That he should talk with Mrs.Penniman, with whom she lived and whom she saw and talked with every day- that seemed to keep him near her, and to make him even easier to contemplate than if she herself had been the object of his civilities; and that Aunt Lavinia should like him, should not be shocked or startled by what he said, this also appeared to the girl a personal gain; for Aunt Lavinia's standard was extremely high, planted as it was over the grave of her late husband, in which, as she had convinced everyone, the very genius of conversation was buried.One of the Almond boys, as Catherine called them, invited our heroine to dance a quadrille, and for a quarter of an hour her feet at least were occupied.This time she was not dizzy; her head was very clear.Just when the dance was over, she found herself in the crowd face to face with her father.Doctor Sloper had usually a little smile, never a very big one, and with this little smile playing in his clear eyes and on his 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 literal fact that he almost never addressed his daughter save in the ironical form.Whenever he addressed her he gave her pleasure; but she had to cut her pleasure out of the pieces, as it were.There were portions left over, light remnants and snippets of irony, which she never knew what to do with, which seemed too delicate for her own use;and yet Catherine, lamenting the limitations of her understanding, felt that they were too valuable to waste, and had a belief that if they passed over her head they yet contributed to the general sum of human wisdom.
"I am not magnificent," she said, mildly, wishing that she had put on another dress.
"You are sumptuous, opulent, expensive," her father rejoined."You look as if you had eighty thousand a year.""Well, so long as I haven't,-" said Catherine, illogically.Her conception of her prospective wealth was as yet very indefinite.
"So long as you haven't you shouldn't look as if you had.Have you enjoyed your party!"Catherine hesitated a moment; and then, looking away, "I am rather tired," she murmured.I have said that this entertainment was, the beginning of something important for Catherine.For the second time in her life she made an indirect answer; and the beginning of a period of dissimulation is certainly a significant date.Catherine was not so easily tired as that.
Nevertheless, in the carriage, as they drove home, she was as quiet as if fatigue had been her portion.Doctor Sloper's manner of addressing his sister Lavinia had a good deal of resemblance to the tone he had adopted toward 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 an hour, 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!"she exclaimed, faintly.
"He is very handsome; he is very clever; he expressed himself with a great deal- a great deal of felicity," her aunt went on.
"He is in love with this regal creature, then?" the doctor inquired, humorously.
"Oh, Father!" cried the girl, still more faintly, devoutly thankful the carriage 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 its meagerness.
"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 too refined.""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 has come!" he added to himself."Lavinia is going to get up a romance for Catherine.It's a shame to play such tricks on the girl.
What is the gentleman's name?" he went on, aloud.
"I didn't catch it, and I didn't like to ask him.He asked to be introduced to me," said Mrs.Penniman, with a certain grandeur, "but you know 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, you might have heard a pin drop.
"I don't know, Aunt Lavinia," said Catherine, very softly.And, with all his irony, her father believed her.
