you told me about your past when I first met you. Well, there’s a lot of talk going around about you now in regard to all that, and these two clubs to which you and I belong are filled with a lot of two-faced, double-breasted hypocrites who’ve been stirred up by this talk of conspiracy in the papers. There are four or five stockholders of the old companies who are members, and they are trying to drive you out. They’ve looked up that story you told me, and they’re talking about filing charges with the house committees at both places. Now, nothing can come of it in either case — they’ve been talking to me; but when this next reception comes along you’ll know what to do. They’ll have to extend you an invitation; but they won’t mean it.” (Cowperwood understood.) “This whole thing is certain to blow over, in my judgment; it will if I have anything to do with it; but for the present —”
He stared at Cowperwood in a friendly way.
The latter smiled. “I expected something like this, Judah, to tell you the truth,” he said, easily. “I’ve expected it all along. You needn’t worry about me. I know all about this. I’ve seen which way the wind is blowing, and I know how to trim my sails.”
Addison reached out and took his hand. “But don’t resign, whatever you do,” he said, cautiously. “That would be a confession of weakness, and they don’t expect you to. I wouldn’t want you to. Stand your ground. This whole thing will blow over. They’re jealous, I think.”
“I never intended to,” replied Cowperwood. “There’s no legitimate charge against me. I know it will all blow over if I’m given time enough.” Nevertheless he was chagrined to think that he should be subjected to such a conversation as this with any one.
Similarly in other ways “society”— so called — was quite able to enforce its mandates and conclusions.
The one thing that Cowperwood most resented, when he learned of it much later, was a snub direct given to Aileen at the door of the Norrie Simmses’; she called there only to be told that Mrs. Simms was not at home, although the carriages of others were in the street. A few days afterward Aileen, much to his regret and astonishment — for he did not then know the cause — actually became ill.
If it had not been for Cowperwood’s eventual financial triumph over all opposition — the complete routing of the enemy — in the struggle for control in the gas situation — the situation would have been hard, indeed. As it was, Aileen suffered bitterly; she felt that the slight was principally directed at her, and would remain in force. In the privacy of their own home they were compelled eventually to admit, the one to the other, that their house of cards, resplendent and forceful looking as it was, had fallen to the ground. Personal confidences between people so closely united are really the most trying of all. Human souls are constantly trying to find each other, and rarely succeeding.
“You know,” he finally said to her once, when he came in rather unexpectedly and found her sick in bed, her eyes wet, and her maid dismissed for the day, “I understand what this is all about. To tell you the truth, Aileen, I rather expected it. We have been going too fast, you and I. We have been pushing this matter too hard. Now, I don’t like to see you taking it this way, dear. This battle isn’t lost. Why, I thought you had more courage than this. Let me tell you something which you don’t seem to remember. Money will solve all this sometime. I’m winning in this fight right now, and I’ll win in others. They are coming to me. Why, dearie, you oughtn’t to despair. You’re too young. I never do. You’ll win yet. We can adjust this matter right here in Chicago, and when we do we will pay up a lot of scores at the same time. We’re rich, and we’re going to be richer. That will settle it. Now put on a good face and look pleased; there are plenty of things to live for in this world besides society. Get up now and dress, and we’ll go for a drive and dinner down-town. You have me yet. Isn’t that something?”
“Oh yes,” sighed Aileen, heavily; but she sank back again. She put her arms about his neck and cried, as much out of joy over the consolation he offered as over the loss she had endured. “It was as much for you as for me,” she sighed.
“I know that,” he soothed; “but don’t worry about it now. You will come out all right. We both will. Come, get up.” Nevertheless, he was sorry to see her yield so weakly. It did not please him. He resolved some day to have a grim adjustment with society on this score. Meanwhile Aileen was recovering her spirits. She was ashamed of her weakness when she saw how forcefully he faced it all.
“Oh, Frank,” she exclaimed, finally, “you’re always so wonderful. You’re such a darling.”
“Never mind,” he said, cheerfully. “If we don’t win this game here in Chicago, we will somewhere.”
He was thinking of the brilliant manner in which he had adjusted his affairs with the old gas companies and Mr. Schryhart, and how thoroughly he would handle some other matters when the time came.
Chapter XIV
Undercurrents
It was during the year that followed their social repudiation, and the next and the next, that Cowperwood achieved a keen realization of what it would mean to spend the rest of his days in social isolation, or at least confined in his sources of entertainment to a circle or element which constantly reminded him of the fact that he was not identified with the best, or, at least, not the most significant, however dull that might be. When he had first attempted to introduce Aileen into society it was his idea that, however tame they might chance to find it to begin with, they themselves, once admitted, could make it into something very interesting and even brilliant. Since the time the Cowperwoods had been repudiated, however, they had found it necessary, if they wished any social diversion at all, to fall back upon such various minor elements as they could scrape an acquaintance with — passing actors and actresses, to whom occasionally they could give a dinner; artists and singers whom they could invite to the house upon gaining an introduction; and, of course, a number of the socially unimportant, such as the Haatstaedts, Hoecksemas, Videras, Baileys, and others still friendly and willing to come in a casual way. Cowperwood found it interesting from time to time to invite a business friend, a lover of pictures, or some young artist to the house to dinner or for the evening, and on these occasions Aileen was always present. The Addisons called or invited them occasionally. But it was a dull game, the more so since their complete defeat was thus all the more plainly indicated.
This defeat, as Cowperwood kept reflecting, was really not his fault at all. He had been getting along well enough personally. If Aileen had only been a somewhat different type of woman! Nevertheless, he was in no way prepared to desert or reproach her. She had clung to him through his stormy prison days. She had encouraged him when he needed encouragement. He would stand by her and see what could be done a little later; but this ostracism was a rather dreary thing to endure. Besides, personally, he appeared to be becoming more and more interesting to men and to women. The men friends he had made he retained — Addison, Bailey, Videra, McKibben, Rambaud, and others. There were women in society, a number of them, who regretted his disappearance if not that of Aileen. Occasionally the experiment would be tried of inviting him without his wife. At first he refused invariably; later he went alone occasionally to a dinner-party without her knowledge.
It was during this interregnum that Cowperwood for the first time clearly began to get the idea that there was a marked difference between him and Aileen intellectually and spiritually; and that while he might be in accord withher in many ways — emotionally, physically, idyllicly — there were, nevertheless, many things which he could do alone which she could not do — heights to which he could rise where she could not possibly follow. Chicago society might be a negligible quantity,
