________________________________________________
_ It was not until some little time after they were established in
the new house that Aileen first came upon any evidence of the
existence of Berenice Fleming. In a general way she assumed that
there were women--possibly some of whom she had known--Stephanie,
Mrs. Hand, Florence Cochrane, or later arrivals--yet so long as
they were not obtruded on her she permitted herself the semi-comforting
thought that things were not as bad as they might be. So long,
indeed, as Cowperwood was genuinely promiscuous, so long as he
trotted here and there, not snared by any particular siren, she
could not despair, for, after all, she had ensnared him and held
him deliciously--without variation, she believed, for all of ten
years--a feat which no other woman had achieved before or after.
Rita Sohlberg might have succeeded--the beast! How she hated the
thought of Rita! By this time, however, Cowperwood was getting on
in years. The day must come when he would be less keen for
variability, or, at least, would think it no longer worth while
to change. If only he did not find some one woman, some Circe,
who would bind and enslave him in these Later years as she had
herself done in his earlier ones all might yet be well. At the
same time she lived in daily terror of a discovery which was soon
to follow.
She had gone out one day to pay a call on some one to whom Rhees
Grier, the Chicago sculptor, had given her an introduction.
Crossing Central Park in one of the new French machines which
Cowperwood had purchased for her indulgence, her glance wandered
down a branch road to where another automobile similar to her own
was stalled. It was early in the afternoon, at which time Cowperwood
was presumably engaged in Wall Street. Yet there he was, and with
him two women, neither of whom, in the speed of passing, could
Aileen quite make out. She had her car halted and driven to within
seeing-distance behind a clump of bushes. A chauffeur whom she
did not know was tinkering at a handsome machine, while on the
grass near by stood Cowperwood and a tall, slender girl with red
hair somewhat like Aileen's own. Her expression was aloof, poetic,
rhapsodical. Aileen could not analyze it, but it fixed her attention
completely. In the tonneau sat an elderly lady, whom Aileen at
once assumed to be the girl's mother. Who were they? What was
Cowperwood doing here in the Park at this hour? Where were they
going? With a horrible retch of envy she noted upon Cowperwood's
face a smile the like and import of which she well knew. How often
she had seen it years and years before! Having escaped detection,
she ordered her chauffeur to follow the car, which soon started,
at a safe distance. She saw Cowperwood and the two ladies put
down at one of the great hotels, and followed them into the
dining-room, where, from behind a screen, after the most careful
manoeuvering, she had an opportunity of studying them at her
leisure. She drank in every detail of Berenice's face--the
delicately pointed chin, the clear, fixed blue eyes, the straight,
sensitive nose and tawny hair. Calling the head waiter, she
inquired the names of the two women, and in return for a liberal
tip was informed at once. "Mrs. Ira Carter, I believe, and her
daughter, Miss Fleming, Miss Berenice Fleming. Mrs. Carter was
Mrs. Fleming once." Aileen followed them out eventually, and in
her own car pursued them to their door, into which Cowperwood also
disappeared. The next day, by telephoning the apartment to make
inquiry, she learned that they actually lived there. After a few
days of brooding she employed a detective, and learned that
Cowperwood was a constant visitor at the Carters', that the machine
in which they rode was his maintained at a separate garage, and
that they were of society truly. Aileen would never have followed
the clue so vigorously had it not been for the look she had seen
Cowperwood fix on the girl in the Park and in the restaurant--an
air of soul-hunger which could not be gainsaid.
Let no one ridicule the terrors of unrequited love. Its tentacles
are cancerous, its grip is of icy death. Sitting in her boudoir
immediately after these events, driving, walking, shopping, calling
on the few with whom she had managed to scrape an acquaintance,
Aileen thought morning, noon, and night of this new woman. The
pale, delicate face haunted her. What were those eyes, so remote
in their gaze, surveying? Love? Cowperwood? Yes! Yes! Gone in a
flash, and permanently, as it seemed to Aileen, was the value of
this house, her dream of a new social entrance. And she had already
suffered so much; endured so much. Cowperwood being absent for a
fortnight, she moped in her room, sighed, raged, and then began
to drink. Finally she sent for an actor who had once paid attention
to her in Chicago, and whom she had later met here in the circle
of the theaters. She was not so much burning with lust as determined
in her drunken gloom that she would have revenge. For days there
followed an orgy, in which wine, bestiality, mutual recrimination,
hatred, and despair were involved. Sobering eventually, she
wondered what Cowperwood would think of her now if he knew this?
Could he ever love her any more? Could he even tolerate her? But
what did he care? It served him right, the dog! She would show
him, she would wreck his dream, she would make her own life a
scandal, and his too! She would shame him before all the world.
He should never have a divorce! He should never be able to marry
a girl like that and leave her alone--never, never, never! When
Cowperwood returned she snarled at him without vouchsafing an
explanation.
He suspected at once that she had been spying upon his manoeuvers.
Moreover, he did not fail to notice her heavy eyes, superheated
cheeks, and sickly breath. Obviously she had abandoned her dream
of a social victory of some kind, and was entering on a career of
what--debauchery? Since coming to New York she had failed utterly,
he thought, to make any single intelligent move toward her social
rehabilitation. The banal realms of art and the stage, with which
in his absence or neglect she had trifled with here, as she had
done in Chicago, were worse than useless; they were destructive.
He must have a long talk with her one of these days, must confess
frankly to his passion for Berenice, and appeal to her sympathy
and good sense. What scenes would follow! Yet she might succumb,
at that. Despair, pride, disgust might move her. Besides, he
could now bestow upon her a very large fortune. She could go to
Europe or remain here and live in luxury. He would always remain
friendly with her--helpful, advisory--if she would permit it.
The conversation which eventually followed on this topic was of
such stuff as dreams are made of. It sounded hollow and unnatural
within the walls where it took place. Consider the great house
in upper Fifth Avenue, its magnificent chambers aglow, of a stormy
Sunday night. Cowperwood was lingering in the city at this time,
busy with a group of Eastern financiers who were influencing his
contest in the state legislature of Illinois. Aileen was momentarily
consoled by the thought that for him perhaps love might, after
all, be a thing apart--a thing no longer vital and soul-controlling.
To-night he was sitting in the court of orchids, reading a book
--the diary of Cellini, which some one had recommended to him
--stopping to think now and then of things in Chicago or Springfield,
or to make a note. Outside the rain was splashing in torrents on
the electric-lighted asphalt of Fifth Avenue--the Park opposite a
Corot-like shadow. Aileen was in the music-room strumming
indifferently. She was thinking of times past--Lynde, from whom
she had not heard in half a year; Watson Skeet, the sculptor, who
was also out of her ken at present. When Cowperwood was in the
city and in the house she was accustomed from habit to remain
indoors or near. So great is the influence of past customs of
devotion that they linger long past the hour when the act ceases
to become valid.
"What an awful night!" she observed once, strolling to a window
to peer out from behind a brocaded valance.
"It is bad, isn't it?" replied Cowperwood, as she returned. "Hadn't
you thought of going anywhere this evening?"
"No--oh no," replied Aileen, indifferently. She rose restlessly
from the piano, and strolled on into the great picture-gallery.
Stopping before one of Raphael Sanzio's Holy Families, only recently
hung, she paused to contemplate the serene face--medieval,
Madonnaesque, Italian.
The lady seemed fragile, colorless, spineless--without life. Were
there such women? Why did artists paint them? Yet the little Christ
was sweet. Art bored Aileen unless others were enthusiastic. She
craved only the fanfare of the living--not painted resemblances.
She returned to the music-room, to the court of orchids, and was
just about to go up-stairs to prepare herself a drink and read a
novel when Cowperwood observed:
"You're bored, aren't you?"
"Oh no; I'm used to lonely evenings," she replied, quietly and
without any attempt at sarcasm.
Relentless as he was in hewing life to his theory--hammering
substance to the form of his thought--yet he was tender, too, in
the manner of a rainbow dancing over an abyss. For the moment he
wanted to say, "Poor girlie, you do have a hard time, don't you,
with me?" but he reflected instantly how such a remark would be
received. He meditated, holding his book in his hand above his
knee, looking at the purling water that flowed and flowed in
sprinkling showers over the sportive marble figures of mermaids,
a Triton, and nymphs astride of fishes.
"You're really not happy in this state, any more, are you?" he
inquired. "Would you feel any more comfortable if I stayed away
entirely?"
His mind had turned of a sudden to the one problem that was fretting
him and to the opportunities of this hour.
"You would," she replied, for her boredom merely concealed her
unhappiness in no longer being able to command in the least his
interest or his sentiment.
"Why do you say that in just that way?" he asked.
"Because I know you would. I know why you ask. You know well
enough that it isn't anything I want to do that is concerned.
It's what you want to do. You'd like to turn me off like an old
horse now that you are tired of me, and so you ask whether I would
feel any more comfortable. What a liar you are, Frank! How really
shifty you are! I don't wonder you're a multimillionaire. If you
could live long enough you would eat up the whole world. Don't
you think for one moment that I don't know of Berenice Fleming
here in New York, and how you're dancing attendance on her--because
I do. I know how you have been hanging about her for months and
months--ever since we have been here, and for long before. You
think she's wonderful now because she's young and in society.
I've seen you in the Waldorf and in the Park hanging on her every
word, looking at her with adoring eyes. What a fool you are, to
be so big a man! Every little snip, if she has pink cheeks and a
doll's face, can wind you right around her finger. Rita Sohlberg
did it; Stephanie Platow did it; Florence Cochrane did it; Cecily
Haguenin--and Heaven knows how many more that I never heard of.
I suppose Mrs. Hand still lives with you in Chicago--the cheap
strumpet! Now it's Berenice Fleming and her frump of a mother.
From all I can learn you haven't been able to get her yet--because
her mother's too shrewd, perhaps--but you probably will in the
end. It isn't you so much as your money that they're after. Pah!
Well, I'm unhappy enough, but it isn't anything you can remedy any
more. Whatever you could do to make me unhappy you have done, and
now you talk of my being happier away from you. Clever boy, you!
I know you the way I know my ten fingers. You don't deceive me at
any time in any way any more. I can't do anything about it. I
can't stop you from making a fool of yourself with every woman you
meet, and having people talk from one end of the country to the
other. Why, for a woman to be seen with you is enough to fix her
reputation forever. Right now all Broadway knows you're running
after Berenice Fleming. Her name will soon be as sweet as those
of the others you've had. She might as well give herself to you.
If she ever had a decent reputation it's gone by now, you can
depend upon that.
These remarks irritated Cowperwood greatly--enraged him--particularly
her references to Berenice. What were you to do with such a woman?
he thought. Her tongue was becoming unbearable; her speech in its
persistence and force was that of a termagant. Surely, surely,
he had made a great mistake in marrying her. At the same time the
control of her was largely in his own hands even yet.
"Aileen," he said, coolly, at the end of her speech, "you talk too
much. You rave. You're growing vulgar, I believe. Now let me
tell you something." And he fixed her with a hard, quieting eye.
"I have no apologies to make. Think what you please. I know why
you say what you do. But here is the point. I want you to get
it straight and clear. It may make some difference eventually if
you're any kind of a woman at all. I don't care for you any more.
If you want to put it another way--I'm tired of you. I have been
for a long while. That's why I've run with other women. If I
hadn't been tired of you I wouldn't have done it. What's more,
I'm in love with somebody else--Berenice Fleming, and I expect to
stay in love. I wish I were free so I could rearrange my life on
a different basis and find a little comfort before I die. You
don't really care for me any more. You can't. I'll admit I have
treated you badly; but if I had really loved you I wouldn't have
done it, would I? It isn't my fault that love died in me, is it?
It isn't your fault. I'm not blaming you. Love isn't a bunch of
coals that can be blown by an artificial bellows into a flame at
any time. It's out, and that's an end of it. Since I don't love
you and can't, why should you want me to stay near you? Why shouldn't
you let me go and give me a divorce? You'll be just as happy or
unhappy away from me as with me. Why not? I want to be free again.
I'm miserable here, and have been for a long time. I'll make any
arrangement that seems fair and right to you. I'll give you this
house--these pictures, though I really don't see what you'd want
with them." (Cowperwood had no intention of giving up the gallery
if he could help it.) "I'll settle on you for life any income you
desire, or I'll give you a fixed sum outright. I want to be free,
and I want you to let me be. Now why won't you be sensible and
let me do this?"
During this harangue Cowperwood had first sat and then stood. At
the statement that his love was really dead--the first time he
had ever baldly and squarely announced it--Aileen had paled a
little and put her hand to her forehead over her eyes. It was
then he had arisen. He was cold, determined, a little revengeful
for the moment. She realized now that he meant this--that in his
heart was no least feeling for all that had gone before--no sweet
memories, no binding thoughts of happy hours, days, weeks, years,
that were so glittering and wonderful to her in retrospect. Great
Heavens, it was really true! His love was dead; he had said it!
But for the nonce she could not believe it; she would not. It
really couldn't be true.
"Frank," she began, coming toward him, the while he moved away to
evade her. Her eyes were wide, her hands trembling, her lips
moving in an emotional, wavy, rhythmic way. "You really don't
mean that, do you? Love isn't wholly dead, is it? All the love you
used to feel for me? Oh, Frank, I have raged, I have hated, I have
said terrible, ugly things, but it has been because I have been
in love with you! All the time I have. You know that. I have
felt so bad--O God, how bad I have felt! Frank, you don't know
it--but my pillow has been wet many and many a night. I have cried
and cried. I have got up and walked the floor. I have drunk
whisky--plain, raw whisky--because something hurt me and I wanted
to kill the pain. I have gone with other men, one after another
--you know that--but, oh! Frank, Frank, you know that I didn't
want to, that I didn't mean to! I have always despised the thought
of them afterward. It was only because I was lonely and because
you wouldn't pay any attention to me or be nice to me. Oh, how I
have longed and longed for just one loving hour with you--one
night, one day! There are women who could suffer in silence, but
I can't. My mind won't let me alone, Frank--my thoughts won't.
I can't help thinking how I used to run to you in Philadelphia,
when you would meet me on your way home, or when I used to come
to you in Ninth Street or on Eleventh. Oh, Frank, I probably did
wrong to your first wife. I see it now--how she must have suffered!
But I was just a silly girl then, and I didn't know. Don't you
remember how I used to come to you in Ninth Street and how I saw
you day after day in the penitentiary in Philadelphia? You said
then you would love me always and that you would never forget.
Can't you love me any more--just a little? Is it really true that
your love is dead? Am I so old, so changed? Oh, Frank, please don't
say that--please don't--please, please please! I beg of you!"
She tried to reach him and put a hand on his arm, but he stepped
aside. To him, as he looked at her now, she was the antithesis
of anything he could brook, let alone desire artistically or
physically. The charm was gone, the spell broken. It was another
type, another point of view he required, but, above all and
principally, youth, youth--the spirit, for instance, that was in
Berenice Fleming. He was sorry--in his way. He felt sympathy,
but it was like the tinkling of a far-off sheep-bell--the moaning
of a whistling buoy heard over the thrash of night-black waves on
a stormy sea.
"You don't understand how it is, Aileen," he said. "I can't help
myself. My love is dead. It is gone. I can't recall it. I can't
feel it. I wish I could, but I can't; you must understand that.
Some things are possible and some are not."
He looked at her, but with no relenting. Aileen, for her part,
saw in his eyes nothing, as she believed, save cold philosophic
logic--the man of business, the thinker, the bargainer, the plotter.
At the thought of the adamantine character of his soul, which
could thus definitely close its gates on her for ever and ever,
she became wild, angry, feverish--not quite sane.
"Oh, don't say that!" she pleaded, foolishly. "Please don't.
Please don't say that. It might come back a little if--if--you
would only believe in it. Don't you see how I feel? Don't you see
how it is?"
She dropped to her knees and clasped him about the waist. "Oh,
Frank! Oh, Frank! Oh, Frank!" she began to call, crying. "I can't
stand it! I can't! I can't! I can't! I shall die."
"Don't give way like that, Aileen," he pleaded. "It doesn't do
any good. I can't lie to myself. I don't want to lie to you.
Life is too short. Facts are facts. If I could say and believe
that I loved you I would say so now, but I can't. I don't love
you. Why should I say that I do?"
In the content of Aileen's nature was a portion that was purely
histrionic, a portion that was childish--petted and spoiled--a
portion that was sheer unreason, and a portion that was splendid
emotion--deep, dark, involved. At this statement of Cowperwood's
which seemed to throw her back on herself for ever and ever to be
alone, she first pleaded willingness to compromise--to share. She
had not fought Stephanie Platow, she had not fought Florence
Cochrane, nor Cecily Haguenin, nor Mrs. Hand, nor, indeed, anybody
after Rita, and she would fight no more. She had not spied on him
in connection with Berenice--she had accidentally met them. True,
she had gone with other men, but? Berenice was beautiful, she
admitted it, but so was she in her way still--a little, still.
Couldn't he find a place for her yet in his life? Wasn't there
room for both?
At this expression of humiliation and defeat Cowperwood was sad,
sick, almost nauseated. How could one argue? How make her understand?
"I wish it were possible, Aileen," he concluded, finally and
heavily, "but it isn't."
All at once she arose, her eyes red but dry.
"You don't love me, then, at all, do you? Not a bit?"
"No, Aileen, I don't. I don't mean by that that I dislike you.
I don't mean to say that you aren't interesting in your way as a
woman and that I don't sympathize with you. I do. But I don't
love you any more. I can't. The thing I used to feel I can't
feel any more."
She paused for a moment, uncertain how to take this, the while she
whitened, grew more tense, more spiritual than she had been in
many a day. Now she felt desperate, angry, sick, but like the
scorpion that ringed by fire can turn only on itself. What a hell
life was, she told herself. How it slipped away and left one
aging, horribly alone! Love was nothing, faith nothing--nothing,
nothing!
A fine light of conviction, intensity, intention lit her eye for
the moment. "Very well, then," she said, coolly, tensely. "I
know what I'll do. I'll not live this way. I'll not live beyond
to-night. I want to die, anyhow, and I will."
It was by no means a cry, this last, but a calm statement. It
should prove her love. To Cowperwood it seemed unreal, bravado,
a momentary rage intended to frighten him. She turned and walked
up the grand staircase, which was near--a splendid piece of marble
and bronze fifteen feet wide, with marble nereids for newel-posts,
and dancing figures worked into the stone. She went into her room
quite calmly and took up a steel paper-cutter of dagger design--a
knife with a handle of bronze and a point of great sharpness.
Coming out and going along the balcony over the court of orchids,
where Cowperwood still was seated, she entered the sunrise room
with its pool of water, its birds, its benches, its vines. Locking
the door, she sat down and then, suddenly baring an arm, jabbed a
vein--ripped it for inches--and sat there to bleed. Now she would
see whether she could die, whether he would let her.
Uncertain, astonished, not able to believe that she could be so
rash, not believing that her feeling could be so great, Cowperwood
still remained where she had left him wondering. He had not been
so greatly moved--the tantrums of women were common--and yet--
Could she really be contemplating death? How could she? How
ridiculous! Life was so strange, so mad. But this was Aileen who
had just made this threat, and she had gone up the stairs to carry
it out, perhaps. Impossible! How could it be? Yet back of all his
doubts there was a kind of sickening feeling, a dread. He recalled
how she had assaulted Rita Sohlberg.
He hurried up the steps now and into her room. She was not there.
He went quickly along the balcony, looking here and there, until
he came to the sunrise room. She must be there, for the door was
shut. He tried it--it was locked.
"Aileen," he called. "Aileen! Are you in there?" No answer. He
listened. Still no answer. "Aileen!" he repeated. "Are you in
there? What damned nonsense is this, anyhow?"
"George!" he thought to himself, stepping back; "she might do it,
too--perhaps she has." He could not hear anything save the odd
chattering of a toucan aroused by the light she had switched on.
Perspiration stood out on his brow. He shook the knob, pushed a
bell for a servant, called for keys which had been made for every
door, called for a chisel and hammer.
"Aileen," he said, "if you don't open the door this instant I will
see that it is opened. It can be opened quick enough."
Still no sound.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed, becoming wretched, horrified. A servant
brought the keys. The right one would not enter. A second was
on the other side. "There is a bigger hammer somewhere," Cowperwood
said. "Get it! Get me a chair!" Meantime, with terrific energy,
using a large chisel, he forced the door.
There on one of the stone benches of the lovely room sat Aileen,
the level pool of water before her, the sunrise glow over every
thing, tropic birds in their branches, and she, her hair disheveled,
her face pale, one arm--her left--hanging down, ripped and bleeding,
trickling a thick stream of rich, red blood. On the floor was a
pool of blood, fierce, scarlet, like some rich cloth, already
turning darker in places.
Cowperwood paused--amazed. He hurried forward, seized her arm,
made a bandage of a torn handkerchief above the wound, sent for a
surgeon, saying the while: "How could you, Aileen? How impossible!
To try to take your life! This isn't love. It isn't even madness.
It's foolish acting."
"Don't you really care?" she asked.
"How can you ask? How could you really do this?"
He was angry, hurt, glad that she was alive, shamed--many things.
"Don't you really care?" she repeated, wearily.
"Aileen, this is nonsense. I will not talk to you about it now.
Have you cut yourself anywhere else?" he asked, feeling about her
bosom and sides.
"Then why not let me die?" she replied, in the same manner. "I
will some day. I want to."
"Well, you may, some day," he replied, "but not to-night. I
scarcely think you want to now. This is too much, Aileen--really
impossible."
He drew himself up and looked at her--cool, unbelieving, the light
of control, even of victory, in his eyes. As he had suspected,
it was not truly real. She would not have killed herself. She
had expected him to come--to make the old effort. Very good. He
would see her safely in bed and in a nurse's hands, and would then
avoid her as much as possible in the future. If her intention was
genuine she would carry it out in his absence, but he did not
believe she would. _
Read next: chapter LVIII - A Marauder
Read previous: chapter LVI - The Ordeal of Berenice
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