It gratified Mrs. Penniman
to be able to feel conscientiously that this scene virtually removed
the interdict which Catherine had placed upon her further communion
with Morris Townsend. She was not gratified, however, when, in
coming back to her niece's room before breakfast, she found that
Catherine had risen and was preparing herself for this meal.
"You should not go to breakfast," she said; "you are not well enough,
after your fearful night."
"Yes, I am very well, and I am only afraid of being late."
"I can't understand you!" Mrs. Penniman cried. "You should stay in
bed for three days."
"Oh, I could never do that!" said Catherine, to whom this idea
presented no attractions.
Mrs. Penniman was in despair, and she noted, with extreme annoyance,
that the trace of the night's tears had completely vanished from
Catherine's eyes. She had a most impracticable physique. "What
effect do you expect to have upon your father," her aunt demanded,
"if you come plumping down, without a vestige of any sort of feeling,
as if nothing in the world had happened?"
"He would not like me to lie in bed," said Catherine simply.
"All the more reason for your doing it. How else do you expect to
move him?"
Catherine thought a little. "I don't know how; but not in that way.
I wish to be just as usual." And she finished dressing, and,
according to her aunt's expression, went plumping down into the
paternal presence.
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