The Doctor's Investigation Begins — Washington Square

On Sunday at Mrs. Almond's, Sloper leaves twenty minutes for business talk and returns to find Morris seated on a small sofa beside Catherine. She flushes, shrinks, and will not meet his eye while Morris whispers; Sloper almost pities her, then decides to try Morris again in open conversation. He asks whether the young man seeks a position; Morris speaks modestly of honest penny work, neat shoes, and duties to a widowed sister and her children. When Sloper hints at opportunities far from New York, Morris cannot leave his dependent sister, though Sloper privately mutters damn his impudence at the smooth performance.

Sloper plans to meet Mrs. Montgomery and perhaps catechise the nephews Morris claims to tutor. Morris tells Catherine her father insulted him by mocking his poverty and asks her to meet him secretly in the Square; she refuses the square but tells him to come to the house. He gets his way emotionally while she trembles riding home beside her silent father. Investigation and manipulation advance together as Sloper softens briefly and Morris manufactures injury to isolate Catherine from scrutiny.

Catherine insists her father is good even while Morris reframes probing questions as taunts about poverty. She refuses a secret tryst in the Square but still trembles beside Sloper on the ride home, feeling watched in the dark. Mrs. Penniman will later marvel that Catherine prefers a parlor to a fountain, missing that the girl chose visibility over the easier hideout Morris wanted.