A Declaration of Love
For the first time in her life Berenice now pondered seriously what she
could do. She thought of marriage, but decided that instead of sending
for Braxmar or taking up some sickening chase of an individual even
less satisfactory it might be advisable to announce in a simple social
way to her friends that her mother had lost her money, and that she
herself was now compelled to take up some form of employment--the
teaching of dancing, perhaps, or the practice of it professionally.
She suggested this calmly to her mother one day. Mrs. Carter, who had
been long a parasite really, without any constructive monetary notions
of real import, was terrified. To think that she and "Bevy," her
wonderful daughter, and by reaction her son, should come to anything so
humdrum and prosaic as ordinary struggling life, and after all her
dreams. She sighed and cried in secret, writing Cowperwood a cautious
explanation and asking him to see her privately in New York when he
returned.
"Don't you think we had best go on a little while longer?" she
suggested to Berenice. "It just wrings my heart to think that you,
with your qualifications, should have to stoop to giving
dancing-lessons. We had better do almost anything for a while yet.
You can make a suitable marriage, and then everything will be all right
for you. It doesn't matter about me. I can live. But you--" Mrs.
Carter's strained eyes indicated the misery she felt. Berenice was
moved by this affection for her, which she knew to be genuine; but what
a fool her mother had been, what a weak reed, indeed, she was to lean
upon! Cowperwood, when he conferred with Mrs. Carter, insisted that
Berenice was quixotic, nervously awry, to wish to modify her state, to
eschew society and invalidate her wondrous charm by any sort of
professional life. By prearrangement with Mrs. Carter he hurried to
Pocono at a time when he knew that Berenice was there alone. Ever
since the Beales Chadsey incident she had been evading him.
When he arrived, as he did about one in the afternoon of a crisp
January day, there was snow on the ground, and the surrounding
landscape was bathed in a crystalline light that gave back to the eye
endless facets of luster--jewel beams that cut space with a flash. The
automobile had been introduced by now, and he rode in a touring-car of
eighty horse-power that gave back from its dark-brown, varnished
surface a lacquered light. In a great fur coat and cap of round, black
lamb's-wool he arrived at the door.
"Well, Bevy," he exclaimed, pretending not to know of Mrs. Carter's
absence, "how are you? How's your mother? Is she in?"
Berenice fixed him with her cool, steady-gazing eyes, as frank and
incisive as they were daring, and smiled him an equivocal welcome. She
wore a blue denim painter's apron, and a palette of many colors
glistened under her thumb. She was painting and thinking--thinking
being her special occupation these days, and her thoughts had been of
Braxmar, Cowperwood, Kilmer Duelma, a half-dozen others, as well as of
the stage, dancing, painting. Her life was in a melting-pot, as it
were, before her; again it was like a disarranged puzzle, the pieces of
which might be fitted together into some interesting picture if she
could but endure.
"Do come in," she said. "It's cold, isn't it? Well, there's a nice
fire here for you. No, mother isn't here. She went down to New York.
I should think you might have found her at the apartment. Are you in
New York for long?"
She was gay, cheerful, genial, but remote. Cowperwood felt the
protective gap that lay between him and her. It had always been there.
He felt that, even though she might understand and like him, yet there
was something--convention, ambition, or some deficiency on his
part--that was keeping her from him, keeping her eternally distant.
He looked about the room, at the picture she was attempting (a
snow-scape, of a view down a slope), at the view itself which he
contemplated from the window, at some dancing sketches she had recently
executed and hung on the wall for the time being--lovely, short tunic
motives. He looked at her in her interesting and becoming painter's
apron. "Well, Berenice," he said, "always the artist first. It is
your world. You will never escape it. These things are beautiful." He
waved an ungloved hand in the direction of a choric line. "It wasn't
your mother I came to see, anyhow. It is you. I had such a curious
letter from her. She tells me you want to give up society and take to
teaching or something of that sort. I came because I wanted to talk to
you about that. Don't you think you are acting rather hastily?"
He spoke now as though there were some reason entirely disassociated
from himself that was impelling him to this interest in her.
Berenice, brush in hand, standing by her picture, gave him a look that
was cool, curious, defiant, equivocal.
"No, I don't think so," she replied, quietly. "You know how things
have been, so I may speak quite frankly. I know that mother's
intentions were always of the best."
Her mouth moved with the faintest touch of sadness. "Her heart, I am
afraid, is better than her head. As for your motives, I am satisfied
to believe that they have been of the best also. I know that they have
been, in fact--it would be ungenerous of me to suggest anything else."
(Cowperwood's fixed eyes, it seemed to her, had moved somewhere in
their deepest depths.) "Yet I don't feel we can go on as we have been
doing. We have no money of our own. Why shouldn't I do something?
What else can I really do?"
She paused, and Cowperwood gazed at her, quite still. In her informal,
bunchy painter's apron, and with her blue eyes looking out at him from
beneath her loose red hair, it seemed to him she was the most perfect
thing he had ever known. Such a keen, fixed, enthroned mind. She was
so capable, so splendid, and, like his own, her eyes were unafraid.
Her spiritual equipoise was undisturbed.
"Berenice," he said, quietly, "let me tell you something. You did me
the honor just now to speak of my motives ingiving your mother money as
of the best. They were--from my own point of view--the best I have
ever known. I will not say what I thought they were in the beginning.
I know what they were now. I am going to speak quite frankly with you,
if you will let me, as long as we are here together. I don't know
whether you know this or not, but when I first met your mother I only
knew by chance that she had a daughter, and it was of no particular
interest to me then. I went to her house as the guest of a financial
friend of mine who admired her greatly. From the first I myself
admired her, because I found her to be a lady to the manner born--she
was interesting. One day I happened to see a photograph of you in her
home, and before I could mention it she put it away. Perhaps you
recall the one. It is in profile--taken when you were about sixteen."
"Yes, I remember," replied Berenice, simply--as quietly as though she
were hearing a confession.
"Well, that picture interested me intensely. I inquired about you, and
learned all I could. After that I saw another picture of you,
enlarged, in a Louisville photographer's window. I bought it. It is
in my office now--my private office--in Chicago. You are standing by a
mantelpiece."
"I remember," replied Berenice, moved, but uncertain.
"Let me tell you a little something about my life, will you? It won't
take long. I was born in Philadelphia. My family had always belonged
there. I have been in the banking and street-railway business all my
life. My first wife was a Presbyterian girl, religious, conventional.
She was older than I by six or seven years. I was happy for a
while--five or six years. We had two children--both still living.
Then I met my present wife. She was younger than myself--at least ten
years, and very good-looking. She was in some respects more intelligent
than my first wife--at least less conventional, more generous, I
thought. I fell in love with her, and when I eventually left
Philadelphia I got a divorce and married her. I was greatly in love
with her at the time. I thought she was an ideal mate for me, and I
still think she has many qualities which make her attractive. But my
own ideals in regard to women have all the time been slowly changing.
I have come to see, through various experiments, that she is not the
ideal woman for me at all. She does not understand me. I don't
pretend to understand myself, but it has occurred to me that there
might be a woman somewhere who would understand me better than I
understand myself, who would see the things that I don't see about
myself, and would like me, anyhow. I might as well tell you that I
have been a lover of women always. There is just one ideal thing in
this world to me, and that is the woman that I would like to have."
"I should think it would make it rather difficult for any one woman to
discover just which woman you would like to have?" smiled Berenice,
whimsically. Cowperwood was unabashed.
"It would, I presume, unless she should chance to be the very one woman
I am talking about," he replied, impressively.
"I should think she would have her work cut out for her under any
circumstances," added Berenice, lightly, but with a touch of sympathy
in her voice.
"I am making a confession," replied Cowperwood, seriously and a little
heavily. "I am not apologizing for myself. The women I have known
would make ideal wives for some men, but not for me. Life has taught me
that much. It has changed me."
"And do you think the process has stopped by any means?" she replied,
quaintly, with that air of superior banter which puzzled, fascinated,
defied him.
"No, I will not say that. My ideal has become fixed, though,
apparently. I have had it for a number of years now. It spoils other
matters for me. There is such a thing as an ideal. We do have a
pole-star in physics."
As he said this Cowperwood realized that for him he was making a very
remarkable confession. He had come here primarily to magnetize her and
control her judgment. As a matter of fact, it was almost the other way
about. She was almost dominating him. Lithe, slender, resourceful,
histrionic, she was standing before him making him explain himself,
only he did not see her so much in that light as in the way of a large,
kindly, mothering intelligence which could see, feel, and understand.
She would know how it was, he felt sure. He could make himself
understood if he tried. Whatever he was or had been, she would not take
a petty view. She could not. Her answers thus far guaranteed as much.
"Yes," she replied, "we do have a pole-star, but you do not seem able
to find it. Do you expect to find your ideal in any living woman?"
"I have found it," he answered, wondering at the ingenuity and
complexity of her mind--and of his own, for that matter--of all mind
indeed. Deep below deep it lay, staggering him at times by its
fathomless reaches. "I hope you will take seriously what I am going to
say, for it will explain so much. When I began to be interested in
your picture I was so because it coincided with the ideal I had in
mind--the thing that you think changes swiftly. That was nearly seven
years ago. Since then it has never changed. When I saw you at your
school on Riverside Drive I was fully convinced. Although I have said
nothing, I have remained so. Perhaps you think I had no right to any
such feelings. Most people would agree with you. I had them and do
have them just the same, and it explains my relation to your mother.
When she came to me once in Louisville and told me of her difficulties
I was glad to help her for your sake. That has been my reason ever
since, although she does not know that. In some respects, Berenice,
your mother is a little dull. All this while I have been in love with
you--intensely so. As you stand there now you seem to me amazingly
beautiful--the ideal I have been telling you about. Don't be
disturbed; I sha'n't press any attentions on you." (Berenice had moved
very slightly. She was concerned as much for him as for herself. His
power was so wide, his power so great. She could not help taking him
seriously when he was so serious.) "I have done whatever I have done in
connection with you and your mother because I have been in love with
you and because I wanted you to become the splendid thing I thought you
ought to become. You have not known it, but you are the cause of my
building the house on Fifth Avenue--the principal reason. I wanted to
build something worthy of you. A dream? Certainly. Everything we do
seems to have something of that quality. Its beauty, if there is any,
is due to you. I made it beautiful thinking of you."
He paused, and Berenice gave no sign. Her first impulse had been to
object, but her vanity, her love of art, her love of power--all were
touched. At the same time she was curious now as to whether he had
merely expected to take her as his mistress or to wait until he could
honor her as his wife.
"I suppose you are wondering whether I ever expected to marry you or
not," he went on, getting the thought out of her mind. "I am no
different from many men in that respect, Berenice. I will be frank. I
wanted you in any way that I could get you. I was living in the hope
all along that you would fall in love with me--as I had with you. I
hated Braxmar here, not long ago, when he appeared on the scene, but I
could never have thought of interfering. I was quite prepared to give
you up. I have envied every man I have ever seen with you--young and
old. I have even envied your mother for being so close to you when I
could not be. At the same time I have wanted you to have everything
that would help you in any way. I did not want to interfere with you
in case you found some one whom you could truly love if I knew that you
could not love me. There is the whole story outside of anything you
may know. But it is not because of this that I came to-day. Not to
tell you this."
He paused, as if expecting her to say something, though she made no
comment beyond a questioning "Yes?"
"The thing that I have come to say is that I want you to go on as you
were before. Whatever you may think of me or of what I have just told
you, I want you to believe that I am sincere and disinterested in what
I am telling you now. My dream in connection with you is not quite
over. Chance might make me eligible if you should happen to care. But
I want you to go on and be happy, regardless of me. I have dreamed,
but I dare say it has been a mistake. Hold your head high--you have a
right to. Be a lady. Marry any one you really love. I will see that
you have a suitable marriage portion. I love you, Berenice, but I will
make it a fatherly affection from now on. When I die I will put you in
my will. But go on now in the spirit you were going before. I really
can't be happy unless I think you are going to be."
He paused, still looking at her, believing for the time being what he
said. If he should die she would find herself in his will. If she were
to go on and socialize and seek she might find some one to love, but
also she might think of him more kindly before she did so. What would
be the cost of her as a ward compared to his satisfaction and delight
in having her at least friendly and sympathetic and being in her good
graces and confidence?
Berenice, who had always been more or less interested in him,
temperamentally biased, indeed, in his direction because of his
efficiency, simplicity, directness, and force, was especially touched
in this instance by his utter frankness and generosity. She might
question his temperamental control over his own sincerity in the
future, but she could scarcely question that at present he was sincere.
Moreover, his long period of secret love and admiration, the thought of
so powerful a man dreaming of her in this fashion, was so flattering.
It soothed her troubled vanity and shame in what had gone before. His
straightforward confession had a kind of nobility which was electric,
moving. She looked at him as he stood there, a little gray about the
temples--the most appealing ornament of some men to some women--and for
the life of her she could not help being moved by a kind of tenderness,
sympathy, mothering affection. Obviously he did need the woman his
attitude seemed to show that he needed, some woman of culture, spirit,
taste, amorousness; or, at least, he was entitled to dream of her. As
he stood before her he seemed a kind of superman, and yet also a bad
boy--handsome, powerful, hopeful, not so very much older than herself
now, impelled by some blazing internal force which harried him on and
on. How much did he really care for her? How much could he? How much
could he care for any one? Yet see all he had done to interest her.
What did that mean? To say all this? To do all this? Outside was his
car brown and radiant in the snow. He was the great Frank Algernon
Cowperwood, of Chicago, and he was pleading with her, a mere chit of a
girl, to be kind to him, not to put him out of her life entirely. It
touched her intellect, her pride, her fancy.
Aloud she said: "I like you better now. I really believe in you. I
never did, quite, before. Not that I think I ought to let you spend
your money on me or mother--I don't. But I admire you. You make me.
I understand how it is, I think. I know what your ambitions are. I
have always felt that I did, in part. But you mustn't talk to me any
more now. I want to think. I want to think over what you have said.
I don't know whether I can bring myself to it or not." (She noticed
that his eyes seemed to move somehow in their deepest depths again.)
"But we won't talk about it any more at present."
"But, Berenice," he added, with a real plea in his voice, "I wonder if
you do understand. I have been so lonely--I am--"
"Yes, I do," she replied, holding out her hand. "We are going to be
friends, whatever happens, from now on, because I really like you. You
mustn't ask me to decide about the other, though, to-day. I can't do
it. I don't want to. I don't care to."
"Not when I would so gladly give you everything--when I need it so
little?"
"Not until I think it out for myself. I don't think so, though. No,"
she replied, with an air. "There, Mr. Guardian Father," she laughed,
pushing his hand away.
Cowperwood's heart bounded. He would have given millions to take her
close in his arms. As it was he smiled appealingly.
"Don't you want to jump in and come to New York with me? If your mother
isn't at the apartment you could stop at the Netherland."
"No, not to-day. I expect to be in soon. I will let you know, or
mother will."
He bustled out and into the machine after a moment of parley, waving to
her over the purpling snow of the evening as his machine tore eastward,
planning to make New York by dinner-time. If he could just keep her in
this friendly, sympathetic attitude. If he only could!