An Overture to Conflict
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 be 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.