Honoria suspected their secret, yet doubted the correctness of her intuitions. “She’d parade it,” she reflected, “if she were really engaged to him. There must be a hitch somewhere.” And her wonder grew as the report of their engagement spread only to be strenuously denied by Catherine.
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!”