________________________________________________
_ Cowperwood gained his first real impression of Stephanie at the
Garrick Players, where he went with Aileen once to witness a
performance of "Elektra." He liked Stephanie particularly in this
part, and thought her beautiful. One evening not long afterward
he noticed her in his own home looking at his jades, particularly
a row of bracelets and ear-rings. He liked the rhythmic outline
of her body, which reminded him of a letter S in motion. Quite
suddenly it came over him that she was a remarkable girl--very
--destined, perhaps, to some significant future. At the same time
Stephanie was thinking of him.
"Do you find them interesting?" he asked, stopping beside her.
"I think they're wonderful. Those dark-greens, and that pale,
fatty white! I can see how beautiful they would be in a Chinese
setting. I have always wished we could find a Chinese or Japanese
play to produce sometime."
"Yes, with your black hair those ear-rings would look well," said
Cowperwood.
He had never deigned to comment on a feature of hers before. She
turned her dark, brown-black eyes on him--velvety eyes with a kind
of black glow in them--and now he noticed how truly fine they were,
and how nice were her hands--brown almost as a Malay's.
He said nothing more; but the next day an unlabeled box was delivered
to Stephanie at her home containing a pair of jade ear-rings, a
bracelet, and a brooch with Chinese characters intagliated.
Stephanie was beside herself with delight. She gathered them up
in her hands and kissed them, fastening the ear-rings in her ears
and adjusting the bracelet and ring. Despite her experience with
her friends and relatives, her stage associates, and her paramours,
she was still a little unschooled in the world. Her heart was
essentially poetic and innocent. No one had ever given her much
of anything--not even her parents. Her allowance thus far in life
had been a pitiful six dollars a week outside of her clothing. As
she surveyed these pretty things in the privacy of her room she
wondered oddly whether Cowperwood was growing to like her. Would
such a strong, hard business man be interested in her? She had
heard her father say he was becoming very rich. Was she a great
actress, as some said she was, and would strong, able types of men
like Cowperwood take to her--eventually? She had heard of Rachel,
of Nell Gwynne, of the divine Sarah and her loves. She took the
precious gifts and locked them in a black-iron box which was sacred
to her trinkets and her secrets.
The mere acceptance of these things in silence was sufficient
indication to Cowperwood that she was of a friendly turn of mind.
He waited patiently until one day a letter came to his office--not
his house--addressed, "Frank Algernon Cowperwood, Personal." It
was written in a small, neat, careful hand, almost printed.
I don't know how to thank you for your wonderful present. I didn't
mean you should give them to me, and I know you sent them. I shall
keep them with pleasure and wear them with delight. It was so
nice of you to do this.
STEPHANIE PLATOW.
Cowperwood studied the handwriting, the paper, the phraseology.
For a girl of only a little over twenty this was wise and reserved
and tactful. She might have written to him at his residence. He
gave her the benefit of a week's time, and then found her in his
own home one Sunday afternoon. Aileen had gone calling, and
Stephanie was pretending to await her return.
"It's nice to see you there in that window," he said. "You fit
your background perfectly."
"Do I?" The black-brown eyes burned soulfully. The panneling back
of her was of dark oak, burnished by the rays of an afternoon
winter sun.
Stephanie Platow had dressed for this opportunity. Her full,
rich, short black hair was caught by a childish band of blood-red
ribbon, holding it low over her temples and ears. Her lithe body,
so harmonious in its graven roundness, was clad in an apple-green
bodice, and a black skirt with gussets of red about the hem; her
smooth arms, from the elbows down, were bare. On one wrist was
the jade bracelet he had given her. Her stockings were apple-green
silk, and, despite the chill of the day, her feet were shod in
enticingly low slippers with brass buckles.
Cowperwood retired to the hall to hang up his overcoat and came
back smiling.
"Isn't Mrs. Cowperwood about?"
"The butler says she's out calling, but I thought I'd wait a little
while, anyhow. She may come back."
She turned up a dark, smiling face to him, with languishing,
inscrutable eyes, and he recognized the artist at last, full and
clear.
"I see you like my bracelet, don't you?"
"It's beautiful," she replied, looking down and surveying it
dreamily. "I don't always wear it. I carry it in my muff. I've
just put it on for a little while. I carry them all with me always.
I love them so. I like to feel them."
She opened a small chamois bag beside her--lying with her handkerchief
and a sketch-book which she always carried--and took out the ear-rings
and brooch.
Cowperwood glowed with a strange feeling of approval and enthusiasm
at this manifestation of real interest. He liked jade himself
very much, but more than that the feeling that prompted this
expression in another. Roughly speaking, it might have been said
of him that youth and hope in women--particularly youth when combined
with beauty and ambition in a girl--touched him. He responded
keenly to her impulse to do or be something in this world, whatever
it might be, and he looked on the smart, egoistic vanity of so
many with a kindly, tolerant, almost parental eye. Poor little
organisms growing on the tree of life--they would burn out and
fade soon enough. He did not know the ballad of the roses of
yesteryear, but if he had it would have appealed to him. He did
not care to rifle them, willy-nilly; but should their temperaments
or tastes incline them in his direction, they would not suffer
vastly in their lives because of him. The fact was, the man was
essentially generous where women were concerned.
"How nice of you!" he commented, smiling. "I like that." And then,
seeing a note-book and pencil beside her, he asked, "What are you
doing?"
"Just sketching."
"Let me see?"
"It's nothing much," she replied, deprecatingly. "I don't draw
very well."
"Gifted girl!" he replied, picking it up. "Paints, draws, carves
on wood, plays, sings, acts."
"All rather badly," she sighed, turning her head languidly and
looking away. In her sketch-book she had put all of her best
drawings; there were sketches of nude women, dancers, torsos, bits
of running figures, sad, heavy, sensuous heads and necks of sleeping
girls, chins up, eyelids down, studies of her brothers and sister,
and of her father and mother.
"Delightful!" exclaimed Cowperwood, keenly alive to a new treasure.
Good heavens, where had been his eyes all this while? Here was a
jewel lying at his doorstep--innocent, untarnished--a real jewel.
These drawings suggested a fire of perception, smoldering and
somber, which thrilled him.
"These are beautiful to me, Stephanie," he said, simply, a strange,
uncertain feeling of real affection creeping over him. The man's
greatest love was for art. It was hypnotic to him. "Did you ever
study art?" he asked.
"No."
"And you never studied acting?"
"No."
She shook her head in a slow, sad, enticing way. The black hair
concealing her ears moved him strangely.
"I know the art of your stage work is real, and you have a natural
art which I just seem to see. What has been the matter with me,
anyhow?"
"Oh no," she sighed. "It seems to me that I merely play at
everything. I could cry sometimes when I think how I go on."
"At twenty?"
"That is old enough," she smiled, archly.
"Stephanie," he asked, cautiously, "how old are you, exactly?"
"I will be twenty-one in April," she answered.
"Have your parents been very strict with you?"
She shook her head dreamily. "No; what makes you ask? They haven't
paid very much attention to me. They've always liked Lucille and
Gilbert and Ormond best." Her voice had a plaintive, neglected
ring. It was the voice she used in her best scenes on the stage.
"Don't they realize that you are very talented?"
"I think perhaps my mother feels that I may have some ability.
My father doesn't, I'm sure. Why?"
She lifted those languorous, plaintive eyes.
"Why, Stephanie, if you want to know, I think you're wonderful.
I thought so the other night when you were looking at those jades.
It all came over me. You are an artist, truly, and I have been
so busy I have scarcely seen it. Tell me one thing."
"Yes."
She drew in a soft breath, filling her chest and expanding her
bosom, while she looked at him from under her black hair. Her
hands were crossed idly in her lap. Then she looked demurely down.
"Look, Stephanie! Look up! I want to ask you something. You have
known something of me for over a year. Do you like me?"
"I think you're very wonderful," she murmured.
"Is that all?"
"Isn't that much?" she smiled, shooting a dull, black-opal look
in his direction.
"You wore my bracelet to-day. Were you very glad to get it?"
"Oh yes," she sighed, with aspirated breath, pretending a kind of
suffocation.
"How beautiful you really are!" he said, rising and looking down
at her.
She shook her head.
"No."
"Yes!"
"No."
"Come, Stephanie! Stand by me and look at me. You are so tall and
slender and graceful. You are like something out of Asia."
She sighed, turning in a sinuous way, as he slipped his arm her.
"I don't think we should, should we?" she asked, naively, after a
moment, pulling away from him.
"Stephanie!"
"I think I'd better go, now, please." _
Read next: chapter XXVI - Love and War
Read previous: chapter XXIV - The Coming of Stephanie Platow
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