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  IV

  MRS. PENNIMAN, with more buckles and bangles than ever, came, of course,to the entertainment, accompanied by her niece; the Doctor, too, hadpromised to look in later in the evening. There was to be a good deal ofdancing, and before it had gone very far, Marian Almond came up toCatherine, in company with a tall young man. She introduced the youngman as a person who had a great desire to make our heroine’sacquaintance, and as a cousin of Arthur Townsend, her own intended.

  Marian Almond was a pretty little person of seventeen, with a very smallfigure and a very big sash, to the elegance of whose manners matrimonyhad nothing to add. She already had all the airs of a hostess, receivingthe company, shaking her fan, saying that with so many people to attendto she should have no time to dance. She made a long speech about Mr.Townsend’s cousin, to whom she administered a tap with her fan beforeturning away to other cares. Catherine had not understood all that shesaid; her attention was given to enjoying Marian’s ease of manner andflow of ideas, and to looking at the young man, who was remarkablyhandsome. She had succeeded, however, as she often failed to do whenpeople were presented to her, in catching his name, which appeared to bethe same as that of Marian’s little stockbroker. Catherine was alwaysagitated by an introduction it seemed a difficult moment, and shewondered that some people—her new acquaintance at this moment, forinstance—should mind it so little. She wondered what she ought to say,and what would be the consequences of her saying nothing. Theconsequences at present were very agreeable. Mr. Townsend, leaving herno time for embarrassment, began to talk with an easy smile, as if he hadknown her for a year.

  “What a delightful party! What a charming house! What an interestingfamily! What a pretty girl your cousin is!”

  These observations, in themselves of no great profundity, Mr. Townsendseemed to offer for what they were worth, and as a contribution to anacquaintance. He looked straight into Catherine’s eyes. She answerednothing; she only listened, and looked at him; and he, as if he expectedno particular reply, went on to say many other things in the samecomfortable and natural manner. Catherine, though she felt tongue-tied,was conscious of no embarrassment; it seemed proper that he should talk,and that she should simply look at him. What made it natural was that hewas so handsome, or rather, as she phrased it to herself, so beautiful.The music had been silent for a while, but it suddenly began again; andthen he asked her, with a deeper, intenser smile, if she would do him thehonour of dancing with him. Even to this inquiry she gave no audibleassent; she simply let him put his arm round her waist—as she did so itoccurred to her more vividly than it had ever done before, that this wasa singular place for a gentleman’s arm to be—and in a moment he wasguiding her round the room in the harmonious rotation of the polka. Whenthey paused she felt that she was red; and then, for some moments, shestopped looking at him. She fanned herself, and looked at the flowersthat were painted on her fan. He asked her if she would begin again, andshe hesitated to answer, still looking at the flowers.

  “Does it make you dizzy?” he asked, in a tone of great kindness.

  Then Catherine looked up at him; he was certainly beautiful, and not atall red. “Yes,” she said; she hardly knew why, for dancing had nevermade her dizzy.

  “Ah, well, in that case,” said Mr. Townsend, “we will sit still and talk.I will find a good place to sit.”

  He found a good place—a charming place; a little sofa that seemed meantonly for two persons. The rooms by this time were very full; the dancersincreased in number, and people stood close in front of them, turningtheir backs, so that Catherine and her companion seemed secluded andunobserved. “_We_ will talk,” the young man had said; but he still didall the talking. Catherine leaned back in her place, with her eyes fixedupon him, smiling and thinking him very clever. He had features likeyoung men in pictures; Catherine had never seen such features—sodelicate, so chiselled and finished—among the young New Yorkers whom shepassed in the streets and met at parties. He was tall and slim, but helooked extremely strong. Catherine thought he looked like a statue. Buta statue would not talk like that, and, above all, would not have eyes ofso rare a colour. He had never been at Mrs. Almond’s before; he feltvery much like a stranger; and it was very kind of Catherine to take pityon him. He was Arthur Townsend’s cousin—not very near; several timesremoved—and Arthur had brought him to present him to the family. Infact, he was a great stranger in New York. It was his native place; buthe had not been there for many years. He had been knocking about theworld, and living in far-away lands; he had only come back a month or twobefore. New York was very pleasant, only he felt lonely.

  “You see, people forget you,” he said, smiling at Catherine with hisdelightful gaze, while he leaned forward obliquely, turning towards her,with his elbows on his knees.

  It seemed to Catherine that no one who had once seen him would everforget him; but though she made this reflexion she kept it to herself,almost as you would keep something precious.

  They sat there for some time. He was very amusing. He asked her aboutthe people that were near them; he tried to guess who some of them were,and he made the most laughable mistakes. He criticised them very freely,in a positive, off-hand way. Catherine had never heard anyone—especially any young man—talk just like that. It was the way a youngman might talk in a novel; or better still, in a play, on the stage,close before the footlights, looking at the audience, and with every onelooking at him, so that you wondered at his presence of mind. And yetMr. Townsend was not like an actor; he seemed so sincere, so natural.This was very interesting; but in the midst of it Marian Almond camepushing through the crowd, with a little ironical cry, when she foundthese young people still together, which made every one turn round, andcost Catherine a conscious blush. Marian broke up their talk, and toldMr. Townsend—whom she treated as if she were already married, and he hadbecome her cousin—to run away to her mother, who had been wishing for thelast half-hour to introduce him to Mr. Almond.

  “We shall meet again!” he said to Catherine as he left her, and Catherinethought it a very original speech.

  Her cousin took her by the arm, and made her walk about. “I needn’t askyou what you think of Morris!” the young girl exclaimed.

  “Is that his name?”

  “I don’t ask you what you think of his name, but what you think ofhimself,” said Marian.

  “Oh, nothing particular!” Catherine answered, dissembling for the firsttime in her life.

  “I have half a mind to tell him that!” cried Marian. “It will do himgood. He’s so terribly conceited.”

  “Conceited?” said Catherine, staring.

  “So Arthur says, and Arthur knows about him.”

  “Oh, don’t tell him!” Catherine murmured imploringly.

  “Don’t tell him he’s conceited? I have told him so a dozen times.”

  At this profession of audacity Catherine looked down at her littlecompanion in amazement. She supposed it was because Marian was going tobe married that she took so much on herself; but she wondered too,whether, when she herself should become engaged, such exploits would beexpected of her.

  Half an hour later she saw her Aunt Penniman sitting in the embrasure ofa window, with her head a little on one side, and her gold eye-glassraised to her eyes, which were wandering about the room. In front of herwas a gentleman, bending forward a little, with his back turned toCatherine. She knew his back immediately, though she had never seen it;for when he had left her, at Marian’s instigation, he had retreated inthe best order, without turning round. Morris Townsend—the name hadalready become very familiar to her, as if some one had been repeating itin her ear for the last half-hour—Morris Townsend was giving hisimpressions of the company to her aunt, as he had done to herself; he wassaying clever things, and Mrs. Penniman was smiling, as if she approvedof them. As soon as Catherine had perceived this she moved away; shewould not have liked him to turn round and see her. But it gave herpleasure—the whole thin
g. That he should talk with Mrs. Penniman, withwhom she lived and whom she saw and talked with every day—that seemed tokeep him near her, and to make him even easier to contemplate than if sheherself had been the object of his civilities; and that Aunt Laviniashould like him, should not be shocked or startled by what he said, thisalso appeared to the girl a personal gain; for Aunt Lavinia’s standardwas extremely high, planted as it was over the grave of her late husband,in which, as she had convinced every one, the very genius of conversationwas buried. One of the Almond boys, as Catherine called him, invited ourheroine to dance a quadrille, and for a quarter of an hour her feet atleast were occupied. This time she was not dizzy; her head was veryclear. Just when the dance was over, she found herself in the crowd faceto face with her father. Dr. Sloper had usually a little smile, never avery big one, and with his little smile playing in his clear eyes and onhis neatly-shaved lips, he looked at his daughter’s crimson gown.

  “Is it possible that this magnificent person is my child?” he said.

  You would have surprised him if you had told him so; but it is a literalfact that he almost never addressed his daughter save in the ironicalform. Whenever he addressed her he gave her pleasure; but she had to cuther pleasure out of the piece, as it were. There were portions leftover, light remnants and snippets of irony, which she never knew what todo with, which seemed too delicate for her own use; and yet Catherine,lamenting the limitations of her understanding, felt that they were toovaluable to waste and had a belief that if they passed over her head theyyet contributed to the general sum of human wisdom.

  “I am not magnificent,” she said mildly, wishing that she had put onanother dress.

  “You are sumptuous, opulent, expensive,” her father rejoined. “You lookas if you had eighty thousand a year.”

  “Well, so long as I haven’t—” said Catherine illogically. Her conceptionof her prospective wealth was as yet very indefinite.

  “So long as you haven’t you shouldn’t look as if you had. Have youenjoyed your party?”

  Catherine hesitated a moment; and then, looking away, “I am rathertired,” she murmured. I have said that this entertainment was thebeginning of something important for Catherine. For the second time inher life she made an indirect answer; and the beginning of a period ofdissimulation is certainly a significant date. Catherine was not soeasily tired as that.

  Nevertheless, in the carriage, as they drove home, she was as quiet as iffatigue had been her portion. Dr. Sloper’s manner of addressing hissister Lavinia had a good deal of resemblance to the tone he had adoptedtowards Catherine.

  “Who was the young man that was making love to you?” he presently asked.

  “Oh, my good brother!” murmured Mrs. Penniman, in deprecation.

  “He seemed uncommonly tender. Whenever I looked at you, for half anhour, he had the most devoted air.”

  “The devotion was not to me,” said Mrs. Penniman. “It was to Catherine;he talked to me of her.”

  Catherine had been listening with all her ears. “Oh, Aunt Penniman!” sheexclaimed faintly.

  “He is very handsome; he is very clever; he expressed himself with agreat deal—a great deal of felicity,” her aunt went on.

  “He is in love with this regal creature, then?” the Doctor inquiredhumorously.

  “Oh, father,” cried the girl, still more faintly, devoutly thankful thecarriage was dark.

  “I don’t know that; but he admired her dress.”

  Catherine did not say to herself in the dark, “My dress only?” Mrs.Penniman’s announcement struck her by its richness, not by itsmeagreness.

  “You see,” said her father, “he thinks you have eighty thousand a year.”

  “I don’t believe he thinks of that,” said Mrs. Penniman; “he is toorefined.”

  “He must be tremendously refined not to think of that!”

  “Well, he is!” Catherine exclaimed, before she knew it.

  “I thought you had gone to sleep,” her father answered. “The hour hascome!” he added to himself. “Lavinia is going to get up a romance forCatherine. It’s a shame to play such tricks on the girl. What is thegentleman’s name?” he went on, aloud.

  “I didn’t catch it, and I didn’t like to ask him. He asked to beintroduced to me,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a certain grandeur; “but youknow how indistinctly Jefferson speaks.” Jefferson was Mr. Almond.“Catherine, dear, what was the gentleman’s name?”

  For a minute, if it had not been for the rumbling of the carriage, youmight have heard a pin drop.

  “I don’t know, Aunt Lavinia,” said Catherine, very softly. And, with allhis irony, her father believed her.