________________________________________________
_ The result of this understanding was not so important to Cowperwood
as it was to Antoinette. In a vagrant mood he had unlocked a
spirit here which was fiery, passionate, but in his case hopelessly
worshipful. However much she might be grieved by him, Antoinette,
as he subsequently learned, would never sin against his personal
welfare. Yet she was unwittingly the means of first opening the
flood-gates of suspicion on Aileen, thereby establishing in the
latter's mind the fact of Cowperwood's persistent unfaithfulness.
The incidents which led up to this were comparatively trivial
--nothing more, indeed, at first than the sight of Miss Nowak and
Cowperwood talking intimately in his office one afternoon when the
others had gone and the fact that she appeared to be a little bit
disturbed by Aileen's arrival. Later came the discovery--though
of this Aileen could not be absolutely sure--of Cowperwood and
Antoinette in a closed carriage one stormy November afternoon in
State Street when he was supposed to be out of the city. She was
coming out of Merrill's store at the time, and just happened to
glance at the passing vehicle, which was running near the curb.
Aileen, although uncertain, was greatly shocked. Could it be
possible that he had not left town? She journeyed to his office
on the pretext of taking old Laughlin's dog, Jennie, a pretty
collar she had found; actually to find if Antoinette were away at
the same time. Could it be possible, she kept asking herself,
that Cowperwood had become interested in his own stenographer? The
fact that the office assumed that he was out of town and that
Antoinette was not there gave her pause. Laughlin quite innocently
informed her that he thought Miss Nowak had gone to one of the
libraries to make up certain reports. It left her in doubt.
What was Aileen to think? Her moods and aspirations were linked
so closely with the love and success of Cowperwood that she could
not, in spite of herself, but take fire at the least thought of
losing him. He himself wondered sometimes, as he threaded the
mesh-like paths of sex, what she would do once she discovered his
variant conduct. Indeed, there had been little occasional squabbles,
not sharp, but suggestive, when he was trifling about with Mrs.
Kittridge, Mrs. Ledwell, and others. There were, as may be imagined,
from time to time absences, brief and unimportant, which he explained
easily, passional indifferences which were not explained so easily,
and the like; but since his affections were not really involved
in any of those instances, he had managed to smooth the matter
over quite nicely.
"Why do you say that?" he would demand, when she suggested, apropos
of a trip or a day when she had not been with him, that there might
have been another. "You know there hasn't. If I am going in for
that sort of thing you'll learn it fast enough. Even if I did, it
wouldn't mean that I was unfaithful to you spiritually."
"Oh, wouldn't it?" exclaimed Aileen, resentfully, and with some
disturbance of spirit. "Well, you can keep your spiritual
faithfulness. I'm not going to be content with any sweet thoughts."
Cowperwood laughed even as she laughed, for he knew she was right
and he felt sorry for her. At the same time her biting humor
pleased him. He knew that she did not really suspect him of actual
infidelity; he was obviously so fond of her. But she also knew
that he was innately attractive to women, and that there were
enough of the philandering type to want to lead him astray and
make her life a burden. Also that he might prove a very willing
victim.
Sex desire and its fruition being such an integral factor in the
marriage and every other sex relation, the average woman is prone
to study the periodic manifestations that go with it quite as one
dependent on the weather--a sailor, or example--might study the
barometer. In this Aileen was no exception. She was so beautiful
herself, and had been so much to Cowperwood physically, that she
had followed the corresponding evidences of feeling in him with
the utmost interest, accepting the recurring ebullitions of his
physical emotions as an evidence of her own enduring charm. As
time went on, however--and that was long before Mrs. Sohlberg or
any one else had appeared--the original flare of passion had
undergone a form of subsidence, though not noticeable enough to
be disturbing. Aileen thought and thought, but she did not
investigate. Indeed, because of the precariousness of her own
situation as a social failure she was afraid to do so.
With the arrival of Mrs. Sohlberg and then of Antoinette Nowak as
factors in the potpourri, the situation became more difficult.
Humanly fond of Aileen as Cowperwood was, and because of his lapses
and her affection, desirous of being kind, yet for the time being
he was alienated almost completely from her. He grew remote
according as his clandestine affairs were drifting or blazing,
without, however, losing his firm grip on his financial affairs,
and Aileen noticed it. It worried her. She was so vain that she
could scarcely believe that Cowperwood could long be indifferent,
and for a while her sentimental interest in Sohlberg's future and
unhappiness of soul beclouded her judgment; but she finally began
to feel the drift of affairs. The pathos of all this is that it
so quickly descends into the realm of the unsatisfactory, the
banal, the pseudo intimate. Aileen noticed it at once. She tried
protestations. "You don't kiss me the way you did once," and then
a little later, "You haven't noticed me hardly for four whole days.
What's the matter?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Cowperwood, easily; "I guess I want
you as much as ever. I don't see that I am any different." He
took her in his arms and petted and caressed her; but Aileen was
suspicious, nervous.
The psychology of the human animal, when confronted by these
tangles, these ripping tides of the heart, has little to do with
so-called reason or logic. It is amazing how in the face of passion
and the affections and the changing face of life all plans and
theories by which we guide ourselves fall to the ground. Here was
Aileen talking bravely at the time she invaded Mrs. Lillian
Cowperwood's domain of the necessity of "her Frank" finding a
woman suitable to his needs, tastes, abilities, but now that the
possibility of another woman equally or possibly better suited to
him was looming in the offing--although she had no idea who it
might be--she could not reason in the same way. Her ox, God wot,
was the one that was being gored. What if he should find some
one whom he could want more than he did her? Dear heaven, how
terrible that would be! What would she do? she asked herself,
thoughtfully. She lapsed into the blues one afternoon--almost
cried--she could scarcely say why. Another time she thought of
all the terrible things she would do, how difficult she would make
it for any other woman who invaded her preserves. However, she
was not sure. Would she declare war if she discovered another?
She knew she would eventually; and yet she knew, too, that if
she did, and Cowperwood were set in his passion, thoroughly
alienated, it would do no good. It would be terrible, but what
could she do to win him back? That was the issue. Once warned,
however, by her suspicious questioning, Cowperwood was more
mechanically attentive than ever. He did his best to conceal his
altered mood--his enthusiasms for Mrs. Sohlberg, his interest in
Antoinette Nowak--and this helped somewhat.
But finally there was a detectable change. Aileen noticed it first
after they had been back from Europe nearly a year. At this time
she was still interested in Sohlberg, but in a harmlessly flirtatious
way. She thought he might be interesting physically, but would
he be as delightful as Cowperwood? Never! When she felt that
Cowperwood himself might he changing she pulled herself up at
once, and when Antoinette appeared--the carriage incident--Sohlberg
lost his, at best, unstable charm. She began to meditate on what
a terrible thing it would be to lose Cowperwood, seeing that she
had failed to establish herself socially. Perhaps that had something
to do with his defection. No doubt it had. Yet she could not
believe, after all his protestations of affection in Philadelphia,
after all her devotion to him in those dark days of his degradation
and punishment, that he would really turn on her. No, he might
stray momentarily, but if she protested enough, made a scene,
perhaps, he would not feel so free to injure her--he would remember
and be loving and devoted again. After seeing him, or imagining
she had seen him, in the carriage, she thought at first that she
would question him, but later decided that she would wait and watch
more closely. Perhaps he was beginning to run around with other
women. There was safety in numbers--that she knew. Her heart,
her pride, was hurt, but not broken. _
Read next: chapter XVIII - The Clash
Read previous: chapter XVI - A Fateful Interlude
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