Catherine would have liked to
change her place, to go and sit near them, where she might see and
hear him better. But she was afraid of seeming bold--of looking
eager; and, besides, it would not have been polite to Marian's little
suitor. She wondered why the other gentleman had picked out her
aunt--how he came to have so much to say to Mrs. Penniman, to whom,
usually, young men were not especially devoted. She was not at all
jealous of Aunt Lavinia, but she was a little envious, and above all
she wondered; for Morris Townsend was an object on which she found
that her imagination could exercise itself indefinitely. His cousin
had been describing a house that he had taken in view of his union
with Marian, and the domestic conveniences he meant to introduce into
it; how Marian wanted a larger one, and Mrs. Almond recommended a
smaller one, and how he himself was convinced that he had got the
neatest house in New York.
"It doesn't matter," he said; "it's only for three or four years. At
the end of three or four years we'll move. That's the way to live in
New York--to move every three or four years. Then you always get the
last thing. It's because the city's growing so quick--you've got to
keep up with it. It's going straight up town--that's where New
York's going. If I wasn't afraid Marian would be lonely, I'd go up
there--right up to the top--and wait for it.
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