A Family Quarrel
It chanced that shortly before this liaison was broken off, some
troubling information was quite innocently conveyed to Aileen by
Stephanie Platow's own mother. One day Mrs. Platow, in calling on Mrs.
Cowperwood, commented on the fact that Stephanie was gradually
improving in her art, that the Garrick Players had experienced a great
deal of trouble, and that Stephanie was shortly to appear in a new
role--something Chinese.
"That was such a charming set of jade you gave her," she volunteered,
genially. "I only saw it the other day for the first time. She never
told me about it before. She prizes it so very highly, that I feel as
though I ought to thank you myself."
Aileen opened her eyes. "Jade!" she observed, curiously. "Why, I
don't remember." Recalling Cowperwood's proclivities on the instant,
she was suspicious, distraught. Her face showed her perplexity.
"Why, yes," replied Mrs. Platow, Aileen's show of surprise troubling
her. "The ear-rings and necklet, you know. She said you gave them to
her."
"To be sure," answered Aileen, catching herself as by a hair. "I do
recall it now. But it was Frank who really gave them. I hope she
likes them."
She smiled sweetly.
"She thinks they're beautiful, and they do become her," continued Mrs.
Platow, pleasantly, understanding it all, as she fancied. The truth was
that Stephanie, having forgotten, had left her make-up box open one day
at home, and her mother, rummaging in her room for something, had
discovered them and genially confronted her with them, for she knew the
value of jade. Nonplussed for the moment, Stephanie had lost her
mental, though not her outward, composure and referred them back
casually to an evening at the Cowperwood home when Aileen had been
present and the gauds had been genially forced upon her.
Unfortunately for Aileen, the matter was not to be allowed to rest just
so, for going one afternoon to a reception given by Rhees Crier, a
young sculptor of social proclivities, who had been introduced to her
by Taylor Lord, she was given a taste of what it means to be a
neglected wife from a public point of view. As she entered on this
occasion she happened to overhear two women talking in a corner behind
a screen erected to conceal wraps. "Oh, here comes Mrs. Cowperwood,"
said one. "She's the street-railway magnate's wife. Last winter and
spring he was running with that Platow girl--of the Garrick Players,
you know."
The other nodded, studying Aileen's splendiferous green--velvet gown
with envy.
"I wonder if she's faithful to him?" she queried, while Aileen strained
to hear. "She looks daring enough."
Aileen managed to catch a glimpse of her observers later, when they
were not looking, and her face showed her mingled resentment and
feeling; but it did no good. The wretched gossipers had wounded her in
the keenest way. She was hurt, angry, nonplussed. To think that
Cowperwood by his variability should expose her to such gossip as this!
One day not so long after her conversation with Mrs. Platow, Aileen
happened to be standing outside the door of her own boudoir, the
landing of which commanded the lower hall, and there overheard two of
her servants discussing the Cowperwood menage in particular and Chicago
life in general. One was a tall, angular girl of perhaps twenty-seven
or eight, a chambermaid, the other a short, stout woman of forty who
held the position of assistant housekeeper. They were pretending to
dust, though gossip conducted in a whisper was the matter for which
they were foregathered. The tall girl had recently been employed in
the family of Aymar Cochrane, the former president of the Chicago West
Division Railway, and now a director of the new West Chicago Street
Railway Company.
"And I was that surprised," Aileen heard this girl saying, "to think I
should be coming here. I cud scarcely believe me ears when they told
me. Why, Miss Florence was runnin' out to meet him two and three times
in the week. The wonder to me was that her mother never guessed."
"Och," replied the other, "he's the very divil and all when it comes to
the wimmin." (Aileen did not see the upward lift of the hand that
accompanied this). "There was a little girl that used to come here.
Her father lives up the street here. Haguenin is his name. He owns
that morning paper, the Press, and has a fine house up the street here
a little way. Well, I haven't seen her very often of late, but more
than once I saw him kissing her in this very room. Sure his wife knows
all about it. Depend on it. She had an awful fight with some woman
here onct, so I hear, some woman that he was runnin' with and bringin'
here to the house. I hear it's somethin' terrible the way she beat her
up--screamin' and carryin' on. Oh, they're the divil, these men, when
it comes to the wimmin."
A slight rustling sound from somewhere sent the two gossipers on their
several ways, but Aileen had heard enough to understand. What was she
to do? How was she to learn more of these new women, of whom she had
never heard at all? She at once suspected Florence Cochrane, for she
knew that this servant had worked in the Cochrane family. And then
Cecily Haguenin, the daughter of the editor with whom they were on the
friendliest terms! Cowperwood kissing her! Was there no end to his
liaisons--his infidelity?
She returned, fretting and grieving, to her room, where she meditated
and meditated, wondering whether she should leave him, wondering
whether she should reproach him openly, wondering whether she should
employ more detectives. What good would it do? She had employed
detectives once. Had it prevented the Stephanie Platow incident? Not
at all. Would it prevent other liaisons in the future? Very likely
not. Obviously her home life with Cowperwood was coming to a complete
and disastrous end. Things could not go on in this way. She had done
wrong, possibly, in taking him away from Mrs. Cowperwood number one,
though she could scarcely believe that, for Mrs. Lillian Cowperwood was
so unsuited to him--but this repayment! If she had been at all
superstitious or religious, and had known her Bible, which she didn't,
she might have quoted to herself that very fatalistic statement of the
New Testament, "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you
again."
The truth was that Cowperwood's continued propensity to rove at liberty
among the fair sex could not in the long run fail of some results of an
unsatisfactory character. Coincident with the disappearance of
Stephanie Platow, he launched upon a variety of episodes, the charming
daughter of so worthy a man as Editor Haguenin, his sincerest and most
sympathetic journalistic supporter; and the daughter of Aymar Cochrane,
falling victims, among others, to what many would have called his
wiles. As a matter of fact, in most cases he was as much sinned
against as sinning, since the provocation was as much offered as given.
The manner in which he came to get in with Cecily Haguenin was simple
enough. Being an old friend of the family, and a frequent visitor at
her father's house, he found this particular daughter of desire an easy
victim. She was a vigorous blonde creature of twenty at this time,
very full and plump, with large, violet eyes, and with considerable
alertness of mind--a sort of doll girl with whom Cowperwood found it
pleasant to amuse himself. A playful gamboling relationship had
existed between them when she was a mere child attending school, and
had continued through her college years whenever she happened to be at
home on a vacation. In these very latest days when Cowperwood on
occasion sat in the Haguenin library consulting with the
journalist-publisher concerning certain moves which he wished to have
put right before the public he saw considerably more of Cecily. One
night, when her father had gone out to look up the previous action of
the city council in connection with some matter of franchises, a series
of more or less sympathetic and understanding glances suddenly
culminated in Cecily's playfully waving a new novel, which she happened
to have in her hand, in Cowperwood's face; and he, in reply, laid hold
caressingly of her arms.
"You can't stop me so easily," she observed, banteringly.
"Oh yes, I can," he replied.
A slight struggle ensued, in which he, with her semiwilful connivance,
managed to manoeuver her into his arms, her head backward against his
shoulder.
"Well," she said, looking up at him with a semi-nervous,
semi-provocative glance, "now what? You'll just have to let me go."
"Not very soon, though."
"Oh yes, you will. My father will be here in a moment."
"Well, not until then, anyhow. You're getting to be the sweetest girl."
She did not resist, but remained gazing half nervously, half dreamily
at him, whereupon he smoothed her cheek, and then kissed her. Her
father's returning step put an end to this; but from this point on
ascent or descent to a perfect understanding was easily made.
In the matter of Florence Cochrane, the daughter of Aymar Cochrane, the
president of the Chicago West Division Company--a second affair of the
period--the approach was only slightly different, the result the same.
This girl, to furnish only a brief impression, was a blonde of a
different type from Cecily--delicate, picturesque, dreamy. She was
mildly intellectual at this time, engaged in reading Marlowe and
Jonson; and Cowperwood, busy in the matter of the West Chicago Street
Railway, and conferring with her father, was conceived by her as a
great personage of the Elizabethan order. In a tentative way she was in
revolt against an apple-pie order of existence which was being forced
upon her. Cowperwood recognized the mood, trifled with her spiritedly,
looked into her eyes, and found the response he wanted. Neither old
Aymar Cochrane nor his impeccably respectable wife ever discovered.
Subsequently Aileen, reflecting upon these latest developments, was
from one point of view actually pleased or eased. There is always
safety in numbers, and she felt that if Cowperwood were going to go on
like this it would not be possible for him in the long run to take a
definite interest in any one; and so, all things considered, and other
things being equal, he would probably just as leave remain married to
her as not.
But what a comment, she could not help reflecting, on her own charms!
What an end to an ideal union that had seemed destined to last all
their days! She, Aileen Butler, who in her youth had deemed herself the
peer of any girl in charm, force, beauty, to be shoved aside thus early
in her life--she was only forty--by the younger generation. And such
silly snips as they were--Stephanie Platow! and Cecily Haguenin! and
Florence Cochrane, in all likelihood another pasty-faced beginner! And
here she was--vigorous, resplendent, smooth of face and body, her
forehead, chin, neck, eyes without a wrinkle, her hair a rich golden
reddish glow, her step springing, her weight no more than one hundred
and fifty pounds for her very normal height, with all the advantages of
a complete toilet cabinet, jewels, clothing, taste, and skill in
material selection--being elbowed out by these upstarts. It was almost
unbelievable. It was so unfair. Life was so cruel, Cowperwood so
temperamentally unbalanced. Dear God! to think that this should be
true! Why should he not love her? She studied her beauty in the mirror
from time to time, and raged and raged. Why was her body not
sufficient for him? Why should he deem any one more beautiful? Why
should he not be true to his reiterated protestations that he cared for
her? Other men were true to other women. Her father had been faithful
to her mother. At the thought of her own father and his opinion of her
conduct she winced, but it did not change her point of view as to her
present rights. See her hair! See her eyes! See her smooth,
resplendent arms! Why should Cowperwood not love her? Why, indeed?
One night, shortly afterward, she was sitting in her boudoir reading,
waiting for him to come home, when the telephone-bell sounded and he
informed her that he was compelled to remain at the office late.
Afterward he said he might be obliged to run on to Pittsburg for
thirty-six hours or thereabouts; but he would surely be back on the
third day, counting the present as one. Aileen was chagrined. Her
voice showed it. They had been scheduled to go to dinner with the
Hoecksemas, and afterward to the theater. Cowperwood suggested that she
should go alone, but Aileen declined rather sharply; she hung up the
receiver without even the pretense of a good-by. And then at ten
o'clock he telephoned again, saying that he had changed his mind, and
that if she were interested to go anywhere--a later supper, or the
like--she should dress, otherwise he would come home expecting to
remain.
Aileen immediately concluded that some scheme he had had to amuse
himself had fallen through. Having spoiled her evening, he was coming
home to make as much hay as possible out of this bit of sunshine. This
infuriated her. The whole business of uncertainty in the matter of his
affections was telling on her nerves. A storm was in order, and it had
come. He came bustling in a little later, slipped his arms around her
as she came forward and kissed her on the mouth. He smoothed her arms
in a make-believe and yet tender way, and patted her shoulders. Seeing
her frown, he inquired, "What's troubling Babykins?"
"Oh, nothing more than usual," replied Aileen, irritably. "Let's not
talk about that. Have you had your dinner?"
"Yes, we had it brought in." He was referring to McKenty, Addison, and
himself, and the statement was true. Being in an honest position for
once, he felt called upon to justify himself a little. "It couldn't be
avoided to-night. I'm sorry that this business takes up so much of my
time, but I'll get out of it some day soon. Things are bound to ease
up."
Aileen withdrew from his embrace and went to her dressing-table. A
glance showed her that her hair was slightly awry, and she smoothed it
into place. She looked at her chin, and then went back to her
book--rather sulkily, he thought.
"Now, Aileen, what's the trouble?" he inquired. "Aren't you glad to
have me up here? I know you have had a pretty rough road of it of late,
but aren't you willing to let bygones be bygones and trust to the
future a little?"
"The future! The future! Don't talk to me about the future. It's
little enough it holds in store for me," she replied.
Cowperwood saw that she was verging on an emotional storm, but he
trusted to his powers of persuasion, and her basic affection for him,
to soothe and quell her.
"I wish you wouldn't act this way, pet," he went on. "You know I have
always cared for you. You know I always shall. I'll admit that there
are a lot of little things which interfere with my being at home as
much as I would like at present; but that doesn't alter the fact that
my feeling is the same. I should think you could see that."
"Feeling! Feeling!" taunted Aileen, suddenly. "Yes, I know how much
feeling you have. You have feeling enough to give other women sets of
jade and jewels, and to run around with every silly little snip you
meet. You needn't come home here at ten o'clock, when you can't go
anywhere else, and talk about feeling for me. I know how much feeling
you have. Pshaw!"
She flung herself irritably back in her chair and opened her book.
Cowperwood gazed at her solemnly, for this thrust in regard to
Stephanie was a revelation. This woman business could grow peculiarly
exasperating at times.
"What do you mean, anyhow?" he observed, cautiously and with much
seeming candor. "I haven't given any jade or jewels to any one, nor
have I been running around with any 'little snips,' as you call them.
I don't know what you are talking about, Aileen."
"Oh, Frank," commented Aileen, wearily and incredulously, "you lie so!
Why do you stand there and lie? I'm so tired of it; I'm so sick of it
all. How should the servants know of so many things to talk of here if
they weren't true? I didn't invite Mrs. Platow to come and ask me why
you had given her daughter a set of jade. I know why you lie; you want
to hush me up and keep quiet. You're afraid I'll go to Mr. Haguenin or
Mr. Cochrane or Mr. Platow, or to all three. Well, you can rest your
soul on that score. I won't. I'm sick of you and your lies.
Stephanie Platow--the thin stick! Cecily Haguenin--the little piece of
gum! And Florence Cochrane--she looks like a dead fish!" (Aileen had a
genius for characterization at times.) "If it just weren't for the way
I acted toward my family in Philadelphia, and the talk it would create,
and the injury it would do you financially, I'd act to-morrow. I'd
leave you--that's what I'd do. And to think that I should ever have
believed that you really loved me, or could care for any woman
permanently. Bosh! But I don't care. Go on! Only I'll tell you one
thing. You needn't think I'm going to go on enduring all this as I
have in the past. I'm not. You're not going to deceive me always.
I'm not going to stand it. I'm not so old yet. There are plenty of
men who will be glad to pay me attention if you won't. I told you once
that I wouldn't be faithful to you if you weren't to me, and I won't
be. I'll show you. I'll go with other men. I will! I will! I swear
it."
"Aileen," he asked, softly, pleadingly, realizing the futility of
additional lies under such circumstances, "won't you forgive me this
time? Bear with me for the present. I scarcely understand myself at
times. I am not like other men. You and I have run together a long
time now. Why not wait awhile? Give me a chance! See if I do not
change. I may."
"Oh yes, wait! Change. You may change. Haven't I waited? Haven't I
walked the floor night after night! when you haven't been here? Bear
with you--yes, yes! Who's to bear with me when my heart is breaking?
Oh, God!" she suddenly added, with passionate vigor, "I'm miserable!
I'm miserable! My heart aches! It aches!"
She clutched her breast and swung from the room, moving with that
vigorous stride that had once appealed to him so, and still did. Alas,
alas! it touched him now, but only as a part of a very shifty and cruel
world. He hurried out of the room after her, and (as at the time of
the Rita Sohlberg incident) slipped his arm about her waist; but she
pulled away irritably. "No, no!" she exclaimed. "Let me alone. I'm
tired of that."
"You're really not fair to me, Aileen," with a great show of feeling
and sincerity. "You're letting one affair that came between us blind
your whole point of view. I give you my word I haven't been unfaithful
to you with Stephanie Platow or any other woman. I may have flirted
with them a little, but that is really nothing. Why not be sensible?
I'm not as black as you paint me. I'm moving in big matters that are
as much for your concern and future as for mine. Be sensible, be
liberal."
There was much argument--the usual charges and countercharges--but,
finally, because of her weariness of heart, his petting, the
unsolvability of it all, she permitted him for the time being to
persuade her that there were still some crumbs of affection left. She
was soul-sick, heartsick. Even he, as he attempted to soothe her,
realized clearly that to establish the reality of his love in her
belief he would have to make some much greater effort to entertain and
comfort her, and that this, in his present mood, and with his leaning
toward promiscuity, was practically impossible. For the time being a
peace might be patched up, but in view of what she expected of him--her
passion and selfish individuality--it could not be. He would have to
go on, and she would have to leave him, if needs be; but he could not
cease or go back. He was too passionate, too radiant, too individual
and complex to belong to any one single individual alone.