had had something more besides, for it is needless to say that he had learned the contents of Dr. Sloper's will. He was, nevertheless, not at a loss. There are worse fates than that, he exclaimed, with expression, and he might have been supposed to refer to his own unprotected situation. Then he added, with a deeper tenderness, Catherine, have you never forgiven me? I forgave you years ago, but it is useless for us to attempt to be friends. Not if we forget the past. We have still a future, thank God. I can't forget. I don't forget, said Catherine. You treated me too badly. I felt it very much. I felt it for years. And then she went on, with her wish to show him that he must not come to her this way. I can't begin again. I can't take it up. Everything is dead and buried. It was too serious. It made a great change in my life. I never expected to see you here. Ah! You are angry, cried Morris, who wished immensely that he could extort some flash of passion from her calmness. In that case, he might hope. No, I am not angry. Anger does not last that way for years. But there are other things. Impressions last when they have been strong. But I can't talk. Morris stood stroking his beard with a clouded eye. Why have you never married? He asked abruptly. You have had opportunities. I didn't wish to marry. Yes, you are rich, you are free, you had nothing to gain. I had nothing to gain, said Catherine. Morris looked vaguely around him and gave a deep sigh. Well, I was in hopes that we might still have been friends. I meant to tell you, by my aunt, an answer to your message, if you had waited for an answer. That it was unnecessary for you to come in that hope. Good-bye, then, said Morris. Excuse my indiscretion. He bowed, and she turned away, standing there, averted, with her eyes on the ground, for some moments after she heard him close the door of the room. In the hall he found Miss Pennyman, fluttered and eager, she appeared to have been hovering there under the irreconcilable promptings of her curiosity and her dignity. That was a precious plan of yours, said Morris, clapping on his hat. Is she so hard? asked Mrs. Pennyman. She doesn't care a button for me, with her confounded little dry manner. Was it very dry? pursued Mrs. Pennyman with selectitude. Morris took no notice of her question. He stood musing an instant with his hat on. But why the deuce, then, would she never marry? Yes, why indeed, sighed Mrs. Pennyman, and then, as if from a sense of the inadequacy of this explanation. But you will not despair. You will come back. Come back? Damnation, said Morris Townsend. And Morris Townsend strode out of the house, leaving Mrs. Pennyman staring. Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlor picking up her morsel of fancy work, had seated herself with it again, for life, as it were. End of Chapter 35. End of Washington Square. This has been a LibriVox recording of Washington Square. A novel by Henry James. Read for LibriVox by Dawn Murphy. And completed on Mother's Day 2007, in honor of my mother, Nancy.