"I will come next
Saturday."
"Come to-morrow," Catherine begged; "I want you to come to-morrow. I
will be very quiet," she added; and her agitation had by this time
become so great that the assurance was not becoming. A sudden fear
had come over her; it was like the solid conjunction of a dozen
disembodied doubts, and her imagination, at a single bound, had
traversed an enormous distance. All her being, for the moment,
centred in the wish to keep him in the room.
Morris bent his head and kissed her forehead. "When you are quiet,
you are perfection," he said; "but when you are violent, you are not
in character."
It was Catherine's wish that there should be no violence about her
save the beating of her heart, which she could not help; and she went
on, as gently as possible, "Will you promise to come to-morrow?"
"I said Saturday!" Morris answered, smiling. He tried a frown at one
moment, a smile at another; he was at his wit's end.
"Yes, Saturday too," she answered, trying to smile. "But to-morrow
first." He was going to the door, and she went with him quickly.
She leaned her shoulder against it; it seemed to her that she would
do anything to keep him.
"If I am prevented from coming to-morrow, you will say I have
deceived you!" he said.
"How can you be prevented? You can come if you will."
"I am a busy man--I am not a dangler!" cried Morris sternly.
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