She was really too modest for consistent pathos.
And yet it was perfectly true that she had had a dreadful night.
Even after Mrs. Penniman left her she had had no sleep. She lay
staring at the uncomforting gloom, with her eyes and ears filled with
the movement with which her father had turned her out of his room,
and of the words in which he had told her that she was a heartless
daughter. Her heart was breaking. She had heart enough for that.
At moments it seemed to her that she believed him, and that to do
what she was doing, a girl must indeed be bad. She WAS bad; but she
couldn't help it. She would try to appear good, even if her heart
were perverted; and from time to time she had a fancy that she might
accomplish something by ingenious concessions to form, though she
should persist in caring for Morris. Catherine's ingenuities were
indefinite, and we are not called upon to expose their hollowness.
The best of them perhaps showed itself in that freshness of aspect
which was so discouraging to Mrs. Penniman, who was amazed at the
absence of haggardness in a young woman who for a whole night had
lain quivering beneath a father's curse. Poor Catherine was
conscious of her freshness; it gave her a feeling about the future
which rather added to the weight upon her mind. It seemed a proof
that she was strong and solid and dense, and would live to a great
age--longer than might be generally convenient; and this idea was
depressing, for it appeared to saddle her with a pretension the more,
just when the cultivation of any pretension was inconsistent with her
doing right.
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