Part 4

Catherine was almost tearful in lamenting this “impertinent gossip” to her. “Isn’t it hateful, Honoria,” she said, “that a young man and a young woman can’t be civil and friendly to each other when they’re visiting in the same house, without all the busybodies trying to embarrass them? Did you see the papers this morning? How _dare_ they print it!”

Honoria smiled at this mock indignation. “Where’s the injury to you in crediting you with landing an earl?” she asked.

Catherine gave her a look of melancholy reproach. “Do you know,” she said dreamily, “I don’t think of him as an earl any longer? His character makes everything else about him seem of no consequence. Don’t you think he is a _remarkable_ man?”

“A little less remarkable than a marquis, a little more remarkable than a viscount--and in comparison with a baronet or a plain esquire, a positive genius!” replied Honoria.

Frothingham was more and more uncomfortable. Catherine took him everywhere in her train and, with seeming unconsciousness of what she was doing, fairly flaunted him as her devoted attendant. Yet only when they were alone did she ever betray that she had more than a polite, friendly interest in him. He would have got angry at her, would have made vigorous protest, but how was it possible to bring such sordidness as mere vulgar appearances to the attention of so innocent and high-minded a creature? He restrained himself, or, rather, was restrained--until Horse Show week.

Those afternoons and evenings of dragging at the divine Catherine’s chariot wheels before the eyes of the multitude were too much for him. It was one of the years when the Horse Show was the fashion for the fashionable. Not only the racing set and the hunting set, but also the dancing and the dressing and the literary and artistic sets, and the fadless, but none the less frivolous, set, flocked there day and evening to crowd the boxes with a dazzling display of dresses, wraps, jewels, and free-and-easy manners. At first Frothingham gaped almost as amazedly as the multitude that poured slowly and thickly round the promenade, eyes glued upon the occupants of the boxes, never a glance to spare for the ring from the cyclorama of luxury and fashion. “And at a horse show!” he muttered, as he noted the hats and gowns made to be shown only in houses, or in carriages on the way to and from houses, but there exhibited amid the dust of the show ring. “What rotten bad taste!”

He was astounded to find Catherine outdone by none in extravagant out-of-placeness of ostentation--as he regarded it. Day after day, night after night, she showed herself off to her friends and to the craning throngs of the promenade in a kaleidoscopic series of wonderful “creations.” And she insisted that he should always be in close attendance. As he sat beside her he heard the comments of the crowd--there was always a crowd in front of Longview’s box: “That’s the girl.”--“Yes, and the fellow beside her, with the eyeglass, he’s the Earl.”--“I don’t know how much--some say a million--some say two or three.”--“He looks dull, but then all Englishmen look that.”--“I’ll bet he could be a brute. Look what a heavy jaw he’s got.”--“She’ll be sick of him before she’s had him a year.”

Did Catherine hear? he wondered. Apparently not. He never surprised in her face or manner a hint of consciousness of self or of being stared at and commented upon. “But she can’t avoid hearing,” he said to himself. “These asses are braying right in her ears. And why should she get herself up in all these clothes, if it ain’t to be stared at?”

And, between performances, the performers in the Longview box dined in the palm garden at the Waldorf, with their acquaintances at the surrounding tables, and gossip of their engagement flying, and curious glances straying toward them over the tops of wine-glasses, and whispers and smiles--and Catherine soulful and unconscious. On Friday night, as they drove from the Waldorf to the Garden--she had given him her hand to hold under cover of the lap-robe--she said, with a sigh: “I’m so glad it’s nearly over. Only to-night and to-morrow night.”

“Not to-morrow afternoon?” asked Frothingham. “Why do we miss a chance to exhibit?”

“Only the servants and the children go to-morrow afternoon,” replied Catherine sweetly. “I’m worn out and sick of it all. So many go merely for self-display; so few of us, not to speak of those dreadful people in the promenade, care anything about the dear, beautiful, noble horses.”

“Why look at horses,” said Honoria, “when there’s a human show that’s so much more interesting? It may be vulgar, but it’s amusing. I’m afraid my tastes are not refined.”

Frothingham looked at her with the expression of a thirsty man who is having a glass of cold water. “That’s what I think,” said he. “And I’m fond of horses.” A faint sneer in his satirical drawl made Catherine give him a furtive glance of anxiety--was the worm thinking of turning?

When they were in the box and the others were busy she said to him, in her tenderest tone: “You’re dreadfully bored by all this, aren’t you? And I thought it would give you pleasure for us to be together so much.”

The surliness cleared from his face somewhat. “No, I’m not bored. But I hate to be shown off. And, while you’ve been unconscious of it, the fact is that you and I have been sitting here in this cage five or six hours a day, gaped at as if we were a pair of new chimpanzees in a zoo.” As he remembered his wrongs, his anger rose upon the wine he had freely drunk at dinner. “It’s what I call low--downright rotten, Catherine,” he finished energetically.

“I wish you wouldn’t use that dreadful word,” she said, tears in her eyes, but a certain sting in her voice. “I know it’s all right in England--some of us use it here. But it--every time you or anyone says it I feel as if someone had thrust a horrid-smelling rag under my nose. You don’t mind my saying so, do you, dear?”

“Beg pardon,” he said. “We do use rowdy words nowadays. I’m so accustomed to it I don’t notice.”

Just then up to his ears from the promenade and the crowd gaping at the “new chimpanzees” came a voice: “They’re fighting--look! look! Hasn’t he got an ugly scowl? And she’s almost crying.”

He flushed scarlet and sent a glowering glance down into the crowd. He turned upon Catherine: “Just hear that! They think I’m rowing you. By--beg pardon, but--well--I sha’n’t endure it another instant.” And he rose, brushed past Catherine’s mother and Longview, Honoria and two men hanging over her, and stalked along the aisle down into and through the recognising crowd, and out of the Garden.

The boxes ate greedily of this sensation, and the crowd in the promenade scrambled frantically for the crumbs. It was presently noised round that the Englishman had become angered, had struck someone. Rumour at first said it was Catherine; but the crowd by the use of its legs and eyes, and the boxes by the use of their glasses, learned that this was false. There sat Catherine, calm, absorbed in the ring, applauding the jumpers, and turning now and then to her companions with outbursts of ladylike enthusiasm for some particularly clever performance. However, crowd and boxes saw that the Englishman was gone, felt that he must have gone in anger.

The Longview party stopped at the Waldorf for supper, and Frothingham, calmer and a little embarrassed, joined them. Catherine received him as if nothing had taken place, and the next night they appeared together at the Garden as usual.

Late in the evening she said to him: “I’ve told mother of our engagement. Do you mind, dear?”

His face lighted up.

“She wishes you to come down to the country with us on Sunday to stay a week or two. It is beautiful there, and we shall be very quiet. Shall you like that?”

“And I may speak to your father?” he asked. “In my country it wouldn’t be regarded as honourable for me to act as I’ve been acting with you. I can’t help feeling uncomfortable because I’ve said nothing to your father.”

“I’ll speak to him first, Arthur. He lets me do as I please. And he’ll be contented with whatever makes me happy. He’s _such_ a dear!”

Frothingham looked faintly annoyed. It was not in his plan to include “father” in their romance. Romance with daughter, business with father--that was the proper and discreet distribution of the preliminaries to the formal engagement. He had, deep down, a horrible, nervous fear that he might be drawn into matrimony without definite settlements--the father might be as difficult to pin down in his way as was the daughter in her way. “I must take this business in hand,” he said to himself, “or I’ll be in a ghastly mess.”

Catherine, her mother, and he went down on the one-o’clock train. The Hollister country place--Lake-in-the-Wood--was a great pile of brick and stone, impressive for size rather than for beauty, filled with expensive furnishings and swarming servants in showy livery, and surrounded by a handsome, well-ordered park, with winding walks and drives, and romantically bridged streams flowing to and from a large lake. They lived with more ceremony than did Surrey at Heath Hall--but there was an air of newness and stiffness and prodigal profusion about it all, a suggestion of a creation of yesterday that might find a grave to-morrow. This impression, which had often come to him in the palaces of New York, began to form as the porter opened the huge gates between the park and the highway. It grew stronger and stronger as he penetrated into the gaudy, if tasteful, establishment. Everything was too new, too grand, too fine. The daughter alone was at her ease; the mother was not quite at her ease; the father was distinctly, if self-mockingly, ill at ease.

The two women left Frothingham alone with him, and the old man soon vented his dissatisfaction. “I suppose _you_ like this sort of thing,” he said, with a wave of the arm to indicate that he meant the establishment. “But I don’t. If I had my way we’d be simple and comfortable--no, I don’t mean that exactly. I suppose at bottom I’m as big a fool as the women. But, all the same, French cooking gives me indigestion. That infernal frog-eater in the right wing has it in for me. He’s killing me by inches. And I’m so afraid of him and the butler and all the rest of ’em that I don’t kick the traces more than once a week.” He laughed. “My wife and daughter have got me well trained. Whenever they tell me to, I sit up on my hind legs and ‘speak’ for crackers and snap ‘em off my nose.”

Frothingham liked him at once--he was a big, handsome old fellow, with keen, steel-grey eyes, and the strong look of the successful man of affairs. “I fancy he’s almost one of those Americans Wallingford talked about,” he thought.

After a smoke with Hollister he went to his rooms--a suite of vast chambers, like the show rooms of a palace, with a marble bathroom that had a small swimming pool sunk in the middle of it. He looked out upon the drive and the park and the half-hidden streams glittering in the sunshine. “These people will beat us out at our own game when they get used to the cards,” he said.

There was the sound of wheels and horses--many wheels and many horses. He looked down the drive--one after another came into view a three-seated buckboard, a stylish omnibus, a waggon with the seats taken out to make room for a huge pile of luggage. In the buckboard and the omnibus he recognised men and women whom he had met in New York--the Leightons, the Spencers, the Farrells, the Howards, Mrs. Carnarvon, Wallingford, Gresham, Browne, a man whose name he could not recall, Miss Lester, Miss Devenant. “I thought Catherine and I were to be ‘very quiet,’” he muttered.

There were thirty-two people at dinner that night, sixteen of whom, including himself, were guests in the house for stays of three days, a week, ten days. “You said you were to be alone,” he said to Catherine, with ironic reproach.

She gave him her pathetic, helpless look. “I did hope so. But I asked some, and mamma asked others, and the rest asked themselves.”

The days passed, and he had only fleeting glimpses of her. Everybody was hunting, riding, driving, going to luncheons, teas, dinners, through a neighbourhood ten miles square. Every moment from early until late was more than occupied--it was crowded, jammed. His idea of country life was the quiet, lazy ease of England; a week of this rushing about fagged him, body and mind. He ceased to try for a moment alone with her; he saw that it was hopeless to expect so much in a place where he could not get a moment alone with himself.

“You never rest in this country?” he said, addressing the men in the library at midnight, as they were having a final nightcap.

“Why should we?” replied Browne. “Why anticipate the grave’s only pleasure?”

“You see,” explained Wallingford, “on this side of the water we take our pleasures energetically. When we work, we work hard; when we play, we play hard. If we’re having a good time, we crowd our luck, in the hope of having a better time. If we’re bored, we hurry, to get it over with.”

“Do you keep this up the year round?”

“Except on ocean steamers. But we’ll close that gap when we get the ‘wireless’ installed, with a telephone to the head of every berth.”

VI

On a Monday morning--Frothingham’s eighth day at Lake-in-the-wood--only Wallingford and the tireless Catherine appeared for the early ride. “It’s cold,” said Wallingford. “Shall we canter?” And they swept through the gates and on over the frost-spangled meadows for several miles before they drew their horses in to a walk. Catherine’s cheeks were glowing, and her eyes were not dreamy and soulful, but bright with vigorous, wide-awake life.

“I haven’t seen you looking so well in years, Kitty.”

Wallingford was examining her with the slightly mocking, indifferent eyes that had piqued not a few women into trying to make him like them. “You look positively human. And it’s becoming--most becoming.”

Catherine began to scramble into her pose. She did not like to be caught lapsing from her ideals.

“Why _do_ you do it?” Wallingford dropped his mockery for an instant. “Your own individuality, no matter how poor you may think it, is far better than any you could possibly invent--or borrow.”

Catherine looked hurt. “Why do you charge deception against everyone who lives above your level?” she asked. “I hope you’re not going to be nasty this morning, Joe. I’m blue.”

“What’s the matter? Something real, or----”

“Don’t tease. This is real.”

“What is it? I see you wish to be encouraged to tell me.”

“No--I couldn’t tell anyone.” Catherine’s eyes were tragic. “It’s one of those things that can’t be told, but must be----”

“Go on. What is it?” Wallingford refused to be impressed by tragedy. “I see you’re dying to tell me. Why not get it over with?”

“You are so sympathetic, Joe. You pretend not to understand me, but I feel that you always do.”

“You mean that I refuse to be misled by your charming little pretences. But how could I? Why, don’t I remember the day, the very hour, you went in for the ‘soulful’? I must say, I never could see why you took that up as your fad. Being natural is much harder to win out at--few people are interesting, or even endurable, when they’re natural.”

“Joe,” she said absently, as if she had not heard him, “I’m afraid I’m making a--a dreadful--mistake.”

“Well?” he asked almost gruffly, after a short pause.

“About--about--Lord Frothingham,” she confessed, lowering her eyelids until her long lashes shadowed her cheeks.

“Oh, I think you’ll land him all right,” said Wallingford encouragingly. “He’s a bit gone on you; and then, too, he needs the cash.”

“Please don’t speak of him in that way, Joe. He’s not a vulgar fortune-hunter, but a high, sensitive, noble man.”

“Who said he was a vulgar fortune-hunter? On the contrary, he’s an honest British merchant, taking his title to market. And he’s been lucky enough to find a good customer.”

Catherine ignored this description of her knight and her romance. “You know I’m engaged to him?” she asked.

“Ever since the first time I saw your mother look at him.”

“Yes--she approves it.”

“I should say she would,” said Wallingford judicially. “She’s got the best part of it. She’ll have all the glory of having an earl in the family, and she won’t have to live with him.”

“I’m--afraid--I don’t love him as I ought,” said Catherine, with a sigh.

Wallingford laughed. “Now, of what use is it to talk this over, Kitty, if you won’t be frank? It can’t be a question of loving him that’s troubling you. Of course you don’t love him. You love his title, and that would prevent you from loving him for himself, no matter how attractive he was. But why bother about love? He’s giving you what you really want.”

“What _do_ I want?” She looked at Wallingford with sincere appeal, slightly humourous, but earnest.

“I once thought that you wanted to be a real woman. But ever since your mother took you abroad to fill her own and your head with foreign notions I’ve been losing faith. What do you want now? Why, the trash you’re buying.”

“Joe, how can you think I’d sell myself?”

“Why not? It’s generally regarded as a reputable transaction--unless one is vulgar enough to sell out for the mere necessaries of life. Oh, I’m not criticising you, Kitty. Perhaps I’d sell myself if I could get any sort of price. Never having been tempted, I can’t say what I’d do.”

“Please don’t talk in that way, even in jest. It isn’t true. I know it isn’t true. And it’s knowing that that makes me----” She hesitated, then went on--“despise myself! It’s of no use to lie to _you_, Joe. I’m glad there’s somebody I can’t lie to, somebody that sees into me and forces me to look at myself as I am. And sometimes I _hate_ you for it. Yes, I hate you for it _now_!” She was sitting very erect upon her horse, her head thrown back, tears of anger in her eyes.

“Hate?” He shook his head teasingly at her. “I envy you. I’ve tried every other emotion, and I’d like to try that. But I can’t. I can’t hate even Frothingham. On the contrary, I like him. If you must have a title, you’ve got to take a husband with it. And I must say, I think you’ll be able to harness Frothingham down to a fairly reliable family horse.”

“How can you jest so coarsely about such a serious matter?” she exclaimed indignantly.

“But is it? What does it matter whom you marry, so long as you have no purpose in life other than to make a show and to induce shallow people to admire you and envy you for the things you’ve got that can be bought and sold? It’s better, on the whole, isn’t it, my friend, that you should carry out these purposes through a foreigner, and in a foreign country, than that you should spoil some promising American and be a bad influence here?”

“You are cruel, Joe. And I thought you’d sympathise with me, and help me!”

There was a pause, then he demanded abruptly: “What does your father say?”

She flushed--partly at the memory of the interview with her father, partly through shame in recollecting that she had led Frothingham to believe she had not told him. “He said--but why should I tell you?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, unless because you wish to.”

“Well--I _will_ tell you. He said” (she imitated his nasal drawl): “‘If your ma and you want to make the deal I’ll sign the papers. I reckon you know what you’re about. And all our money’s for is to make us happy. Buy what you please--I’ll settle for it.’”

“Was that all?”

Catherine lowered her eyes. “Yes, that was all he _said_. But he looked--Joe, it was his look that upset me.”

“I understand.” Wallingford’s voice was gentle and sympathetic now. “And what answer are you going to make to that look?”

“I’d rather not say,” she replied, giving him a brilliant smile. “Let’s canter again. We must get home.”

As soon as she reached the house she went to her mother’s rooms. Mrs. Hollister was finishing her morning’s work with her secretary. Catherine waited, impatiently playing with her riding whip. When the secretary left she said: “Mother, I’m going to throw him over.”

Mrs. Hollister paused for an instant in putting away some of her especially private papers, then went on. Presently she said tranquilly: “You will do nothing of the sort.”

Catherine quailed before that tone--she had been ruled by her mother all her life, had never been interfered with in any matter which her mother regarded as unimportant, had never been permitted to decide any matter which her mother regarded as important. And her mother’s rule was the most formidable of all tyrannies--the tyranny of kindness.

“But, mother, I should be wretched with him.”

“Why?”

On the basis of their method of thought and speech each with the other, it was impossible for her to erect “Because I don’t love him” into a plausible objection. So she said: “We have nothing in common. His laziness and cynicism irritate me. He makes me nervous. He bores me.”

“All men are objectionable in one way or another,” replied her mother. “If you married the ordinary man you would have nothing after you had grown tired. But marrying him, you’ll have, first, last, and all the time, the solid advantages of your position and your title. And you’ll like him better when you’re used to him--he has admirable qualities for a husband.”

“I can’t marry him,” said Catherine doggedly. She knew it was useless to argue with her mother.

“You can’t refuse to marry him. It would be dishonourable. Your word is pledged. It would be impossible for a child of mine to be guilty of a dishonourable action.”

“When I tell him how I feel he will release me.”

“You mean he would refuse to marry a woman who, after treating a man as you have treated him, would show herself so light and so lacking in honour. No, my daughter will not disgrace herself and her family.” Mrs. Hollister seated herself beside Catherine and put an arm round her. “She has had her every whim gratified, and that has made her careless of responsibilities. But she will not show herself in serious matters light and untrustworthy.”

Catherine stiffened herself against the gentle yet masterful force that seemed to be stealing in upon her from her mother’s embrace and tone.

“You’ve come to one of those rough places in life,” Mrs. Hollister went on, “where young people need the help of some older, more experienced person. And some day soon you’ll be glad I was here to see you safely over it.”

“I can’t marry him, mother.”

Mrs. Hollister frowned for a second, then her face cleared, and she said quietly: “Your father and I have put you in a position to establish yourself well in life. You have engaged yourself to an honourable man, who has something to offer you, who can assure you a position that will be a satisfaction to you all your life and to your children after you. I know I have not brought you up so badly that you would throw away your career, would disregard the interests of those you may bring into the world, all for a mere whim.”

Catherine was silent.

“Even if you cared for someone else----”

“But I do,” interrupted Catherine impetuously.

Mrs. Hollister winced and reflected before she went on: “It cannot be a serious attachment, Catherine, or I should have noticed it. Is it Joseph Wallingford?”

Catherine did not answer.

“Even if you had been attracted for a moment by a man who had something to offer besides a little sentiment, that would be gone a few brief months after marriage, still it would be your duty to yourself and to your family to make the sensible marriage. You are not a foolish girl. You are not a child. You know what the substantial things in life are.”

“I can’t marry him,” repeated Catherine stubbornly.

“Has Wallingford been making love to you?” The anger was close to the surface in Mrs. Hollister’s voice.