The Art of Avoiding Difficult Conversations — Washington Square

Morris returns to Catherine again and again, unable to perform the clean break he arranged with her aunt. Mrs. Penniman, frightened by the scale of what she promised, keeps postponing the great scene while Catherine, laying out her trousseau, suspects nothing. The visits grow brief and hollow. Catherine waits modestly for Morris to name the day, interpreting his hesitation as a good reason she cannot yet hear.

When she asks whether he is sick, he tries pity, then pride, then calculated brutality, saying he does not want to owe her everything. She answers gently that she will take him as he is; he complains that marrying even a modest heiress brings gossip he could dispense with. He introduces separation, claims he may go to New Orleans on cotton business, and invents yellow fever as a shield when she offers to travel with him. Catherine, usually yielding, suddenly speaks with force: they have waited too long, marriage should come before speculative profit, and she will not be sent away with vague promises.

Morris calls her indiscreet, promises Saturday, refuses tomorrow, and tries to leave. She blocks the door, reads the truth in his face, and says quietly that he is going to leave her. He stammers about writing, promises she will see him again, and escapes. The chapter shows a man manufacturing distance while a woman whose greatest virtue was patience finally demands reality, too late to be spared pain but early enough to see the trap.