第64章

"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 apologists.

"That you should be reasonable," said Mrs.Penniman, 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.Penniman shook her head with a sadness in which there was almost a sense of injury."Your pride is my pride, and 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 about separation; what do you know about it?""We must study resignation," said Mrs.Penniman, hesitating, but sententious at a venture.

"Resignation to what?"

"To a change of- 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.Penniman felt bound to protest; the information with which she had undertaken to supply her niece was after all a favor.She had tried sharpness, and she had tried sternness; but neither would do; she was shocked at the girl's obstinacy."Ah well," she said, "if he hasn't told you!" and she turned away.

Catherine watched her a moment in silence; then she 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.Penniman.

"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.Penniman was silent an 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.Penniman 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 then that he has gone away! Didn'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.Penniman observed, with a good deal of grandeur.

"Is it to New Orleans?" Catherine went on, irrelevantly.

It was the first time Mrs.Penniman had heard of New Orleans in this connection; but she was averse 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.Penniman had been let loose, as it were, upon her happiness.

"He certainly has sometimes advised with me," said Mrs.Penniman.