Aileen's Revenge
The interesting Polk Lynde, rising one morning, decided that his affair
with Aileen, sympathetic as it was, must culminate in the one fashion
satisfactory to him here and now--this day, if possible, or the next.
Since the luncheon some considerable time had elapsed, and although he
had tried to seek her out in various ways, Aileen, owing to a certain
feeling that she must think and not jeopardize her future, had evaded
him. She realized well enough that she was at the turning of the
balance, now that opportunity was knocking so loudly at her door, and
she was exceedingly coy and distrait. In spite of herself the old grip
of Cowperwood was over her--the conviction that he was such a
tremendous figure in the world--and this made her strangely disturbed,
nebulous, and meditative. Another type of woman, having troubled as
much as she had done, would have made short work of it, particularly
since the details in regard to Mrs. Hand had been added. Not so
Aileen. She could not quite forget the early vows and promises
exchanged between them, nor conquer the often-fractured illusions that
he might still behave himself.
On the other hand, Polk Lynde, marauder, social adventurer, a bucaneer
of the affections, was not so easily to be put aside, delayed, and
gainsaid. Not unlike Cowperwood, he was a man of real force, and his
methods, in so far as women were concerned, were even more daring.
Long trifling with the sex had taught him that they were coy,
uncertain, foolishly inconsistent in their moods, even with regard to
what they most desired. If one contemplated victory, it had frequently
to be taken with an iron hand.
From this attitude on his part had sprung his rather dark fame. Aileen
felt it on the day that she took lunch with him. His solemn, dark eyes
were treacherously sweet. She felt as if she might be paving the way
for some situation in which she would find herself helpless before his
sudden mood--and yet she had come.
But Lynde, meditating Aileen's delay, had this day decided that he
should get a definite decision, and that it should be favorable. He
called her up at ten in the morning and chafed her concerning her
indecision and changeable moods. He wanted to know whether she would
not come and see the paintings at his friend's studio--whether she
could not make up her mind to come to a barn-dance which some bachelor
friends of his had arranged. When she pleaded being out of sorts he
urged her to pull herself together. "You're making things very
difficult for your admirers," he suggested, sweetly.
Aileen fancied she had postponed the struggle diplomatically for some
little time without ending it, when at two o'clock in the afternoon her
door-bell was rung and the name of Lynde brought up. "He said he was
sure you were in," commented the footman, on whom had been pressed a
dollar, "and would you see him for just a moment? He would not keep you
more than a moment."
Aileen, taken off her guard by this effrontery, uncertain as to whether
there might not be something of some slight import concerning which he
wished to speak to her, quarreling with herself because of her
indecision, really fascinated by Lynde as a rival for her affections,
and remembering his jesting, coaxing voice of the morning, decided to
go down. She was lonely, and, clad in a lavender housegown with an
ermine collar and sleeve cuffs, was reading a book.
"Show him into the music-room," she said to the lackey. When she
entered she was breathing with some slight difficulty, for so Lynde
affected her. She knew she had displayed fear by not going to him
before, and previous cowardice plainly manifested does not add to one's
power of resistance.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with an assumption of bravado which she did not
feel. "I didn't expect to see you so soon after your telephone
message. You have never been in our house before, have you? Won't you
put up your coat and hat and come into the gallery? It's brighter
there, and you might be interested in some of the pictures."
Lynde, who was seeking for any pretext whereby he might prolong his
stay and overcome her nervous mood, accepted, pretending, however, that
he was merely passing and with a moment to spare.
"Thought I'd get just one glimpse of you again. Couldn't resist the
temptation to look in. Stunning room, isn't it? Spacious--and there
you are! Who did that? Oh, I see--Van Beers. And a jolly fine piece of
work it is, too, charming."
He surveyed her and then turned back to the picture where, ten years
younger, buoyant, hopeful, carrying her blue-and-white striped parasol,
she sat on a stone bench against the Dutch background of sky and
clouds. Charmed by the picture she presented in both cases, he was
genially complimentary. To-day she was stouter, ruddier--the fiber of
her had hardened, as it does with so many as the years come on; but she
was still in full bloom--a little late in the summer, but in full bloom.
"Oh yes; and this Rembrandt--I'm surprised! I did not know your
husband's collection was so representative. Israels, I see, and
Gerome, and Meissonier! Gad! It is a representative collection, isn't
it?"
"Some of the things are excellent," she commented, with an air, aping
Cowperwood and others, "but a number will be weeded out
eventually--that Paul Potter and this Goy--as better examples come into
the market."
She had heard Cowperwood say as much, over and over.
Finding that conversation was possible between them in this easy,
impersonal way, Aileen became quite natural and interested, pleased and
entertained by his discreet and charming presence. Evidently he did
not intend to pay much more than a passing social call. On the other
hand, Lynde was studying her, wondering what effect his light, distant
air was having. As he finished a very casual survey of the gallery he
remarked:
"I have always wondered about this house. I knew Lord did it, of
course, and I always heard it was well done. That is the dining-room,
I suppose?"
Aileen, who had always been inordinately vain of the house in spite of
the fact that it had proved of small use socially, was delighted to
show him the remainder of the rooms. Lynde, who was used, of course,
to houses of all degrees of material splendor--that of his own family
being one of the best--pretended an interest he did not feel. He
commented as he went on the taste of the decorations and wood-carving,
the charm of the arrangement that permitted neat brief vistas, and the
like.
"Just wait a moment," said Aileen, as they neared the door of her own
boudoir. "I've forgotten whether mine is in order. I want you to see
that."
She opened it and stepped in.
"Yes, you may come," she called.
He followed. "Oh yes, indeed. Very charming. Very graceful--those
little lacy dancing figures--aren't they? A delightful color scheme. It
harmonizes with you exactly. It is quite like you."
He paused, looking at the spacious rug, which was of warm blues and
creams, and at the gilt ormolu bed. "Well done," he said, and then,
suddenly changing his mood and dropping his talk of decoration (Aileen
was to his right, and he was between her and the door), he added: "Tell
me now why won't you come to the barn-dance to-night? It would be
charming. You will enjoy it."
Aileen saw the sudden change in his mood. She recognized that by
showing him the rooms she had led herself into an easily made
disturbing position. His dark engaging eyes told their own story.
"Oh, I don't feel in the mood to. I haven't for a number of things for
some time. I--"
She began to move unconcernedly about him toward the door, but he
detained her with his hand. "Don't go just yet," he said. "Let me
talk to you. You always evade me in such a nervous way. Don't you
like me at all?"
"Oh yes, I like you; but can't we talk just as well down in the
music-room as here? Can't I tell you why I evade you down there just as
well as I can here?" She smiled a winning and now fearless smile.
Lynde showed his even white teeth in two gleaming rows. His eyes
filled with a gay maliciousness. "Surely, surely," he replied; "but
you're so nice in your own room here. I hate to leave it."
"Just the same," replied Aileen, still gay, but now slightly disturbed
also, "I think we might as well. You will find me just as entertaining
downstairs."
She moved, but his strength, quite as Cowperwood's, was much too great
for her. He was a strong man.
"Really, you know," she said, "you mustn't act this way here. Some one
might come in. What cause have I given you to make you think you could
do like this with me?"
"What cause?" he asked, bending over her and smoothing her plump arms
with his brown hands. "Oh, no definite cause, perhaps. You are a
cause in yourself. I told you how sweet I thought you were, the night
we were at the Alcott. Didn't you understand then? I thought you did."
"Oh, I understood that you liked me, and all that, perhaps. Any one
might do that. But as for anything like--well--taking such liberties
with me--I never dreamed of it. But listen. I think I hear some one
coming." Aileen, making a sudden vigorous effort to free herself and
failing, added: "Please let me go, Mr. Lynde. It isn't very gallant of
you, I must say, restraining a woman against her will. If I had given
you any real cause--I shall be angry in a moment."
Again the even smiling teeth and dark, wrinkling, malicious eyes.
"Really! How you go on! You would think I was a perfect stranger. Don't
you remember what you said to me at lunch? You didn't keep your
promise. You practically gave me to understand that you would come.
Why didn't you? Are you afraid of me, or don't you like me, or both? I
think you're delicious, splendid, and I want to know."
He shifted his position, putting one arm about her waist, pulling her
close to him, looking into her eyes. With the other he held her free
arm. Suddenly he covered her mouth with his and then kissed her
cheeks. "You care for me, don't you? What did you mean by saying you
might come, if you didn't?"
He held her quite firm, while Aileen struggled. It was a new sensation
this--that of the other man, and this was Polk Lynde, the first
individual outside of Cowperwood to whom she had ever felt drawn. But
now, here, in her own room--and it was within the range of
possibilities that Cowperwood might return or the servants enter.
"Oh, but think what you are doing," she protested, not really disturbed
as yet as to the outcome of the contest with him, and feeling as though
he were merely trying to make her be sweet to him without intending
anything more at present--"here in my own room! Really, you're not the
man I thought you were at all, if you don't instantly let me go. Mr.
Lynde! Mr. Lynde!" (He had bent over and was kissing her). "Oh, you
shouldn't do this! Really! I--I said I might come, but that was far
from doing it. And to have you come here and take advantage of me in
this way! I think you're horrid. If I ever had any interest in you, it
is quite dead now, I can assure you. Unless you let me go at once, I
give you my word I will never see you any more. I won't! Really, I
won't! I mean it! Oh, please let me go! I'll scream, I tell you! I'll
never see you again after this day! Oh--" It was an intense but useless
struggle.
Coming home one evening about a week later, Cowperwood found Aileen
humming cheerfully, and yet also in a seemingly deep and reflective
mood. She was just completing an evening toilet, and looked young and
colorful--quite her avid, seeking self of earlier days.
"Well," he asked, cheerfully, "how have things gone to-day?" Aileen,
feeling somehow, as one will on occasions, that if she had done wrong
she was justified and that sometime because of this she might even win
Cowperwood back, felt somewhat kindlier toward him. "Oh, very well,"
she replied. "I stopped in at the Hoecksemas' this afternoon for a
little while. They're going to Mexico in November. She has the
darlingest new basket-carriage--if she only looked like anything when
she rode in it. Etta is getting ready to enter Bryn Mawr. She is all
fussed up about leaving her dog and cat. Then I went down to one of
Lane Cross's receptions, and over to Merrill's"--she was referring to
the great store--"and home. I saw Taylor Lord and Polk Lynde together
in Wabash Avenue."
"Polk Lynde?" commented Cowperwood. "Is he interesting?"
"Yes, he is," replied Aileen. "I never met a man with such perfect
manners. He's so fascinating. He's just like a boy, and yet, Heaven
knows, he seems to have had enough worldly experience."
"So I've heard," commented Cowperwood. "Wasn't he the one that was
mixed up in that Carmen Torriba case here a few years ago?" Cowperwood
was referring to the matter of a Spanish dancer traveling in America
with whom Lynde had been apparently desperately in love.
"Oh yes," replied Aileen, maliciously; "but that oughtn't to make any
difference to you. He's charming, anyhow. I like him."
"I didn't say it did, did I? You don't object to my mentioning a mere
incident?"
"Oh, I know about the incident," replied Aileen, jestingly. "I know
you."
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, studying her face.
"Oh, I know you," she replied, sweetly and yet defensively. "You think
I'll stay here and be content while you run about with other
women--play the sweet and loving wife? Well, I won't. I know why you
say this about Lynde. It's to keep me from being interested in him,
possibly. Well, I will be if I want to. I told you I would be, and I
will. You can do what you please about that. You don't want me, so
why should you be disturbed as to whether other men are interested in
me or not?"
The truth was that Cowperwood was not clearly thinking of any probable
relation between Lynde and Aileen any more than he was in connection
with her and any other man, and yet in a remote way he was sensing some
one. It was this that Aileen felt in him, and that brought forth her
seemingly uncalled-for comment. Cowperwood, under the circumstances,
attempted to be as suave as possible, having caught the implication
clearly.
"Aileen," he cooed, "how you talk! Why do you say that? You know I care
for you. I can't prevent anything you want to do, and I'm sure you
know I don't want to. It's you that I want to see satisfied. You know
that I care."
"Yes, I know how you care," replied Aileen, her mood changing for the
moment. "Don't start that old stuff, please. I'm sick of it. I know
how you're running around. I know about Mrs. Hand. Even the
newspapers make that plain. You've been home just one evening in the
last eight days, long enough for me to get more than a glimpse of you.
Don't talk to me. Don't try to bill and coo. I've always known. Don't
think I don't know who your latest flame is. But don't begin to whine,
and don't quarrel with me if I go about and get interested in other
men, as I certainly will. It will be all your fault if I do, and you
know it. Don't begin and complain. It won't do you any good. I'm not
going to sit here and be made a fool of. I've told you that over and
over. You don't believe it, but I'm not. I told you that I'd find
some one one of these days, and I will. As a matter of fact, I have
already."
At this remark Cowperwood surveyed her coolly, critically, and yet not
unsympathetically; but she swung out of the room with a defiant air
before anything could be said, and went down to the music-room, from
whence a few moments later there rolled up to him from the hall below
the strains of the second Hungarian Rhapsodie, feelingly and for once
movingly played. Into it Aileen put some of her own wild woe and
misery. Cowperwood hated the thought for the moment that some one as
smug as Lynde--so good-looking, so suave a society rake--should
interest Aileen; but if it must be, it must be. He could have no
honest reason for complaint. At the same time a breath of real sorrow
for the days that had gone swept over him. He remembered her in
Philadelphia in her red cape as a school-girl--in his father's
house--out horseback-riding, driving. What a splendid, loving girl she
had been--such a sweet fool of love. Could she really have decided not
to worry about him any more? Could it be possible that she might find
some one else who would be interested in her, and in whom she would
take a keen interest? It was an odd thought for him.
He watched her as she came into the dining-room later, arrayed in green
silk of the shade of copper patina, her hair done in a high coil--and
in spite of himself he could not help admiring her. She looked very
young in her soul, and yet moody--loving (for some one), eager, and
defiant. He reflected for a moment what terrible things passion and
love are--how they make fools of us all. "All of us are in the grip of
a great creative impulse," he said to himself. He talked of other
things for a while--the approaching election, a poster-wagon he had
seen bearing the question, "Shall Cowperwood own the city?" "Pretty
cheap politics, I call that," he commented. And then he told of
stopping in a so-called Republican wigwam at State and Sixteenth
streets--a great, cheaply erected, unpainted wooden shack with seats,
and of hearing himself bitterly denounced by the reigning orator. "I
was tempted once to ask that donkey a few questions," he added, "but I
decided I wouldn't."
Aileen had to smile. In spite of all his faults he was such a
wonderful man--to set a city thus by the ears. "Yet, what care I how
fair he be, if he be not fair to me."
"Did you meet any one else besides Lynde you liked?" he finally asked,
archly, seeking to gather further data without stirring up too much
feeling.
Aileen, who had been studying him, feeling sure the subject would come
up again, replied: "No, I haven't; but I don't need to. One is enough."
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, gently.
"Oh, just what I say. One will do."
"You mean you are in love with Lynde?"
"I mean--oh!" She stopped and surveyed him defiantly. "What difference
does it make to you what I mean? Yes, I am. But what do you care? Why
do you sit there and question me? It doesn't make any difference to you
what I do. You don't want me. Why should you sit there and try to
find out, or watch? It hasn't been any consideration for you that has
restrained me so far. Suppose I am in love? What difference would it
make to you?"
"Oh, I care. You know I care. Why do you say that?"
"Yes, you care," she flared. "I know how you care. Well, I'll just
tell you one thing"--rage at his indifference was driving her on--"I am
in love with Lynde, and what's more, I'm his mistress. And I'll
continue to be. But what do you care? Pshaw!"
Her eyes blazed hotly, her color rose high and strong. She breathed
heavily.
At this announcement, made in the heat of spite and rage generated by
long indifference, Cowperwood sat up for a moment, and his eyes
hardened with quite that implacable glare with which he sometimes
confronted an enemy. He felt at once there were many things he could
do to make her life miserable, and to take revenge on Lynde, but he
decided after a moment he would not. It was not weakness, but a sense
of superior power that was moving him. Why should he be jealous? Had
he not been unkind enough? In a moment his mood changed to one of
sorrow for Aileen, for himself, for life, indeed--its tangles of desire
and necessity. He could not blame Aileen. Lynde was surely attractive.
He had no desire to part with her or to quarrel with him--merely to
temporarily cease all intimate relations with her and allow her mood to
clear itself up. Perhaps she would want to leave him of her own
accord. Perhaps, if he ever found the right woman, this might prove
good grounds for his leaving her. The right woman--where was she? He
had never found her yet.
"Aileen," he said, quite softly, "I wish you wouldn't feel so bitterly
about this. Why should you? When did you do this? Will you tell me
that?"
"No, I'll not tell you that," she replied, bitterly. "It's none of
your affair, and I'll not tell you. Why should you ask? You don't
care."
"But I do care, I tell you," he returned, irritably, almost roughly.
"When did you? You can tell me that, at least." His eyes had a hard,
cold look for the moment, dying away, though, into kindly inquiry.
"Oh, not long ago. About a week," Aileen answered, as though she were
compelled.
"How long have you known him?" he asked, curiously.
"Oh, four or five months, now. I met him last winter."
"And did you do this deliberately--because you were in love with him,
or because you wanted to hurt me?"
He could not believe from past scenes between them that she had ceased
to love him.
Aileen stirred irritably. "I like that," she flared. "I did it
because I wanted to, and not because of any love for you--I can tell
you that. I like your nerve sitting here presuming to question me
after the way you have neglected me." She pushed back her plate, and
made as if to get up.
"Wait a minute, Aileen," he said, simply, putting down his knife and
fork and looking across the handsome table where Sevres, silver, fruit,
and dainty dishes were spread, and where under silk-shaded lights they
sat opposite each other. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way to me.
You know that I am not a petty, fourth-rate fool. You know that,
whatever you do, I am not going to quarrel with you. I know what the
trouble is with you. I know why you are acting this way, and how you
will feel afterward if you go on. It isn't anything I will do--" He
paused, caught by a wave of feeling.
"Oh, isn't it?" she blazed, trying to overcome the emotion that was
rising in herself. The calmness of him stirred up memories of the
past. "Well, you keep your sympathy for yourself. I don't need it. I
will get along. I wish you wouldn't talk to me."
She shoved her plate away with such force that she upset a glass in
which was champagne, the wine making a frayed, yellowish splotch on the
white linen, and, rising, hurried toward the door. She was choking
with anger, pain, shame, regret.
"Aileen! Aileen!" he called, hurrying after her, regardless of the
butler, who, hearing the sound of stirring chairs, had entered. These
family woes were an old story to him. "It's love you want--not
revenge. I know--I can tell. You want to be loved by some one
completely. I'm sorry. You mustn't be too hard on me. I sha'n't be
on you." He seized her by the arm and detained her as they entered the
next room. By this time Aileen was too ablaze with emotion to talk
sensibly or understand what he was doing.
"Let me go!" she exclaimed, angrily, hot tears in her eyes. "Let me
go! I tell you I don't love you any more. I tell you I hate you!" She
flung herself loose and stood erect before him. "I don't want you to
talk to me! I don't want you to speak to me! You're the cause of all my
troubles. You're the cause of whatever I do, when I do it, and don't
you dare to deny it! You'll see! You'll see! I'll show you what I'll
do!"
She twisted and turned, but he held her firmly until, in his strong
grasp, as usual, she collapsed and began to cry. "Oh, I cry," she
declared, even in her tears, "but it will be just the same. It's too
late! too late!"