_ The growth of a passion is a very peculiar thing. In highly
organized intellectual and artistic types it is so often apt to
begin with keen appreciation of certain qualities, modified by
many, many mental reservations. The egoist, the intellectual,
gives but little of himself and asks much. Nevertheless, the
lover of life, male or female, finding himself or herself in
sympathetic accord with such a nature, is apt to gain much.
Cowperwood was innately and primarily an egoist and intellectual,
though blended strongly therewith, was a humane and democratic
spirit. We think of egoism and intellectualism as closely confined
to the arts. Finance is an art. And it presents the operations
of the subtlest of the intellectuals and of the egoists. Cowperwood
was a financier. Instead of dwelling on the works of nature, its
beauty and subtlety, to his material disadvantage, he found a happy
mean, owing to the swiftness of his intellectual operations,
whereby he could, intellectually and emotionally, rejoice in the
beauty of life without interfering with his perpetual material
and financial calculations. And when it came to women and morals,
which involved so much relating to beauty, happiness, a sense of
distinction and variety in living, he was but now beginning to
suspect for himself at least that apart from maintaining organized
society in its present form there was no basis for this one-life,
one-love idea. How had it come about that so many people agreed
on this single point, that it was good and necessary to marry one
woman and cleave to her until death? He did not know. It was not
for him to bother about the subtleties of evolution, which even
then was being noised abroad, or to ferret out the curiosities of
history in connection with this matter. He had no time. Suffice
it that the vagaries of temperament and conditions with which he
came into immediate contact proved to him that there was great
dissatisfaction with that idea. People did not cleave to each other
until death; and in thousands of cases where they did, they did not
want to. Quickness of mind, subtlety of idea, fortuitousness of
opportunity, made it possible for some people to right their
matrimonial and social infelicities; whereas for others, because of
dullness of wit, thickness of comprehension, poverty, and lack of
charm, there was no escape from the slough of their despond. They
were compelled by some devilish accident of birth or lack of force
or resourcefulness to stew in their own juice of wretchedness, or to
shuffle off this mortal coil--which under other circumstances had
such glittering possibilities--via the rope, the knife, the bullet,
or the cup of poison.
"I would die, too," he thought to himself, one day, reading of a
man who, confined by disease and poverty, had lived for twelve years
alone in a back bedroom attended by an old and probably decrepit
housekeeper. A darning-needle forced into his heart had ended his
earthly woes. "To the devil with such a life! Why twelve years?
Why not at the end of the second or third?"
Again, it was so very evident, in so many ways, that force was the
answer--great mental and physical force. Why, these giants of
commerce and money could do as they pleased in this life, and did.
He had already had ample local evidence of it in more than one
direction. Worse--the little guardians of so-called law and morality,
the newspapers, the preachers, the police, and the public moralists
generally, so loud in their denunciation of evil in humble places,
were cowards all when it came to corruption in high ones. They did
not dare to utter a feeble squeak until some giant had accidentally
fallen and they could do so without danger to themselves. Then, O
Heavens, the palaver! What beatings of tom-toms! What mouthings of
pharisaical moralities--platitudes! Run now, good people, for you
may see clearly how evil is dealt with in high places! It made him
smile. Such hypocrisy! Such cant! Still, so the world was organized,
and it was not for him to set it right. Let it wag as it would.
The thing for him to do was to get rich and hold his own--to build
up a seeming of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for the
genuine thing. Force would do that. Quickness of wit. And he had
these. "I satisfy myself," was his motto; and it might well have
been emblazoned upon any coat of arms which he could have contrived
to set forth his claim to intellectual and social nobility.
But this matter of Aileen was up for consideration and solution at
this present moment, and because of his forceful, determined
character he was presently not at all disturbed by the problem it
presented. It was a problem, like some of those knotty financial
complications which presented themselves daily; but it was not
insoluble. What did he want to do? He couldn't leave his wife and
fly with Aileen, that was certain. He had too many connections.
He had too many social, and thinking of his children and parents,
emotional as well as financial ties to bind him. Besides, he was
not at all sure that he wanted to. He did not intend to leave his
growing interests, and at the same time he did not intend to give
up Aileen immediately. The unheralded manifestation of interest
on her part was too attractive. Mrs. Cowperwood was no longer
what she should be physically and mentally, and that in itself
to him was sufficient to justify his present interest in this girl.
Why fear anything, if only he could figure out a way to achieve it
without harm to himself? At the same time he thought it might never
be possible for him to figure out any practical or protective
program for either himself or Aileen, and that made him silent and
reflective. For by now he was intensely drawn to her, as he could
feel--something chemic and hence dynamic was uppermost in him now
and clamoring for expression.
At the same time, in contemplating his wife in connection with
all this, he had many qualms, some emotional, some financial.
While she had yielded to his youthful enthusiasm for her after
her husband's death, he had only since learned that she was a
natural conservator of public morals--the cold purity of the
snowdrift in so far as the world might see, combined at times
with the murky mood of the wanton. And yet, as he had also
learned, she was ashamed of the passion that at times swept and
dominated her. This irritated Cowperwood, as it would always
irritate any strong, acquisitive, direct-seeing temperament.
While he had no desire to acquaint the whole world with his
feelings, why should there be concealment between them, or at
least mental evasion of a fact which physically she subscribed
to? Why do one thing and think another? To be sure, she was devoted
to him in her quiet way, not passionately (as he looked back he
could not say that she had ever been that), but intellectually.
Duty, as she understood it, played a great part in this. She was
dutiful. And then what people thought, what the time-spirit
demanded--these were the great things. Aileen, on the contrary,
was probably not dutiful, and it was obvious that she had no
temperamental connection with current convention. No doubt she
had been as well instructed as many another girl, but look at her.
She was not obeying her instructions.
In the next three months this relationship took on a more flagrant
form. Aileen, knowing full well what her parents would think, how
unspeakable in the mind of the current world were the thoughts
she was thinking, persisted, nevertheless, in so thinking and
longing. Cowperwood, now that she had gone thus far and compromised
herself in intention, if not in deed, took on a peculiar charm for
her. It was not his body--great passion is never that, exactly.
The flavor of his spirit was what attracted and compelled, like the
glow of a flame to a moth. There was a light of romance in his
eyes, which, however governed and controlled--was directive and
almost all-powerful to her.
When he touched her hand at parting, it was as though she had
received an electric shock, and she recalled that it was very
difficult for her to look directly into his eyes. Something akin
to a destructive force seemed to issue from them at times. Other
people, men particularly, found it difficult to face Cowperwood's
glazed stare. It was as though there were another pair of eyes
behind those they saw, watching through thin, obscuring curtains.
You could not tell what he was thinking.
And during the next few months she found herself coming closer
and closer to Cowperwood. At his home one evening, seated at the
piano, no one else being present at the moment, he leaned over and
kissed her. There was a cold, snowy street visible through the
interstices of the hangings of the windows, and gas-lamps flickering
outside. He had come in early, and hearing Aileen, he came to where
she was seated at the piano. She was wearing a rough, gray wool
cloth dress, ornately banded with fringed Oriental embroidery in
blue and burnt-orange, and her beauty was further enhanced by a gray
hat planned to match her dress, with a plume of shaded orange and
blue. On her fingers were four or five rings, far too many--an opal,
an emerald, a ruby, and a diamond--flashing visibly as she played.
She knew it was he, without turning. He came beside her, and she
looked up smiling, the reverie evoked by Schubert partly vanishing--
or melting into another mood. Suddenly he bent over and pressed
his lips firmly to hers. His mustache thrilled her with its silky
touch. She stopped playing and tried to catch her breath, for,
strong as she was, it affected her breathing. Her heart was beating
like a triphammer. She did not say, "Oh," or, "You mustn't," but
rose and walked over to a window, where she lifted a curtain,
pretending to look out. She felt as though she might faint, so
intensely happy was she.
Cowperwood followed her quickly. Slipping his arms about her
waist, he looked at her flushed cheeks, her clear, moist eyes and
red mouth.
"You love me?" he whispered, stern and compelling because of his
desire.
"Yes! Yes! You know I do."
He crushed her face to his, and she put up her hands and stroked
his hair.
A thrilling sense of possession, mastery, happiness and understanding,
love of her and of her body, suddenly overwhelmed him.
"I love you," he said, as though he were surprised to hear himself
say it. "I didn't think I did, but I do. You're beautiful. I'm
wild about you."
"And I love you" she answered. "I can't help it. I know I shouldn't,
but--oh--" Her hands closed tight over his ears and temples. She
put her lips to his and dreamed into his eyes. Then she stepped
away quickly, looking out into the street, and he walked back into
the living-room. They were quite alone. He was debating whether
he should risk anything further when Norah, having been in to see
Anna next door, appeared and not long afterward Mrs. Cowperwood.
Then Aileen and Norah left. _