It was previous to a reception given by the Union League that the first real blow was struck at him personally, and that in a roundabout way.
Addison, talking to him at the Lake National Bank one morning, had said quite confidentially, and out of a clear sky:
"I want to tell you something, Cowperwood. You know by now something about Chicago society. You also know where I stand in regard to some things 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 sc.r.a.pe an acquaintance with--pa.s.sing 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 with her 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 quant.i.ty, but he was now to contrast her sharply with the best of what the Old World had to offer in the matter of femininity, for following their social expulsion in Chicago and his financial victory, he once more decided to go abroad. In Rome, at the j.a.panese and Brazilian emba.s.sies (where, because of his wealth, he gained introduction), and at the newly established Italian Court, he encountered at a distance charming social figures of considerable significance--Italian countesses, English ladies of high degree, talented American women of strong artistic and social proclivities. As a rule they were quick to recognize the charm of his manner, the incisiveness and grip of his mind, and to estimate at all its worth the high individuality of his soul; but he could also always see that Aileen was not so acceptable.
She was too rich in her entourage, too showy. Her glowing health and beauty was a species of affront to the paler, more sublimated souls of many who were not in themselves unattractive.
"Isn"t that the typical American for you," he heard a woman remark, at one of those large, very general court receptions to which so many are freely admitted, and to which Aileen had been determined to go. He was standing aside talking to an acquaintance he had made--an English-speaking Greek banker stopping at the Grand Hotel--while Aileen promenaded with the banker"s wife. The speaker was an Englishwoman.
"So gaudy, so self-conscious, and so naive!"
Cowperwood turned to look. It was Aileen, and the lady speaking was undoubtedly well bred, thoughtful, good-looking. He had to admit that much that she said was true, but how were you to gage a woman like Aileen, anyhow? She was not reprehensible in any way--just a full-blooded animal glowing with a love of life. She was attractive to him. It was too bad that people of obviously more conservative tendencies were so opposed to her. Why could they not see what he saw--a kind of childish enthusiasm for luxury and show which sprang, perhaps, from the fact that in her youth she had not enjoyed the social opportunities which she needed and longed for. He felt sorry for her.
At the same time he was inclined to feel that perhaps now another type of woman would be better for him socially. If he had a harder type, one with keener artistic perceptions and a penchant for just the right social touch or note, how much better he would do! He came home bringing a Perugino, brilliant examples of Luini, Previtali, and Pinturrichio (this last a portrait of Caesar Borgia), which he picked up in Italy, to say nothing of two red African vases of great size that he found in Cairo, a tall gilt Louis Fifteenth standard of carved wood that he discovered in Rome, two ornate candelabra from Venice for his walls, and a pair of Italian torcheras from Naples to decorate the corners of his library. It was thus by degrees that his art collection was growing.
At the same time it should be said, in the matter of women and the s.e.x question, his judgment and views had begun to change tremendously. When he had first met Aileen he had many keen intuitions regarding life and s.e.x, and above all clear faith that he had a right to do as he pleased.
Since he had been out of prison and once more on his upward way there had been many a stray glance cast in his direction; he had so often had it clearly forced upon him that he was fascinating to women. Although he had only so recently acquired Aileen legally, yet she was years old to him as a mistress, and the first engrossing--it had been almost all-engrossing--enthusiasm was over. He loved her not only for her beauty, but for her faithful enthusiasm; but the power of others to provoke in him a momentary interest, and pa.s.sion even, was something which he did not pretend to understand, explain, or moralize about. So it was and so he was. He did not want to hurt Aileen"s feelings by letting her know that his impulses thus wantonly strayed to others, but so it was.
Not long after he had returned from the European trip he stopped one afternoon in the one exclusive drygoods store in State Street to purchase a tie. As he was entering a woman crossed the aisle before him, from one counter to another--a type of woman which he was coming to admire, but only from a rather distant point of view, seeing them going here and there in the world. She was a dashing type, essentially smart and trig, with a neat figure, dark hair and eyes, an olive skin, small mouth, quaint nose--all in all quite a figure for Chicago at the time. She had, furthermore, a curious look of current wisdom in her eyes, an air of saucy insolence which aroused Cowperwood"s sense of mastery, his desire to dominate. To the look of provocation and defiance which she flung him for the fraction of a second he returned a curiously leonine glare which went over her like a dash of cold water.
It was not a hard look, however, merely urgent and full of meaning.
She was the vagrom-minded wife of a prosperous lawyer who was absorbed in his business and in himself. She pretended indifference for a moment after the first glance, but paused a little way off as if to examine some laces. Cowperwood looked after her to catch a second fleeting, attracted look. He was on his way to several engagements which he did not wish to break, but he took out a note-book, wrote on a slip of paper the name of a hotel, and underneath: "Parlor, second floor, Tuesday, 1 P.M." Pa.s.sing by where she stood, he put it into her gloved hand, which was hanging by her side. The fingers closed over it automatically. She had noted his action. On the day and hour suggested she was there, although he had given no name. That liaison, while delightful to him, was of no great duration. The lady was interesting, but too fanciful.
Similarly, at the Henry Huddlestones", one of their neighbors at the first Michigan Avenue house they occupied, he encountered one evening at a small dinner-party a girl of twenty-three who interested him greatly--for the moment. Her name was not very attractive--Ella F.
Hubby, as he eventually learned--but she was not unpleasing. Her princ.i.p.al charm was a laughing, hoydenish countenance and roguish eyes.
She was the daughter of a well-to-do commission merchant in South Water Street. That her interest should have been aroused by that of Cowperwood in her was natural enough. She was young, foolish, impressionable, easily struck by the glitter of a reputation, and Mrs.
Huddlestone had spoken highly of Cowperwood and his wife and the great things he was doing or was going to do. When Ella saw him, and saw that he was still young-looking, with the love of beauty in his eyes and a force of presence which was not at all hard where she was concerned, she was charmed; and when Aileen was not looking her glance kept constantly wandering to his with a laughing signification of friendship and admiration. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to say to her, when they had adjourned to the drawing-room, that if she were in the neighborhood of his office some day she might care to look in on him. The look he gave her was one of keen understanding, and brought a look of its own kind, warm and flushing, in return. She came, and there began a rather short liaison. It was interesting but not brilliant. The girl did not have sufficient temperament to bind him beyond a period of rather idle investigation.
There was still, for a little while, another woman, whom he had known--a Mrs. Josephine Ledwell, a smart widow, who came primarily to gamble on the Board of Trade, but who began to see at once, on introduction, the charm of a flirtation with Cowperwood. She was a woman not unlike Aileen in type, a little older, not so good-looking, and of a harder, more subtle commercial type of mind. She rather interested Cowperwood because she was so trig, self-sufficient, and careful. She did her best to lure him on to a liaison with her, which finally resulted, her apartment on the North Side being the center of this relationship. It lasted perhaps six weeks. Through it all he was quite satisfied that he did not like her so very well. Any one who a.s.sociated with him had Aileen"s present attractiveness to contend with, as well as the original charm of his first wife. It was no easy matter.
It was during this period of social dullness, however, which somewhat resembled, though it did not exactly parallel his first years with his first wife, that Cowperwood finally met a woman who was destined to leave a marked impression on his life. He could not soon forget her.
Her name was Rita Sohlberg. She was the wife of Harold Sohlberg, a Danish violinist who was then living in Chicago, a very young man; but she was not a Dane, and he was by no means a remarkable violinist, though he had unquestionably the musical temperament.
You have perhaps seen the would-be"s, the nearly"s, the pretenders in every field--interesting people all--devoted with a kind of mad enthusiasm to the thing they wish to do. They manifest in some ways all the externals or earmarks of their professional traditions, and yet are as sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals. You would have had to know Harold Sohlberg only a little while to appreciate that he belonged to this order of artists. He had a wild, stormy, November eye, a wealth of loose, brownish-black hair combed upward from the temples, with one lock straggling Napoleonically down toward the eyes; cheeks that had almost a babyish tint to them; lips much too rich, red, and sensuous; a nose that was fine and large and full, but only faintly aquiline; and eyebrows and mustache that somehow seemed to flare quite like his errant and foolish soul. He had been sent away from Denmark (Copenhagen) because he had been a never-do-well up to twenty-five and because he was constantly falling in love with women who would not have anything to do with him. Here in Chicago as a teacher, with his small pension of forty dollars a month sent him by his mother, he had gained a few pupils, and by practising a kind of erratic economy, which kept him well dressed or hungry by turns, he had managed to make an interesting showing and pull himself through. He was only twenty-eight at the time he met Rita Greenough, of Wichita, Kansas, and at the time they met Cowperwood Harold was thirty-four and she twenty-seven.
She had been a student at the Chicago Fine Arts School, and at various student affairs had encountered Harold when he seemed to play divinely, and when life was all romance and art. Given the spring, the sunshine on the lake, white sails of ships, a few walks and talks on pensive afternoons when the city swam in a golden haze, and the thing was done.
There was a sudden Sat.u.r.day afternoon marriage, a runaway day to Milwaukee, a return to the studio now to be fitted out for two, and then kisses, kisses, kisses until love was satisfied or eased.
But life cannot exist on that diet alone, and so by degrees the difficulties had begun to manifest themselves. Fortunately, the latter were not allied with sharp financial want. Rita was not poor. Her father conducted a small but profitable grain elevator at Wichita, and, after her sudden marriage, decided to continue her allowance, though this whole idea of art and music in its upper reaches was to him a strange, far-off, uncertain thing. A thin, meticulous, genial person interested in small trade opportunities, and exactly suited to the rather spa.r.s.e social life of Wichita, he found Harold as curious as a bomb, and preferred to handle him gingerly. Gradually, however, being a very human if simple person, he came to be very proud of it--boasted in Wichita of Rita and her artist husband, invited them home to astound the neighbors during the summer-time, and the fall brought his almost farmer-like wife on to see them and to enjoy trips, sight-seeing, studio teas. It was amusing, typically American, naive, almost impossible from many points of view.
Rita Sohlberg was of the semi-phlegmatic type, soft, full-blooded, with a body that was going to be fat at forty, but which at present was deliciously alluring. Having soft, silky, light-brown hair, the color of light dust, and moist gray-blue eyes, with a fair skin and even, white teeth, she was flatteringly self-conscious of her charms. She pretended in a gay, childlike way to be unconscious of the thrill she sent through many susceptible males, and yet she knew well enough all the while what she was doing and how she was doing it; it pleased her so to do. She was conscious of the wonder of her smooth, soft arms and neck, the fullness and seductiveness of her body, the grace and perfection of her clothing, or, at least, the individuality and taste which she made them indicate. She could take an old straw-hat form, a ribbon, a feather, or a rose, and with an innate artistry of feeling turn it into a bit of millinery which somehow was just the effective thing for her. She chose naive combinations of white and blues, pinks and white, browns and pale yellows, which somehow suggested her own soul, and topped them with great sashes of silky brown (or even red) ribbon tied about her waist, and large, soft-brimmed, face-haloing hats. She was a graceful dancer, could sing a little, could play feelingly--sometimes brilliantly--and could draw. Her art was a makeshift, however; she was no artist. The most significant thing about her was her moods and her thoughts, which were uncertain, casual, anarchic. Rita Sohlberg, from the conventional point of view, was a dangerous person, and yet from her own point of view at this time she was not so at all--just dreamy and sweet.
A part of the peculiarity of her state was that Sohlberg had begun to disappoint Rita--sorely. Truth to tell, he was suffering from that most terrible of all maladies, uncertainty of soul and inability to truly find himself. At times he was not sure whether he was cut out to be a great violinist or a great composer, or merely a great teacher, which last he was never willing really to admit. "I am an arteest," he was fond of saying. "Ho, how I suffer from my temperament!" And again: "These dogs! These cows! These pigs!" This of other people. The quality of his playing was exceedingly erratic, even though at times it attained to a kind of subtlety, tenderness, awareness, and charm which brought him some attention. As a rule, however, it reflected the chaotic state of his own brain. He would play violently, feverishly, with a wild pa.s.sionateness of gesture which robbed him of all ability to control his own technic.
"Oh, Harold!" Rita used to exclaim at first, ecstatically. Later she was not so sure.
Life and character must really get somewhere to be admirable, and Harold, really and truly, did not seem to be getting anywhere. He taught, stormed, dreamed, wept; but he ate his three meals a day, Rita noticed, and he took an excited interest at times in other women. To be the be-all and end-all of some one man"s life was the least that Rita could conceive or concede as the worth of her personality, and so, as the years went on and Harold began to be unfaithful, first in moods, transports, then in deeds, her mood became dangerous. She counted them up--a girl music pupil, then an art student, then the wife of a banker at whose house Harold played socially. There followed strange, sullen moods on the part of Rita, visits home, groveling repentances on the part of Harold, tears, violent, pa.s.sionate reunions, and then the same thing over again. What would you?
Rita was not jealous of Harold any more; she had lost faith in his ability as a musician. But she was disappointed that her charms were not sufficient to blind him to all others. That was the fly in the ointment. It was an affront to her beauty, and she was still beautiful. She was unctuously full-bodied, not quite so tall as Aileen, not really as large, but rounder and plumper, softer and more seductive. Physically she was not well set up, so vigorous; but her eyes and mouth and the roving character of her mind held a strange lure. Mentally she was much more aware than Aileen, much more precise in her knowledge of art, music, literature, and current events; and in the field of romance she was much more vague and alluring. She knew many things about flowers, precious stones, insects, birds, characters in fiction, and poetic prose and verse generally.
At the time the Cowperwoods first met the Sohlbergs the latter still had their studio in the New Arts Building, and all was seemingly as serene as a May morning, only Harold was not getting along very well.
He was drifting. The meeting was at a tea given by the Haatstaedts, with whom the Cowperwoods were still friendly, and Harold played.
Aileen, who was there alone, seeing a chance to brighten her own life a little, invited the Sohlbergs, who seemed rather above the average, to her house to a musical evening. They came.
On this occasion Cowperwood took one look at Sohlberg and placed him exactly. "An erratic, emotional temperament," he thought. "Probably not able to place himself for want of consistency and application." But he liked him after a fashion. Sohlberg was interesting as an artistic type or figure--quite like a character in a j.a.panese print might be.