“Oh, I don’t know,” said Frothingham, with his cynical, enthusiasm-discouraging drawl. “They’re hysterical beggars, always exploding for no reason. It makes me nervous. I like quiet and comfort.”
“Lord Frothingham isn’t so sensible as he pretends,” put in Honoria. “He’s really almost as sentimental and emotional as you are, Catherine.”
“Oh, but I’m neither,” replied Catherine. “I don’t dare to be. If I find myself the least bit enthusiastic I catch myself up and look round, frightened lest somebody may have noticed. I’m such a liar—we all are over here. Don’t you like sincerity, Lord Frothingham?”
“I—I suppose so.” Frothingham looked vague. “What do you mean?” Catherine’s “intensity” confused him.
“I mean being true to one’s self, and not ashamed to show one’s self as one is, and never afraid to tell the truth.”
“But all of us do that, don’t we?” said Frothingham. There was a twinkle in his eye—or was it only the reflection of light from his glass?
Honoria gave him her “candid friend” look. “Nobody does,” said she. “That is, nobody who has temperament enough to lead any sort of life above an oyster’s.”
“But I can see at a glance that Lord Frothingham has temperament.” Catherine looked at him with intensely sympathetic appreciation. “Yes, men can be sincere and truthful. But women must always repress their real selves.”
Frothingham looked stolid and hopeless. Whenever conversation turned on abstractions he felt like a man fumbling and stumbling about in a London fog. “Really?” he said. “Really, now?”
“I don’t know why women fancy they must be liars,” said Honoria. “Do you mind dining at Sherry’s to-night?” Catherine in her psychological moods bored her. She sometimes ventured on aërial flights, but had no fancy for aërial flounderings.