Morris walked along a moment, and then he repeated harshly: “I must give her up!”
“I think I understand you,” said Mrs. Penniman gently.
“I certainly say it distinctly enough—brutally and vulgarly enough.”
He was ashamed of himself, and his shame was uncomfortable; and as he was extremely intolerant of discomfort, he felt vicious and cruel. He wanted to abuse somebody, and he began, cautiously—for he was always cautious—with himself.
“Couldn’t you take her down a little?” he asked.
“Take her down?”
“Prepare her—try and ease me off.”
Mrs. Penniman stopped, looking at him very solemnly.
“My poor Morris, do you know how much she loves you?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t want to know. I have always tried to keep from knowing. It would be too painful.”
“She will suffer much,” said Mrs. Penniman.
“You must console her. If you are as good a friend to me as you pretend to be, you will manage it.”
Mrs. Penniman shook her head sadly.
“You talk of my ‘pretending’ to like you; but I can’t pretend to hate you. I can only tell her I think very highly of you; and how will that console her for losing you?”
“The Doctor will help you. He will be delighted at the thing being broken off, and, as he is a knowing fellow, he will invent something to comfort her.”
“He will invent a new torture!” cried Mrs. Penniman. “Heaven deliver her from her father’s comfort. It will consist of his crowing over her and saying, ‘I always told you so!’ ”
Morris coloured a most uncomfortable red.
“If you don’t console her any better than you console me, you certainly won’t be of much use! It’s a damned disagreeable necessity; I feel it extremely, and you ought to make it easy for me.”
“I will be your friend for life!” Mrs. Penniman declared.
“Be my friend now!” And Morris walked on.
She went with him; she was almost trembling.
“Should you like me to tell her?” she asked.
“You mustn’t tell her, but you can—you can—” And he hesitated, trying to think what Mrs. Penniman could do. “You can explain to her why it is. It’s because I can’t bring myself to step in between her and her father—to give him the pretext he grasps at—so eagerly (it’s a hideous sight) for depriving her of her rights.”
Mrs. Penniman felt with remarkable promptitude the charm of this formula.
“That’s so like you,” she said; “it’s so finely felt.”
Morris gave his stick an angry swing.
“Oh, botheration!” he exclaimed perversely.
Mrs. Penniman, however, was not discouraged.
“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 reflection 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
He came again, without managing the last parting; and again and again, without finding that Mrs. Penniman had as yet done much to pave the path
