Changing Horizons
The effect of all this was to arouse in Cowperwood the keenest feelings
of superiority he had ever yet enjoyed. Hitherto he had fancied that
his enemies might worst him, but at last his path seemed clear. He was
now worth, all in all, the round sum of twenty million dollars. His
art-collection had become the most important in the West--perhaps in
the nation, public collections excluded. He began to envision himself
as a national figure, possibly even an international one. And yet he
was coming to feel that, no matter how complete his financial victory
might ultimately be, the chances were that he and Aileen would never be
socially accepted here in Chicago. He had done too many boisterous
things--alienated too many people. He was as determined as ever to
retain a firm grip on the Chicago street-railway situation. But he was
disturbed for a second time in his life by the thought that, owing to
the complexities of his own temperament, he had married unhappily and
would find the situation difficult of adjustment. Aileen, whatever
might be said of her deficiencies, was by no means as tractable or
acquiescent as his first wife. And, besides, he felt that he owed her a
better turn. By no means did he actually dislike her as yet; though
she was no longer soothing, stimulating, or suggestive to him as she
had formerly been. Her woes, because of him, were too many; her
attitude toward him too censorious. He was perfectly willing to
sympathize with her, to regret his own change of feeling, but what
would you? He could not control his own temperament any more than
Aileen could control hers.
The worst of this situation was that it was now becoming complicated on
Cowperwood's part with the most disturbing thoughts concerning Berenice
Fleming. Ever since the days when he had first met her mother he had
been coming more and more to feel for the young girl a soul-stirring
passion--and that without a single look exchanged or a single word
spoken. There is a static something which is beauty, and this may be
clothed in the habiliments of a ragged philosopher or in the silks and
satins of pampered coquetry. It was a suggestion of this beauty which
is above sex and above age and above wealth that shone in the blowing
hair and night-blue eyes of Berenice Fleming. His visit to the Carter
family at Pocono had been a disappointment to him, because of the
apparent hopelessness of arousing Berenice's interest, and since that
time, and during their casual encounters, she had remained politely
indifferent. Nevertheless, he remained true to his persistence in the
pursuit of any game he had fixed upon.
Mrs. Carter, whose relations with Cowperwood had in the past been not
wholly platonic, nevertheless attributed much of his interest in her to
her children and their vital chance. Berenice and Rolfe themselves
knew nothing concerning the nature of their mother's arrangements with
Cowperwood. True to his promise of protectorship and assistance, he
had established her in a New York apartment adjacent to her daughter's
school, and where he fancied that he himself might spend many happy
hours were Berenice but near. Proximity to Berenice! The desire to
arouse her interest and command her favor! Cowperwood would scarcely
have cared to admit to himself how great a part this played in a
thought which had recently been creeping into his mind. It was that of
erecting a splendid house in New York.
By degrees this idea of building a New York house had grown upon him.
His Chicago mansion was a costly sepulcher in which Aileen sat brooding
over the woes which had befallen her. Moreover, aside from the social
defeat which it represented, it was becoming merely as a structure, but
poorly typical of the splendor and ability of his imaginations. This
second dwelling, if he ever achieved it, should be resplendent, a
monument to himself. In his speculative wanderings abroad he had seen
many such great palaces, designed with the utmost care, which had
housed the taste and culture of generations of men. His
art-collection, in which he took an immense pride, had been growing,
until it was the basis if not the completed substance for a very
splendid memorial. Already in it were gathered paintings of all the
important schools; to say nothing of collections of jade, illumined
missals, porcelains, rugs, draperies, mirror frames, and a beginning at
rare originals of sculpture. The beauty of these strange things, the
patient laborings of inspired souls of various times and places, moved
him, on occasion, to a gentle awe. Of all individuals he respected,
indeed revered, the sincere artist. Existence was a mystery, but these
souls who set themselves to quiet tasks of beauty had caught something
of which he was dimly conscious. Life had touched them with a vision,
their hearts and souls were attuned to sweet harmonies of which the
common world knew nothing. Sometimes, when he was weary after a
strenuous day, he would enter--late in the night--his now silent
gallery, and turning on the lights so that the whole sweet room stood
revealed, he would seat himself before some treasure, reflecting on the
nature, the mood, the time, and the man that had produced it.
Sometimes it would be one of Rembrandt's melancholy heads--the sad
"Portrait of a Rabbi"--or the sweet introspection of a Rousseau stream.
A solemn Dutch housewife, rendered with the bold fidelity and resonant
enameled surfaces of a Hals or the cold elegance of an Ingres,
commanded his utmost enthusiasm. So he would sit and wonder at the
vision and skill of the original dreamer, exclaiming at times: "A
marvel! A marvel!"
At the same time, so far as Aileen was concerned things were obviously
shaping up for additional changes. She was in that peculiar state
which has befallen many a woman--trying to substitute a lesser ideal
for a greater, and finding that the effort is useless or nearly so. In
regard to her affair with Lynde, aside from the temporary relief and
diversion it had afforded her, she was beginning to feel that she had
made a serious mistake. Lynde was delightful, after his fashion. He
could amuse her with a different type of experience from any that
Cowperwood had to relate. Once they were intimate he had, with an
easy, genial air, confessed to all sorts of liaisons in Europe and
America. He was utterly pagan--a faun--and at the same time he was
truly of the smart world. His open contempt of all but one or two of
the people in Chicago whom Aileen had secretly admired and wished to
associate with, and his easy references to figures of importance in the
East and in Paris and London, raised him amazingly in her estimation;
it made her feel, sad to relate, that she had by no means lowered
herself in succumbing so readily to his forceful charms.
Nevertheless, because he was what he was--genial, complimentary,
affectionate, but a playboy, merely, and a soldier of fortune, with no
desire to make over her life for her on any new basis--she was now
grieving over the futility of this romance which had got her nowhere,
and which, in all probability, had alienated Cowperwood for good. He
was still outwardly genial and friendly, but their relationship was now
colored by a sense of mistake and uncertainty which existed on both
sides, but which, in Aileen's case, amounted to a subtle species of
soul-torture. Hitherto she had been the aggrieved one, the one whose
loyalty had never been in question, and whose persistent affection and
faith had been greatly sinned against. Now all this was changed. The
manner in which he had sinned against her was plain enough, but the way
in which, out of pique, she had forsaken him was in the other balance.
Say what one will, the loyalty of woman, whether a condition in nature
or an evolved accident of sociology, persists as a dominating thought
in at least a section of the race; and women themselves, be it said,
are the ones who most loudly and openly subscribe to it. Cowperwood
himself was fully aware that Aileen had deserted him, not because she
loved him less or Lynde more, but because she was hurt--and deeply so.
Aileen knew that he knew this. From one point of view it enraged her
and made her defiant; from another it grieved her to think she had
uselessly sinned against his faith in her. Now he had ample excuse to
do anything he chose. Her best claim on him--her wounds--she had
thrown away as one throws away a weapon. Her pride would not let her
talk to him about this, and at the same time she could not endure the
easy, tolerant manner with which he took it. His smiles, his
forgiveness, his sometimes pleasant jesting were all a horrible offense.
To complete her mental quandary, she was already beginning to quarrel
with Lynde over this matter of her unbreakable regard for Cowperwood.
With the sufficiency of a man of the world Lynde intended that she
should succumb to him completely and forget her wonderful husband.
When with him she was apparently charmed and interested, yielding
herself freely, but this was more out of pique at Cowperwood's neglect
than from any genuine passion for Lynde. In spite of her pretensions of
anger, her sneers, and criticisms whenever Cowperwood's name came up,
she was, nevertheless, hopelessly fond of him and identified with him
spiritually, and it was not long before Lynde began to suspect this.
Such a discovery is a sad one for any master of women to make. It
jolted his pride severely.
"You care for him still, don't you?" he asked, with a wry smile, upon
one occasion. They were sitting at dinner in a private room at
Kinsley's, and Aileen, whose color was high, and who was becomingly
garbed in metallic-green silk, was looking especially handsome. Lynde
had been proposing that she should make special arrangements to depart
with him for a three-months' stay in Europe, but she would have nothing
to do with the project. She did not dare. Such a move would make
Cowperwood feel that she was alienating herself forever; it would give
him an excellent excuse to leave her.
"Oh, it isn't that," she had declared, in reply to Lynde's query. "I
just don't want to go. I can't. I'm not prepared. It's nothing but a
notion of yours, anyhow. You're tired of Chicago because it's getting
near spring. You go and I'll be here when you come back, or I may
decide to come over later." She smiled.
Lynde pulled a dark face.
"Hell!" he said. "I know how it is with you. You still stick to him,
even when he treats you like a dog. You pretend not to love him when
as a matter of fact you're mad about him. I've seen it all along. You
don't really care anything about me. You can't. You're too crazy about
him."
"Oh, shut up!" replied Aileen, irritated greatly for the moment by this
onslaught. "You talk like a fool. I'm not anything of the sort. I
admire him. How could any one help it?" (At this time, of course,
Cowperwood's name was filling the city.) "He's a very wonderful man.
He was never brutal to me. He's a full-sized man--I'll say that for
him."
By now Aileen had become sufficiently familiar with Lynde to criticize
him in her own mind, and even outwardly by innuendo, for being a loafer
and idler who had never created in any way the money he was so freely
spending. She had little power to psychologize concerning social
conditions, but the stalwart constructive persistence of Cowperwood
along commercial lines coupled with the current American contempt of
leisure reflected somewhat unfavorably upon Lynde, she thought.
Lynde's face clouded still more at this outburst. "You go to the
devil," he retorted. "I don't get you at all. Sometimes you talk as
though you were fond of me. At other times you're all wrapped up in
him. Now you either care for me or you don't. Which is it? If you're
so crazy about him that you can't leave home for a month or so you
certainly can't care much about me."
Aileen, however, because of her long experience with Cowperwood, was
more than a match for Lynde. At the same time she was afraid to let go
of him for fear that she should have no one to care for her. She liked
him. He was a happy resource in her misery, at least for the moment.
Yet the knowledge that Cowperwood looked upon this affair as a heavy
blemish on her pristine solidarity cooled her. At the thought of him
and of her whole tarnished and troubled career she was very unhappy.
"Hell!" Lynde had repeated, irritably, "stay if you want to. I'll not
be trying to over-persuade you--depend on that."
They quarreled still further over this matter, and, though they
eventually made up, both sensed the drift toward an ultimately
unsatisfactory conclusion.
It was one morning not long after this that Cowperwood, feeling in a
genial mood over his affairs, came into Aileen's room, as he still did
on occasions, to finish dressing and pass the time of day.
"Well," he observed, gaily, as he stood before the mirror adjusting his
collar and tie, "how are you and Lynde getting along these
days--nicely?"
"Oh, you go to the devil!" replied Aileen, flaring up and struggling
with her divided feelings, which pained her constantly. "If it hadn't
been for you there wouldn't be any chance for your smarty
'how-am-I-getting-alongs.' I am getting along all
right--fine--regardless of anything you may think. He's as good a man
as you are any day, and better. I like him. At least he's fond of me,
and that's more than you are. Why should you care what I do? You
don't, so why talk about it? I want you to let me alone."
"Aileen, Aileen, how you carry on! Don't flare up so. I meant nothing
by it. I'm sorry as much for myself as for you. I've told you I'm not
jealous. You think I'm critical. I'm not anything of the kind. I
know how you feel. That's all very good."
"Oh yes, yes," she replied. "Well, you can keep your feelings to
yourself. Go to the devil! Go to the devil, I tell you!" Her eyes
blazed.
He stood now, fully dressed, in the center of the rug before her, and
Aileen looked at him, keen, valiant, handsome--her old Frank. Once
again she regretted her nominal faithlessness, and raged at him in her
heart for his indifference. "You dog," she was about to add, "you have
no heart!" but she changed her mind. Her throat tightened and her eyes
filled. She wanted to run to him and say: "Oh, Frank, don't you
understand how it all is, how it all came about? Won't you love me
again--can't you?" But she restrained herself. It seemed to her that
he might understand--that he would, in fact--but that he would never
again be faithful, anyhow. And she would so gladly have discarded
Lynde and any and all men if he would only have said the word, would
only have really and sincerely wished her to do so.
It was one day not long after their morning quarrel in her bedroom that
Cowperwood broached the matter of living in New York to Aileen,
pointing out that thereby his art-collection, which was growing
constantly, might be more suitably housed, and that it would give her a
second opportunity to enter social life.
"So that you can get rid of me out here," commented Aileen, little
knowing of Berenice Fleming.
"Not at all," replied Cowperwood, sweetly. "You see how things are.
There's no chance of our getting into Chicago society. There's too much
financial opposition against me here. If we had a big house in New
York, such as I would build, it would be an introduction in itself.
After all, these Chicagoans aren't even a snapper on the real society
whip. It's the Easterners who set the pace, and the New-Yorkers most
of all. If you want to say the word, I can sell this place and we can
live down there, part of the time, anyhow. I could spend as much of my
time with you there as I have been doing here--perhaps more."
Because of her soul of vanity Aileen's mind ran forward in spite of
herself to the wider opportunities which his words suggested. This
house had become a nightmare to her--a place of neglect and bad
memories. Here she had fought with Rita Sohlberg; here she had seen
society come for a very little while only to disappear; here she had
waited this long time for the renewal of Cowperwood's love, which was
now obviously never to be restored in its original glamour. As he
spoke she looked at him quizzically, almost sadly in her great doubt.
At the same time she could not help reflecting that in New York where
money counted for so much, and with Cowperwood's great and growing
wealth and prestige behind her, she might hope to find herself socially
at last. "Nothing venture, nothing have" had always been her motto,
nailed to her mast, though her equipment for the life she now craved
had never been more than the veriest make-believe--painted wood and
tinsel. Vain, radiant, hopeful Aileen! Yet how was she to know?
"Very well," she observed, finally. "Do as you like. I can live down
there as well as I can here, I presume--alone."
Cowperwood knew the nature of her longings. He knew what was running
in her mind, and how futile were her dreams. Life had taught him how
fortuitous must be the circumstances which could enable a woman of
Aileen's handicaps and defects to enter that cold upper world. Yet for
all the courage of him, for the very life of him, he could not tell
her. He could not forget that once, behind the grim bars in the
penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, he had cried on
her shoulder. He could not be an ingrate and wound her with his inmost
thoughts any more than he could deceive himself. A New York mansion
and the dreams of social supremacy which she might there entertain
would soothe her ruffled vanity and assuage her disappointed heart; and
at the same time he would be nearer Berenice Fleming. Say what one
will of these ferret windings of the human mind, they are,
nevertheless, true and characteristic of the average human being, and
Cowperwood was no exception. He saw it all, he calculated on it--he
calculated on the simple humanity of Aileen.