While the rest of the party were attending to their own affairs at the railway station and the telegraph office, Wharton and Catherine strolled down to the little park over the American Fall and looked at the scene from there. Catherine in her furs was prettier than ever; her fresh color was brightened by the red handkerchief she had tied round her neck, and her eyes were more mutinous than usual. As she leaned over the parapet, and looked into the bubbling torrent which leaped into space at her feet, Wharton would have liked to carry her off like the torrent and give her no chance to resist. Yet, reckless as he was, he had still common sense enough to understand that, until he was fairly rid of one wife, he could not expect another to throw herself into his arms, and he awkwardly flitted about her, like a moth about a lantern, unable even to singe his wings in the flame.
"Then it is decided?" he asked. "You are really going abroad?"
"I am really going to take Esther to Europe for at least two years. We want excitement. America is too tame."
"May I come over and see you there?"
"No followers are to be allowed. I have forbidden Esther to think of them. She must devote all her time to art, or I shall be severe with her."
"But I suppose you don't mean to devote all your own time to art."
"I must take care of her," replied Catherine. "Then I have got to write some more sonnets. My hand is getting out in sonnets."
"Paris will spoil you; I shall wish you had never left your prairie," said Wharton sadly.
"It is you that have spoiled me," replied she. "You have made me self-conscious, and I am going abroad to escape your influence."
"Do me a favor when you are there; go to Avignon and Vaucluse; when you come to Petrarch's house, think of me, for there I passed the most hopeless hours of my life."