Nelly’s instinct told her that she had said enough, and they rode in silence. When she spoke again it was of the dance to which they were going that night. An hour and a half later as they were separating for dinner he said earnestly: “Thank you for what you said. And thank you--even more--for what you didn’t say.” XX On the way to Mrs. Grafton’s ball that night he sent Evelyn a cablegram asking her to cable him £175 he needed to help him to pay Wallingford and fixing the next day week for his sailing. He might have sailed three days earlier, but he wished to get her letter and so not carry an unsatisfied curiosity on a six-days’ voyage. At the ball everyone was talking of the Frothingham “exposure” and of Jenny Hooper’s marriage. The “exposure” had appeared in but two editions of the “yellow” that invented it. “Wick” Barney had seen it and had lost not a moment in forcing its suppression and a denial and in warning the other papers. He said nothing to Frothingham, and Frothingham did not know of it then, or indeed until several years had passed. But even if it had not been suppressed and had been everywhere believed, Frothingham’s social position would not have suffered. His title was genuine and his family and his position at home were of the best--more, American fashionable society never asks about upper class foreigners who come to it for no apparent, or, rather, no avowed purpose. It expects them to be somewhat “queer” in other respects. It assumes that they will be “queer” in money matters. Frothingham did, however, hear of Jenny’s marriage--heard of it from Jenny herself. At the Graftons’ the dressing rooms are at opposite ends of the hall from which the grand stairway ascends to the drawing room and the ballroom. It chanced that Jenny and Frothingham came along this hall from the dressing rooms at the same time and, to the delight of the few guests and the many servants who witnessed, met at the foot of the stairway. As Frothingham’s face habitually expressed nothing beyond a suggestion that he had nothing to express, he and his eyeglass withstood the shock admirably. Jenny had intended to “cut him dead” the next time she saw him. But as she tottered suddenly into his presence on her monstrous tall heels she was not prepared for a course so foreign to her nature as the cut direct. Before she knew what she was doing or saying she had smiled and nodded. She instantly shifted to a frown; but it was too late--Frothingham had spoken, had subdued her with that “perfectly splendid, so aristocratic” monocle of his. “What’s the use of throwing a fit over a thing that’s past and done?” she reflected. “He’s all right in his way. And won’t it give Tom and everybody a jolt if we enter the ballroom together?” Frothingham had called her “Miss Hooper.” This gave her the opening. “Miss Hooper!” she said with her jauntiest air. “That’s ancient history. I ain’t been called that for ages and ages. Why, I’m an old married woman--for Chicago.”