________________________________________________
_ The growth of a relationship between Cowperwood and Rita Sohlberg
was fostered quite accidentally by Aileen, who took a foolishly
sentimental interest in Harold which yet was not based on anything
of real meaning. She liked him because he was a superlatively
gracious, flattering, emotional man where women--pretty women--were
concerned. She had some idea she could send him pupils, and,
anyhow, it was nice to call at the Sohlberg studio. Her social
life was dull enough as it was. So she went, and Cowperwood,
mindful of Mrs. Sohlberg, came also. Shrewd to the point of
destruction, he encouraged Aileen in her interest in them. He
suggested that she invite them to dinner, that they give a musical
at which Sohlberg could play and be paid. There were boxes at the
theaters, tickets for concerts sent, invitations to drive Sundays
or other days.
The very chemistry of life seems to play into the hands of a
situation of this kind. Once Cowperwood was thinking vividly,
forcefully, of her, Rita began to think in like manner of him.
Hourly he grew more attractive, a strange, gripping man. Beset
by his mood, she was having the devil's own time with her conscience.
Not that anything had been said as yet, but he was investing her,
gradually beleaguering her, sealing up, apparently, one avenue
after another of escape. One Thursday afternoon, when neither
Aileen nor he could attend the Sohlberg tea, Mrs. Sohlberg received
a magnificent bunch of Jacqueminot roses. "For your nooks and
corners," said a card. She knew well enough from whom it came and
what it was worth. There were all of fifty dollars worth of roses.
It gave her breath of a world of money that she had never known.
Daily she saw the name of his banking and brokerage firm advertised
in the papers. Once she met him in Merrill's store at noon, and
he invited her to lunch; but she felt obliged to decline. Always
he looked at her with such straight, vigorous eyes. To think that
her beauty had done or was doing this! Her mind, quite beyond
herself, ran forward to an hour when perhaps this eager, magnetic
man would take charge of her in a way never dreamed of by Harold.
But she went on practising, shopping, calling, reading, brooding
over Harold's inefficiency, and stopping oddly sometimes to think
--the etherealized grip of Cowperwood upon her. Those strong
hands of his--how fine they were--and those large, soft-hard,
incisive eyes. The puritanism of Wichita (modified sometime since
by the art life of Chicago, such as it was) was having a severe
struggle with the manipulative subtlety of the ages--represented
in this man.
"You know you are very elusive," he said to her one evening at the
theater when he sat behind her during the entr'acte, and Harold
and Aileen had gone to walk in the foyer. The hubbub of conversation
drowned the sound of anything that might be said. Mrs. Sohlberg
was particularly pleasing in a lacy evening gown.
"No," she replied, amusedly, flattered by his attention and acutely
conscious of his physical nearness. By degrees she had been
yielding herself to his mood, thrilling at his every word. "It
seems to me I am very stable," she went on. "I'm certainly
substantial enough."
She looked at her full, smooth arm lying on her lap.
Cowperwood, who was feeling all the drag of her substantiality,
but in addition the wonder of her temperament, which was so much
richer than Aileen's, was deeply moved. Those little blood moods
that no words ever (or rarely) indicate were coming to him from
her--faint zephyr-like emanations of emotions, moods, and fancies
in her mind which allured him. She was like Aileen in animality,
but better, still sweeter, more delicate, much richer spiritually.
Or was he just tired of Aileen for the present, he asked himself
at times. No, no, he told himself that could not be. Rita Sohlberg
was by far the most pleasing woman he had ever known.
"Yes, but elusive, just the same," he went on, leaning toward her.
"You remind me of something that I can find no word for--a bit of
color or a perfume or tone--a flash of something. I follow you
in my thoughts all the time now. Your knowledge of art interests
me. I like your playing--it is like you. You make me think of
delightful things that have nothing to do with the ordinary run
of my life. Do you understand?"
"It is very nice," she said, "if I do." She took a breath, softly,
dramatically. "You make me think vain things, you know." (Her
mouth was a delicious O.) "You paint a pretty picture." She was
warm, flushed, suffused with a burst of her own temperament.
"You are like that," he went on, insistently. "You make me feel
like that all the time. You know," he added, leaning over her
chair, "I sometimes think you have never lived. There is so much
that would complete your perfectness. I should like to send you
abroad or take you--anyhow, you should go. You are very wonderful
to me. Do you find me at all interesting to you?"
"Yes, but"--she paused--"you know I am afraid of all this and of
you." Her mouth had that same delicious formation which had first
attracted him. "I don't think we had better talk like this, do
you? Harold is very jealous, or would be. What do you suppose
Mrs. Cowperwood would think?"
"I know very well, but we needn't stop to consider that now, need
we? It will do her no harm to let me talk to you. Life is between
individuals, Rita. You and I have very much in common. Don't you
see that? You are infinitely the most interesting woman I have
ever known. You are bringing me something I have never known.
Don't you see that? I want you to tell me something truly. Look
at me. You are not happy as you are, are you? Not perfectly happy?"
"No." She smoothed her fan with her fingers.
"Are you happy at all?"
"I thought I was once. I'm not any more, I think."
"It is so plain why," he commented. "You are so much more wonderful
than your place gives you scope for. You are an individual, not
an acolyte to swing a censer for another. Mr. Sohlberg is very
interesting, but you can't be happy that way. It surprises me you
haven't seen it."
"Oh," she exclaimed, with a touch of weariness, "but perhaps I
have."
He looked at her keenly, and she thrilled. "I don't think we'd
better talk so here," she replied. "You'd better be--"
He laid his hand on the back of her chair, almost touching her
shoulder.
"Rita," he said, using her given name again, "you wonderful woman!"
"Oh!" she breathed.
Cowperwood did not see Mrs. Sohlberg again for over a week--ten
days exactly--when one afternoon Aileen came for him in a new kind
of trap, having stopped first to pick up the Sohlbergs. Harold
was up in front with her and she had left a place behind for
Cowperwood with Rita. She did not in the vaguest way suspect how
interested he was--his manner was so deceptive. Aileen imagined
that she was the superior woman of the two, the better-looking,
the better-dressed, hence the more ensnaring. She could not guess
what a lure this woman's temperament had for Cowperwood, who was
so brisk, dynamic, seemingly unromantic, but who, just the same,
in his nature concealed (under a very forceful exterior) a deep
underlying element of romance and fire.
"This is charming," he said, sinking down beside Rita. "What a
fine evening! And the nice straw hat with the roses, and the nice
linen dress. My, my!" The roses were red; the dress white, with
thin, green ribbon run through it here and there. She was keenly
aware of the reason for his enthusiasm. He was so different from
Harold, so healthy and out-of-doorish, so able. To-day Harold had
been in tantrums over fate, life, his lack of success.
"Oh, I shouldn't complain so much if I were you," she had said to
him, bitterly. "You might work harder and storm less."
This had produced a scene which she had escaped by going for a
walk. Almost at the very moment when she had returned Aileen had
appeared. It was a way out.
She had cheered up, and accepted, dressed. So had Sohlberg.
Apparently smiling and happy, they had set out on the drive. Now,
as Cowperwood spoke, she glanced about her contentedly. "I'm
lovely," she thought, "and he loves me. How wonderful it would
be if we dared." But she said aloud: "I'm not so very nice. It's
just the day--don't you think so? It's a simple dress. I'm not
very happy, though, to-night, either."
"What's the matter?" he asked, cheeringly, the rumble of the traffic
destroying the carrying-power of their voices. He leaned toward
her, very anxious to solve any difficulty which might confront
her, perfectly willing to ensnare her by kindness. "Isn't there
something I can do? We're going now for a long ride to the pavilion
in Jackson Park, and then, after dinner, we'll come back by
moonlight. Won't that be nice? You must be smiling now and like
yourself--happy. You have no reason to be otherwise that I know
of. I will do anything for you that you want done--that can be
done. You can have anything you want that I can give you. What
is it? You know how much I think of you. If you leave your affairs
to me you would never have any troubles of any kind."
"Oh, it isn't anything you can do--not now, anyhow. My affairs!
Oh yes. What are they? Very simple, all."
She had that delicious atmosphere of remoteness even from herself.
He was enchanted.
"But you are not simple to me, Rita," he said, softly, "nor are
your affairs. They concern me very much. You are so important
to me. I have told you that. Don't you see how true it is? You
are a strange complexity to me--wonderful. I'm mad over you.
Ever since I saw you last I have been thinking, thinking. If you
have troubles let me share them. You are so much to me--my only
trouble. I can fix your life. Join it with mine. I need you,
and you need me."
"Yes," she said, "I know." Then she paused. "It's nothing much,"
she went on--"just a quarrel."
"What over?"
"Over me, really." The mouth was delicious. "I can't swing the
censer always, as you say." That thought of his had stuck. "It's
all right now, though. Isn't the day lovely, be-yoot-i-ful!"
Cowperwood looked at her and shook his head. She was such a
treasure--so inconsequential. Aileen, busy driving and talking,
could not see or hear. She was interested in Sohlberg, and the
southward crush of vehicles on Michigan Avenue was distracting her
attention. As they drove swiftly past budding trees, kempt lawns,
fresh-made flower-beds, open windows--the whole seductive world
of spring--Cowperwood felt as though life had once more taken a
fresh start. His magnetism, if it had been visible, would have
enveloped him like a glittering aura. Mrs. Sohlberg felt that
this was going to be a wonderful evening.
The dinner was at the Park--an open-air chicken a la Maryland
affair, with waffles and champagne to help out. Aileen, flattered
by Sohlberg's gaiety under her spell, was having a delightful time,
jesting, toasting, laughing, walking on the grass. Sohlberg was
making love to her in a foolish, inconsequential way, as many men
were inclined to do; but she was putting him off gaily with "silly
boy" and "hush." She was so sure of herself that she was free to
tell Cowperwood afterward how emotional he was and how she had to
laugh at him. Cowperwood, quite certain that she was faithful,
took it all in good part. Sohlberg was such a dunce and such a
happy convenience ready to his hand. "He's not a bad sort," he
commented. "I rather like him, though I don't think he's so much
of a violinist."
After dinner they drove along the lake-shore and out through an
open bit of tree-blocked prairie land, the moon shining in a clear
sky, filling the fields and topping the lake with a silvery
effulgence. Mrs. Sohlberg was being inoculated with the virus
Cowperwood, and it was taking deadly effect. The tendency of her
own disposition, however lethargic it might seem, once it was
stirred emotionally, was to act. She was essentially dynamic and
passionate. Cowperwood was beginning to stand out in her mind as
the force that he was. It would be wonderful to be loved by such
a man. There would be an eager, vivid life between them. It
frightened and drew her like a blazing lamp in the dark. To get
control of herself she talked of art, people, of Paris, Italy, and
he responded in like strain, but all the while he smoothed her hand,
and once, under the shadow of some trees, he put his hand to her
hair, turned her face, and put his mouth softly to her cheek. She
flushed, trembled, turned pale, in the grip of this strange storm,
but drew herself together. It was wonderful--heaven. Her old
life was obviously going to pieces.
"Listen," he said, guardedly. "Will you meet me to-morrow at three
just beyond the Rush Street bridge? I will pick you up promptly.
You won't have to wait a moment."
She paused, meditating, dreaming, almost hypnotized by his strange
world of fancy.
"Will you?" he asked, eagerly.
"Wait," she said, softly. "Let me think. Can I?"
She paused.
"Yes," she said, after a time, drawing in a deep breath. "Yes"--as
if she had arranged something in her mind.
"My sweet," he whispered, pressing her arm, while he looked at her
profile in the moonlight.
"But I'm doing a great deal," she replied, softly, a little
breathless and a little pale. _
Read next: chapter XVI - A Fateful Interlude
Read previous: chapter XIV - Undercurrents
Table of content of Titan
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
