________________________________________________
_ The effect of all this was to arouse in Cowperwood the keenest
feelings of superiority he had ever yet enjoyed. Hitherto he had
fancied that his enemies might worst him, but at last his path
seemed clear. He was now worth, all in all, the round sum of
twenty million dollars. His art-collection had become the most
important in the West--perhaps in the nation, public collections
excluded. He began to envision himself as a national figure,
possibly even an international one. And yet he was coming to feel
that, no matter how complete his financial victory might ultimately
be, the chances were that he and Aileen would never be socially
accepted here in Chicago. He had done too many boisterous things
--alienated too many people. He was as determined as ever to
retain a firm grip on the Chicago street-railway situation. But
he was disturbed for a second time in his life by the thought
that, owing to the complexities of his own temperament, he had
married unhappily and would find the situation difficult of
adjustment. Aileen, whatever might be said of her deficiencies,
was by no means as tractable or acquiescent as his first wife.
And, besides, he felt that he owed her a better turn. By no means
did he actually dislike her as yet; though she was no longer
soothing, stimulating, or suggestive to him as she had formerly
been. Her woes, because of him, were too many; her attitude toward
him too censorious. He was perfectly willing to sympathize with
her, to regret his own change of feeling, but what would you? He
could not control his own temperament any more than Aileen could
control hers.
The worst of this situation was that it was now becoming complicated
on Cowperwood's part with the most disturbing thoughts concerning
Berenice Fleming. Ever since the days when he had first met her
mother he had been coming more and more to feel for the young girl
a soul-stirring passion--and that without a single look exchanged
or a single word spoken. There is a static something which is
beauty, and this may be clothed in the habiliments of a ragged
philosopher or in the silks and satins of pampered coquetry. It
was a suggestion of this beauty which is above sex and above age
and above wealth that shone in the blowing hair and night-blue
eyes of Berenice Fleming. His visit to the Carter family at Pocono
had been a disappointment to him, because of the apparent hopelessness
of arousing Berenice's interest, and since that time, and during
their casual encounters, she had remained politely indifferent.
Nevertheless, he remained true to his persistence in the pursuit
of any game he had fixed upon.
Mrs. Carter, whose relations with Cowperwood had in the past been
not wholly platonic, nevertheless attributed much of his interest
in her to her children and their vital chance. Berenice and Rolfe
themselves knew nothing concerning the nature of their mother's
arrangements with Cowperwood. True to his promise of protectorship
and assistance, he had established her in a New York apartment
adjacent to her daughter's school, and where he fancied that he
himself might spend many happy hours were Berenice but near.
Proximity to Berenice! The desire to arouse her interest and command
her favor! Cowperwood would scarcely have cared to admit to himself
how great a part this played in a thought which had recently been
creeping into his mind. It was that of erecting a splendid house
in New York.
By degrees this idea of building a New York house had grown upon
him. His Chicago mansion was a costly sepulcher in which Aileen
sat brooding over the woes which had befallen her. Moreover, aside
from the social defeat which it represented, it was becoming merely
as a structure, but poorly typical of the splendor and ability of
his imaginations. This second dwelling, if he ever achieved it,
should be resplendent, a monument to himself. In his speculative
wanderings abroad he had seen many such great palaces, designed
with the utmost care, which had housed the taste and culture of
generations of men. His art-collection, in which he took an
immense pride, had been growing, until it was the basis if not the
completed substance for a very splendid memorial. Already in it
were gathered paintings of all the important schools; to say nothing
of collections of jade, illumined missals, porcelains, rugs,
draperies, mirror frames, and a beginning at rare originals of
sculpture. The beauty of these strange things, the patient laborings
of inspired souls of various times and places, moved him, on
occasion, to a gentle awe. Of all individuals he respected, indeed
revered, the sincere artist. Existence was a mystery, but these
souls who set themselves to quiet tasks of beauty had caught
something of which he was dimly conscious. Life had touched them
with a vision, their hearts and souls were attuned to sweet harmonies
of which the common world knew nothing. Sometimes, when he was
weary after a strenuous day, he would enter--late in the night
--his now silent gallery, and turning on the lights so that the
whole sweet room stood revealed, he would seat himself before some
treasure, reflecting on the nature, the mood, the time, and the
man that had produced it. Sometimes it would be one of Rembrandt's
melancholy heads--the sad "Portrait of a Rabbi"--or the sweet
introspection of a Rousseau stream. A solemn Dutch housewife,
rendered with the bold fidelity and resonant enameled surfaces of
a Hals or the cold elegance of an Ingres, commanded his utmost
enthusiasm. So he would sit and wonder at the vision and skill
of the original dreamer, exclaiming at times: "A marvel! A marvel!"
At the same time, so far as Aileen was concerned things were
obviously shaping up for additional changes. She was in that
peculiar state which has befallen many a woman--trying to substitute
a lesser ideal for a greater, and finding that the effort is useless
or nearly so. In regard to her affair with Lynde, aside from the
temporary relief and diversion it had afforded her, she was beginning
to feel that she had made a serious mistake. Lynde was delightful,
after his fashion. He could amuse her with a different type of
experience from any that Cowperwood had to relate. Once they were
intimate he had, with an easy, genial air, confessed to all sorts
of liaisons in Europe and America. He was utterly pagan--a faun
--and at the same time he was truly of the smart world. His open
contempt of all but one or two of the people in Chicago whom Aileen
had secretly admired and wished to associate with, and his easy
references to figures of importance in the East and in Paris and
London, raised him amazingly in her estimation; it made her feel,
sad to relate, that she had by no means lowered herself in succumbing
so readily to his forceful charms.
Nevertheless, because he was what he was--genial, complimentary,
affectionate, but a playboy, merely, and a soldier of fortune,
with no desire to make over her life for her on any new basis--she
was now grieving over the futility of this romance which had got
her nowhere, and which, in all probability, had alienated Cowperwood
for good. He was still outwardly genial and friendly, but their
relationship was now colored by a sense of mistake and uncertainty
which existed on both sides, but which, in Aileen's case, amounted
to a subtle species of soul-torture. Hitherto she had been the
aggrieved one, the one whose loyalty had never been in question,
and whose persistent affection and faith had been greatly sinned
against. Now all this was changed. The manner in which he had
sinned against her was plain enough, but the way in which, out of
pique, she had forsaken him was in the other balance. Say what
one will, the loyalty of woman, whether a condition in nature or
an evolved accident of sociology, persists as a dominating thought
in at least a section of the race; and women themselves, be it
said, are the ones who most loudly and openly subscribe to it.
Cowperwood himself was fully aware that Aileen had deserted him,
not because she loved him less or Lynde more, but because she was
hurt--and deeply so. Aileen knew that he knew this. From one
point of view it enraged her and made her defiant; from another
it grieved her to think she had uselessly sinned against his faith
in her. Now he had ample excuse to do anything he chose. Her
best claim on him--her wounds--she had thrown away as one throws
away a weapon. Her pride would not let her talk to him about this,
and at the same time she could not endure the easy, tolerant manner
with which he took it. His smiles, his forgiveness, his sometimes
pleasant jesting were all a horrible offense.
To complete her mental quandary, she was already beginning to
quarrel with Lynde over this matter of her unbreakable regard for
Cowperwood. With the sufficiency of a man of the world Lynde
intended that she should succumb to him completely and forget her
wonderful husband. When with him she was apparently charmed and
interested, yielding herself freely, but this was more out of pique
at Cowperwood's neglect than from any genuine passion for Lynde.
In spite of her pretensions of anger, her sneers, and criticisms
whenever Cowperwood's name came up, she was, nevertheless, hopelessly
fond of him and identified with him spiritually, and it was not
long before Lynde began to suspect this. Such a discovery is a
sad one for any master of women to make. It jolted his pride
severely.
"You care for him still, don't you?" he asked, with a wry smile,
upon one occasion. They were sitting at dinner in a private room
at Kinsley's, and Aileen, whose color was high, and who was
becomingly garbed in metallic-green silk, was looking especially
handsome. Lynde had been proposing that she should make special
arrangements to depart with him for a three-months' stay in Europe,
but she would have nothing to do with the project. She did not
dare. Such a move would make Cowperwood feel that she was alienating
herself forever; it would give him an excellent excuse to leave
her.
"Oh, it isn't that," she had declared, in reply to Lynde's query.
"I just don't want to go. I can't. I'm not prepared. It's
nothing but a notion of yours, anyhow. You're tired of Chicago
because it's getting near spring. You go and I'll be here when
you come back, or I may decide to come over later." She smiled.
Lynde pulled a dark face.
"Hell!" he said. "I know how it is with you. You still stick to
him, even when he treats you like a dog. You pretend not to love
him when as a matter of fact you're mad about him. I've seen it
all along. You don't really care anything about me. You can't.
You're too crazy about him."
"Oh, shut up!" replied Aileen, irritated greatly for the moment
by this onslaught. "You talk like a fool. I'm not anything of
the sort. I admire him. How could any one help it?" (At this
time, of course, Cowperwood's name was filling the city.) "He's a
very wonderful man. He was never brutal to me. He's a full-sized
man--I'll say that for him."
By now Aileen had become sufficiently familiar with Lynde to
criticize him in her own mind, and even outwardly by innuendo, for
being a loafer and idler who had never created in any way the money
he was so freely spending. She had little power to psychologize
concerning social conditions, but the stalwart constructive
persistence of Cowperwood along commercial lines coupled with the
current American contempt of leisure reflected somewhat unfavorably
upon Lynde, she thought.
Lynde's face clouded still more at this outburst. "You go to the
devil," he retorted. "I don't get you at all. Sometimes you talk
as though you were fond of me. At other times you're all wrapped
up in him. Now you either care for me or you don't. Which is it?
If you're so crazy about him that you can't leave home for a month
or so you certainly can't care much about me."
Aileen, however, because of her long experience with Cowperwood,
was more than a match for Lynde. At the same time she was afraid
to let go of him for fear that she should have no one to care for
her. She liked him. He was a happy resource in her misery, at
least for the moment. Yet the knowledge that Cowperwood looked
upon this affair as a heavy blemish on her pristine solidarity
cooled her. At the thought of him and of her whole tarnished and
troubled career she was very unhappy.
"Hell!" Lynde had repeated, irritably, "stay if you want to. I'll
not be trying to over-persuade you--depend on that."
They quarreled still further over this matter, and, though they
eventually made up, both sensed the drift toward an ultimately
unsatisfactory conclusion.
It was one morning not long after this that Cowperwood, feeling
in a genial mood over his affairs, came into Aileen's room, as he
still did on occasions, to finish dressing and pass the time of
day.
"Well," he observed, gaily, as he stood before the mirror adjusting
his collar and tie, "how are you and Lynde getting along these
days--nicely?"
"Oh, you go to the devil!" replied Aileen, flaring up and struggling
with her divided feelings, which pained her constantly. "If it
hadn't been for you there wouldn't be any chance for your smarty
'how-am-I-getting-alongs.' I am getting along all right--fine
--regardless of anything you may think. He's as good a man as
you are any day, and better. I like him. At least he's fond of
me, and that's more than you are. Why should you care what I do?
You don't, so why talk about it? I want you to let me alone."
"Aileen, Aileen, how you carry on! Don't flare up so. I meant
nothing by it. I'm sorry as much for myself as for you. I've
told you I'm not jealous. You think I'm critical. I'm not anything
of the kind. I know how you feel. That's all very good."
"Oh yes, yes," she replied. "Well, you can keep your feelings to
yourself. Go to the devil! Go to the devil, I tell you!" Her eyes
blazed.
He stood now, fully dressed, in the center of the rug before her,
and Aileen looked at him, keen, valiant, handsome--her old Frank.
Once again she regretted her nominal faithlessness, and raged at
him in her heart for his indifference. "You dog," she was about
to add, "you have no heart!" but she changed her mind. Her throat
tightened and her eyes filled. She wanted to run to him and say:
"Oh, Frank, don't you understand how it all is, how it all came
about? Won't you love me again--can't you?" But she restrained
herself. It seemed to her that he might understand--that he would,
in fact--but that he would never again be faithful, anyhow. And
she would so gladly have discarded Lynde and any and all men if
he would only have said the word, would only have really and
sincerely wished her to do so.
It was one day not long after their morning quarrel in her bedroom
that Cowperwood broached the matter of living in New York to Aileen,
pointing out that thereby his art-collection, which was growing
constantly, might be more suitably housed, and that it would give
her a second opportunity to enter social life.
"So that you can get rid of me out here," commented Aileen, little
knowing of Berenice Fleming.
"Not at all," replied Cowperwood, sweetly. "You see how things
are. There's no chance of our getting into Chicago society.
There's too much financial opposition against me here. If we had
a big house in New York, such as I would build, it would be an
introduction in itself. After all, these Chicagoans aren't even
a snapper on the real society whip. It's the Easterners who set
the pace, and the New-Yorkers most of all. If you want to say the
word, I can sell this place and we can live down there, part of
the time, anyhow. I could spend as much of my time with you there
as I have been doing here--perhaps more."
Because of her soul of vanity Aileen's mind ran forward in spite
of herself to the wider opportunities which his words suggested.
This house had become a nightmare to her--a place of neglect and
bad memories. Here she had fought with Rita Sohlberg; here she
had seen society come for a very little while only to disappear;
here she had waited this long time for the renewal of Cowperwood's
love, which was now obviously never to be restored in its original
glamour. As he spoke she looked at him quizzically, almost sadly
in her great doubt. At the same time she could not help reflecting
that in New York where money counted for so much, and with
Cowperwood's great and growing wealth and prestige behind her, she
might hope to find herself socially at last. "Nothing venture,
nothing have" had always been her motto, nailed to her mast, though
her equipment for the life she now craved had never been more than
the veriest make-believe--painted wood and tinsel. Vain, radiant,
hopeful Aileen! Yet how was she to know?
"Very well," she observed, finally. "Do as you like. I can live
down there as well as I can here, I presume--alone."
Cowperwood knew the nature of her longings. He knew what was
running in her mind, and how futile were her dreams. Life had
taught him how fortuitous must be the circumstances which could
enable a woman of Aileen's handicaps and defects to enter that
cold upper world. Yet for all the courage of him, for the very
life of him, he could not tell her. He could not forget that once,
behind the grim bars in the penitentiary for the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania, he had cried on her shoulder. He could not be
an ingrate and wound her with his inmost thoughts any more than
he could deceive himself. A New York mansion and the dreams of
social supremacy which she might there entertain would soothe her
ruffled vanity and assuage her disappointed heart; and at the same
time he would be nearer Berenice Fleming. Say what one will of
these ferret windings of the human mind, they are, nevertheless,
true and characteristic of the average human being, and Cowperwood
was no exception. He saw it all, he calculated on it--he calculated
on the simple humanity of Aileen. _
Read next: chapter XLVI - Depths and Heights
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