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her. He would say them to you, if he were sure you would listen to him—gently.”
    â€œI doubt whether I can undertake it. He appears to require a great deal of gentleness.”
    â€œHe is a sympathetic, sensitive nature,” said Mrs. Penniman.
    Her brother puffed his cigar again in silence. “These delicate qualities have survived his vicissitudes, eh? All this while you haven’t told me about his misfortunes.”
    â€œIt is a long story,” said Mrs. Penniman, “and I regard it as a sacred trust. But I suppose there is no objection to my saying that he has been wild—he frankly confesses that. But he has paid for it.”
    â€œThat’s what has impoverished him, eh?”
    â€œI don’t mean simply in money. He is very much alone in the world.”
    â€œDo you mean that he has behaved so badly that his friends have given him up?”
    â€œHe has had false friends, who have deceived and betrayed him.”
    â€œHe seems to have some good ones too. He has a devoted sister, and half a dozen nephews and nieces.”
    Mrs. Penniman was silent a minute. “The nephews and
nieces are children, and the sister is not a very attractive person.”
    â€œI hope he doesn’t abuse her to you,” said the doctor, “for I am told he lives upon her.”
    â€œLives upon her?”
    â€œLives with her, and does nothing for himself; it is about the same thing.”
    â€œHe is looking for a position most earnestly,” said Mrs. Penniman. “He hopes every day to find one.”
    â€œPrecisely. He is looking for it here—over there in the front
parlor. The position of husband of a weak-minded woman with a large fortune would suit him to perfection!”
    Mrs. Penniman was truly amiable, but she now gave signs of temper. She rose with much animation, and stood for a moment looking at her brother. “My dear Austin,” she remarked, “if you regard Catherine as a weak-minded woman you are particularly mistaken!” And with this she moved majestically away.

C HAPTER 9
    It was a regular custom with the family in Washington Square to go and spend Sunday evening at Mrs. Almond’s. On the Sunday after the conversation I have just narrated this custom was not intermitted; and on this occasion, toward the middle of the evening, Doctor Sloper found reason to withdraw to the library with his brother-in-law, to talk over a matter of business. He was absent some twenty minutes, and when he came back into the circle, which was enlivened by the presence of several friends of the family, he saw that Morris Townsend had come in, and had lost as little time as possible in seating himself on a small sofa beside Catherine. In the large room, where several different groups had been formed, and the hum of voices and of laughter was loud, these two young persons might confabulate, as the doctor phrased it to himself, without attracting attention. He saw in a moment, however, that his daughter was painfully conscious of his own observation. She sat motionless, with her eyes bent down, staring at her open fan,
deeply flushed, shrinking together as if to minimize the indiscretion of which she confessed herself guilty.
    The doctor almost pitied her. Poor Catherine was not defiant; she had no genius for bravado, and as she felt that her father viewed her companion’s attentions with an unsympathizing eye, there was nothing but discomfort for her in the accident of seeming to challenge him. The doctor felt, indeed, so sorry for her that he turned away, to spare her the sense of being watched; and he was so intelligent a man that, in his thoughts, he rendered a sort of poetic justice to her situation.
    â€œIt must be deucedly pleasant for a plain, inanimate girl like that to have a beautiful young fellow come and sit down beside her, and whisper to her that he is her slave—if that is what this one whispers. No wonder she likes it, and that she