Miss Catherwaight’s collection of orders and
decorations and medals was her chief offence in the
eyes of those of her dear friends who thought her
clever but cynical.
All of them were willing to admit that she was clever,
but some of them said she was clever only to be unkind.
Young Van Bibber had said that if Miss Catherwaight
did not like dances and days and teas, she had only
to stop going to them instead of making unpleasant
remarks about those who did. So many people repeated
this that young Van Bibber believed finally that he
had said something good, and was somewhat pleased
in consequence, as he was not much given to that sort
of thing.
Mrs. Catherwaight, while she was alive, lived solely
for society, and, so some people said, not only lived
but died for it. She certainly did go about a
great deal, and she used to carry her husband away
from his library every night of every season and left
him standing in the doorways of drawing-rooms, outwardly
courteous and distinguished looking, but inwardly
somnolent and unhappy. She was a born and trained
social leader, and her daughter’s coming out
was to have been the greatest effort of her life.
She regarded it as an event in the dear child’s
lifetime second only in importance to her birth; equally
important with her probable marriage and of much more
poignant interest than her possible death. But
the great effort proved too much for the mother, and
she died, fondly remembered by her peers and tenderly
referred to by a great many people who could not even
show a card for her Thursdays. Her husband and
her daughter were not going out, of necessity, for
more than a year after her death, and then felt no
inclination to begin over again, but lived very much
together and showed themselves only occasionally.
They entertained, though, a great deal, in the way
of dinners, and an invitation to one of these dinners
soon became a diploma for intellectual as well as
social qualifications of a very high order.
One was always sure of meeting some one of consideration
there, which was pleasant in itself, and also rendered
it easy to let one’s friends know where one
had been dining. It sounded so flat to boast abruptly,
“I dined at the Catherwaights’ last night”;
while it seemed only natural to remark, “That
reminds me of a story that novelist, what’s
his name, told at Mr. Catherwaight’s,”
or “That English chap, who’s been in Africa,
was at the Catherwaights’ the other night, and
told me—”
After one of these dinners people always asked to
be allowed to look over Miss Catherwaight’s
collection, of which almost everybody had heard.
It consisted of over a hundred medals and decorations
which Miss Catherwaight had purchased while on the
long tours she made with her father in all parts of
the world. Each of them had been given as a reward
for some public service, as a recognition of some virtue
of the highest order—for personal bravery,
for statesmanship, for great genius in the arts; and
each had been pawned by the recipient or sold outright.
Miss Catherwaight referred to them as her collection
of dishonored honors, and called them variously her
Orders of the Knights of the Almighty Dollar, pledges
to patriotism and the pawnshops, and honors at second-hand.
