“I am perfectly willing to go to New Orleans.” Catherine said.
“Do you suppose I would take you to a nest of yellow fever?” cried Morris. “Do you suppose I would expose you at such a time as this?”
“If there is yellow fever, why should you go? Morris, you must not go!”
“It is to make six thousand dollars,” said Morris. “Do you grudge me that satisfaction?”
“We have no need of six thousand dollars. You think too much about money!”
“You can afford to say that? This is a great chance; we heard of it last night.” And he explained to her in what the chance consisted; and told her a long story, going over more than once several of the details, about the remarkable stroke of business which he and his partner had planned between them.
But Catherine’s imagination, for reasons best known to herself, absolutely refused to be fired. “If you can go to New Orleans, I can go,” she said. “Why shouldn’t you catch yellow fever quite as easily as I? I am every bit as strong as you, and not in the least afraid of any fever. When we were in Europe, we were in very unhealthy places; my father used to make me take some pills. I never caught anything, and I never was nervous. What will be the use of six thousand dollars if you die of a fever? When persons are going to be married they oughtn’t to think so much about business. You shouldn’t think about cotton, you should think about me. You can go to New Orleans some other time—there will always be plenty of cotton. It isn’t the moment to choose—we have waited too long already.” She spoke more forcibly and volubly than he had ever heard her, and she held his arm in her two hands.
“You said you wouldn’t make a scene!” cried Morris. “I call this a scene.”
“It’s you that are making it! I have never asked you anything before. We have waited too long already.” And it was a comfort to her to think that she had hitherto asked so little; it seemed to make her right to insist the greater now.
Morris bethought himself a little. “Very well, then; we won’t talk about it any more. I will transact my business by letter.” And he began to smooth his hat, as if to take leave.
“You won’t go?” And she stood looking up at him.
He could not give up his idea of provoking a quarrel; it was so much the simplest way! He bent his eyes on her upturned face, with the darkest frown he could achieve. “You are not discreet. You mustn’t bully me!”
But, as usual, she conceded everything. “No, I am not discreet; I know I am too pressing. But isn’t it natural? It is only for a moment.”
“In a moment you may do a great deal of harm. Try and be calmer the next time I come.”
“When will you come?”
“Do you want to make conditions?” Morris asked. “I will come next Saturday.”
“Come tomorrow,” Catherine begged; “I want you to come tomorrow. I will be very quiet,” she added; and her agitation had by this time become so great that the assurance was not becoming. A sudden fear had come over her; it was like the solid conjunction of a dozen disembodied doubts, and her imagination, at a single bound, had traversed an enormous distance. All her being, for the moment, centred in the wish to keep him in the room.
Morris bent his head and kissed her forehead. “When you are quiet, you are perfection,” he said; “but when you are violent, you are not in character.”
It was Catherine’s wish that there should be no violence about her save the beating of her heart, which she could not help; and she went on, as gently as possible, “Will you promise to come tomorrow?”
“I said Saturday!” Morris answered, smiling. He tried a frown at one moment, a smile at another; he was at his wit’s end.
“Yes, Saturday too,” she answered, trying to smile. “But tomorrow first.” He was going to the door, and she went with him quickly. She leaned her shoulder against it; it seemed to her that she would do anything to keep him.
“If I am prevented from coming tomorrow, you will say I have deceived you!” he said.
“How can you be prevented? You can come if you will.”
“I am a busy man—I am not a dangler!” cried Morris sternly.
His voice was so hard and unnatural that, with a helpless look at him, she turned away; and then he quickly laid his hand on the doorknob. He felt as if he were absolutely running away from her. But in an instant she was close to him again, and murmuring in a tone none the less penetrating for being low, “Morris, you are going to leave me.”
“Yes, for a little while.”
“For how long?”
“Till you are reasonable again.”
“I shall never be reasonable in that way!” And she tried to keep him longer; it was almost a struggle. “Think of what I have done!” she broke out. “Morris, I have given up everything!”
“You shall have everything back!”
“You wouldn’t say that if you didn’t mean something. What is it?—what has happened?—what have I done?—what has changed you?”
“I will write to you—that is better,” Morris stammered.
“Ah, you won’t come back!” she cried, bursting into tears.
“Dear Catherine,” he said, “don’t believe that I promise you that you shall see me again!” And he managed to get away and to close the door behind him.
XXX
It was almost her last outbreak of passive grief; 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 her misery. 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
