"It's not a very long story I have to tell you, Mr. Cowperwood," said the doctor. "Our astronomical work is handicapped just now by the simple fact that we have no lens at all, no telescope worthy of the name. I should like to see the University do original work in this field, and do it in a great way. The only way to do it, in my judgment, is to do it better than any one else can. Don't you agree with me?" He showed a row of shining white teeth.

Cowperwood smiled urbanely.

"Will a forty-thousand-dollar lens be a better lens than any other lens?" he inquired.

"Made by Appleman Brothers, of Dorchester, it will," replied the college president. "The whole story is here, Mr. Cowperwood. These men are practical lens-makers. A great lens, in the first place, is a matter of finding a suitable crystal. Large and flawless crystals are not common, as you may possibly know. Such a crystal has recently been found, and is now owned by Mr. Appleman. It takes about four or five years to grind and polish it. Most of the polishing, as you may or may not know, is done by the hand—smoothing it with the thumb and forefinger. The time, judgment, and skill of an optical expert is required. To-day, unfortunately, that is not cheap. The laborer is worthy of his hire, however, I suppose"—he waved a soft, full, white hand—"and forty thousand is little enough. It would be a great honor if the University could have the largest, most serviceable, and most perfect lens in the world. It would reflect great credit, I take it, on the men who would make this possible."

Cowperwood liked the man's artistically educational air; obviously here was a personage of ability, brains, emotion, and scientific enthusiasm. It was splendid to him to see any strong man in earnest, for himself or others.

"And forty thousand will do this?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. Forty thousand will guarantee us the lens, anyhow."

"And how about land, buildings, a telescope frame? Have you all those things prepared for it?"

"Not as yet, but, since it takes four years at least to grind the lens, there will be time enough, when the lens is nearing completion, to look after the accessories. We have picked our site, however—Lake Geneva—and we would not refuse either land or accessories if we knew where to get them."

Again the even, shining teeth, the keen eyes boring through the glasses.

Cowperwood saw a great opportunity. He asked what would be the cost of the entire project. Dr. Hooper presumed that three hundred thousand would do it all handsomely—lens, telescope, land, machinery, building—a great monument.

"And how much have you guaranteed on the cost of your lens?" "Sixteen thousand dollars, so far."

"To be paid when?"

"In instalments—ten thousand a year for four years. Just enough to keep the lens-maker busy for the present."

Cowperwood reflected. Ten thousand a year for four years would be a mere salary item, and at the end of that time he felt sure that he could supply the remainder of the money quite easily. He would be so much richer; his plans would be so much more mature. On such a repute (the ability to give a three-hundred-thousand-dollar telescope out of hand to be known as the Cowperwood telescope) he could undoubtedly raise money in London, New York, and elsewhere for his Chicago enterprise. The whole world would know him in a day. He paused, his enigmatic eyes revealing nothing of the splendid vision that danced before them. At last! At last!

"How would it do, Mr. Hooper," he said, sweetly, "if, instead of ten men giving you four thousand each, as you plan, one man were to give you forty thousand in annual instalments of ten thousand each? Could that be arranged as well?"

"My dear Mr. Cowperwood," exclaimed the doctor, glowing, his eyes alight, "do I understand that you personally might wish to give the money for this lens?"

"I might, yes. But I should have to exact one pledge, Mr. Hooper, if I did any such thing."

"And what would that be?"

"The privilege of giving the land and the building—the whole telescope, in fact. I presume no word of this will be given out unless the matter is favorably acted upon?" he added, cautiously and diplomatically.

The new president of the university arose and eyed him with a peculiarly approbative and grateful gaze. He was a busy, overworked man. His task was large. Any burden taken from his shoulders in this fashion was a great relief.

"My answer to that, Mr. Cowperwood, if I had the authority, would be to agree now in the name of the University, and thank you. For form's sake, I must submit the matter to the trustees of the University, but I have no doubt as to the outcome. I anticipate nothing but grateful approbation. Let me thank you again."

They shook hands warmly, and the solid collegian bustled forth. Cowperwood sank quietly in his chair. He pressed his fingers together, and for a moment or two permitted himself to dream. Then he called a stenographer and began a bit of dictation. He did not care to think even to himself how universally advantageous all this might yet prove to be.

The result was that in the course of a few weeks the proffer was formally accepted by the trustees of the University, and a report of the matter, with Cowperwood's formal consent, was given out for publication. The fortuitous combination of circumstances already described gave the matter a unique news value. Giant reflectors and refractors had been given and were in use in other parts of the world, but none so large or so important as this. The gift was sufficient to set Cowperwood forth in the light of a public benefactor and patron of science. Not only in Chicago, but in London, Paris, and New York, wherever, indeed, in the great capitals scientific and intellectual men were gathered, this significant gift of an apparently fabulously rich American became the subject of excited discussion. Banking men, among others, took sharp note of the donor, and when Cowperwood's emissaries came around later with a suggestion that the fifty-year franchises about to be voted him for elevated roads should be made a basis of bond and mortgage loans, they were courteously received. A man who could give three-hundred-thousand-dollar telescopes in the hour of his greatest difficulties must be in a rather satisfactory financial condition. He must have great wealth in reserve. After some preliminaries, during which Cowperwood paid a flying visit to Threadneedle Street in London, and to Wall Street in New York, an arrangement was made with an English-American banking company by which the majority of the bonds for his proposed roads were taken over by them for sale in Europe and elsewhere, and he was given ample means wherewith to proceed. Instantly the stocks of his surface lines bounded in price, and those who had been scheming to bring about Cowperwood's downfall gnashed impotent teeth. Even Haeckelheimer & Co. were interested.

Anson Merrill, who had only a few weeks before given a large field for athletic purposes to the University, pulled a wry face over this sudden eclipse of his glory. Hosmer Hand, who had given a chemical laboratory, and Schryhart, who had presented a dormitory, were depressed to think that a benefaction less costly than theirs should create, because of the distinction of the idea, so much more notable comment. It was merely another example of the brilliant fortune which seemed to pursue the man, the star that set all their plans at defiance.



Chapter XLIV

A Franchise Obtained

The money requisite for the construction of elevated roads having been thus pyrotechnically obtained, the acquisition of franchises remained no easy matter. It involved, among other problems, the taming of Chaffee Thayer Sluss, who, quite unconscious of the evidence stored up against him, had begun to fulminate the moment it was suggested in various secret political quarters that a new ordinance was about to be introduced, and that Cowperwood was to be the beneficiary. "Don't you let them do that, Mr. Sluss," observed Mr. Hand, who for purposes of conference had courteously but firmly bidden his hireling, the mayor, to lunch. "Don't you let them pass that if you can help it." (As chairman or president of the city council Mr. Sluss held considerable manipulative power over the machinery of procedure.) "Raise such a row that they won't try to pass it over your head. Your political future really depends on it—your standing with the people of Chicago. The newspapers and the respectable financial and social elements will fully support you in this. Otherwise they will wholly desert you. Things have come to a handsome pass when men sworn and elected to perform given services turn on their backers and betray them in this way!"

Mr. Hand was very wroth.

Mr. Sluss, immaculate in black broadcloth and white linen, was very sure that he would fulfil to the letter all of Mr. Hand's suggestions. The proposed ordinance should be denounced by him; its legislative progress heartily opposed in council.

"They shall get no quarter from me!" he declared, emphatically. "I know what the scheme is. They know that I know it."

He looked at Mr. Hand quite as one advocate of righteousness should look at another, and the rich promoter went away satisfied that the reins of government were in safe hands. Immediately afterward Mr. Sluss gave out an interview in which he served warning on all aldermen and councilmen that no such ordinance as the one in question would ever be signed by him as mayor.

At half past ten on the same morning on which the interview appeared—the hour at which Mr. Sluss usually reached his office—his private telephone bell rang, and an assistant inquired if he would be willing to speak with Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood. Mr. Sluss, somehow anticipating fresh laurels of victory, gratified by the front-page display given his announcement in the morning papers, and swelling internally with civic pride, announced, solemnly: "Yes; connect me."

"Mr. Sluss," began Cowperwood, at the other end, "this is Frank A. Cowperwood."

"Yes. What can I do for you, Mr. Cowperwood?"

"I see by the morning papers that you state that you will have nothing to do with any proposed ordinance which looks to giving me a franchise for any elevated road on the North or West Side?"

"That is quite true," replied Mr. Sluss, loftily. "I will not."

"Don't you think it is rather premature, Mr. Sluss, to denounce something which has only a rumored existence?" (Cowperwood, smiling sweetly to himself, was quite like a cat playing with an unsuspicious mouse.) "I should like very much to talk this whole matter over with you personally before you take an irrevocable attitude. It is just possible that after you have heard my side you may not be so completely opposed to me. From time to time I have sent to you several of my personal friends, but apparently you do not care to receive them."

"Quite true," replied Mr. Sluss, loftily; "but you must remember that I am a very busy man, Mr. Cowperwood, and, besides, I do not see how I can serve any of your purposes. You are working for a set of conditions to which I am morally and temperamentally opposed. I am working for another. I do not see that we have any common ground on which to meet. In fact, I do not see how I can be of any service to you whatsoever."

"Just a moment, please, Mr. Mayor," replied Cowperwood, still very sweetly, and fearing that Sluss might choose to hang up the receiver, so superior was his tone. "There may be some common ground of which you do not know. Wouldn't you like to come to lunch at my residence or receive me at yours? Or let me come to your office and talk this matter over. I believe you will find it the part of wisdom as well as of courtesy to do this."

"I cannot possibly lunch with you to-day," replied Sluss, "and I cannot see you, either. There are a number of things pressing for my attention. I must say also that I cannot hold any back-room conferences with you or your emissaries. If you come you must submit to the presence of others."

"Very well, Mr. Sluss," replied Cowperwood, cheerfully. "I will not come to your office. But unless you come to mine before five o'clock this afternoon you will face by noon to-morrow a suit for breach of promise, and your letters to Mrs. Brandon will be given to the public. I wish to remind you that an election is coming on, and that Chicago favors a mayor who is privately moral as well as publicly so. Good morning."

Mr. Cowperwood hung up his telephone receiver with a click, and Mr. Sluss sensibly and visibly stiffened and paled. Mrs. Brandon! The charming, lovable, discreet Mrs. Brandon who had so ungenerously left him! Why should she be thinking of suing him for breach of promise, and how did his letter to her come to be in Cowperwood's hands? Good heavens—those mushy letters! His wife! His children! His church and the owlish pastor thereof! Chicago! And its conventional, moral, religious atmosphere! Come to think of it, Mrs. Brandon had scarcely if ever written him a note of any kind. He did not even know her history.

At the thought of Mrs. Sluss—her hard, cold, blue eyes—Mr. Sluss arose, tall and distrait, and ran his hand through his hair. He walked to the window, snapping his thumb and middle finger and looking eagerly at the floor. He thought of the telephone switchboard just outside his private office, and wondered whether his secretary, a handsome young Presbyterian girl, had been listening, as usual. Oh, this sad, sad world! If the North Side ever learned of this—Hand, the newspapers, young MacDonald—would they protect him? They would not. Would they run him for mayor again? Never! Could the public be induced to vote for him with all the churches fulminating against private immorality, hypocrites, and whited sepulchers? Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! And he was so very, very much respected and looked up to—that was the worst of it all. This terrible demon Cowperwood had descended on him, and he had thought himself so secure. He had not even been civil to Cowperwood. What if the latter chose to avenge the discourtesy?

Mr. Sluss went back to his chair, but he could not sit in it. He went for his coat, took it down, hung it up again, took it down, announced over the 'phone that he could not see any one for several hours, and went out by a private door. Wearily he walked along North Clark Street, looking at the hurly-burly of traffic, looking at the dirty, crowded river, looking at the sky and smoke and gray buildings, and wondering what he should do. The world was so hard at times; it was so cruel. His wife, his family, his political career. He could not conscientiously sign any ordinances for Mr. Cowperwood—that would be immoral, dishonest, a scandal to the city. Mr. Cowperwood was a notorious traitor to the public welfare. At the same time he could not very well refuse, for here was Mrs. Brandon, the charming and unscrupulous creature, playing into the hands of Cowperwood. If he could only meet her, beg of her, plead; but where was she? He had not seen her for months and months. Could he go to Hand and confess all? But Hand was a hard, cold, moral man also. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! He wondered and thought, and sighed and pondered—all without avail.

Pity the poor earthling caught in the toils of the moral law. In another country, perhaps, in another day, another age, such a situation would have been capable of a solution, one not utterly destructive to Mr. Sluss, and not entirely favorable to a man like Cowperwood. But here in the United States, here in Chicago, the ethical verities would all, as he knew, be lined up against him. What Lake View would think, what his pastor would think, what Hand and all his moral associates would think—ah, these were the terrible, the incontrovertible consequences of his lapse from virtue.

At four o'clock, after Mr. Sluss had wandered for hours in the snow and cold, belaboring himself for a fool and a knave, and while Cowperwood was sitting at his desk signing papers, contemplating a glowing fire, and wondering whether the mayor would deem it advisable to put in an appearance, his office door opened and one of his trim stenographers entered announcing Mr. Chaffee Thayer Sluss. Enter Mayor Sluss, sad, heavy, subdued, shrunken, a very different gentleman from the one who had talked so cavalierly over the wires some five and a half hours before. Gray weather, severe cold, and much contemplation of seemingly irreconcilable facts had reduced his spirits greatly. He was a little pale and a little restless. Mental distress has a reducing, congealing effect, and Mayor Sluss seemed somewhat less than his usual self in height, weight, and thickness. Cowperwood had seen him more than once on various political platforms, but he had never met him. When the troubled mayor entered he arose courteously and waved him to a chair.

"Sit down, Mr. Sluss," he said, genially. "It's a disagreeable day out, isn't it? I suppose you have come in regard to the matter we were discussing this morning?"

Nor was this cordiality wholly assumed. One of the primal instincts of Cowperwood's nature—for all his chicane and subtlety—was to take no rough advantage of a beaten enemy. In the hour of victory he was always courteous, bland, gentle, and even sympathetic; he was so to-day, and quite honestly, too.

Mayor Sluss put down the high sugar-loaf hat he wore and said, grandiosely, as was his manner even in the direst extremity: "Well, you see, I am here, Mr. Cowperwood. What is it you wish me to do, exactly?"

"Nothing unreasonable, I assure you, Mr. Sluss," replied Cowperwood. "Your manner to me this morning was a little brusque, and, as I have always wanted to have a sensible private talk with you, I took this way of getting it. I should like you to dismiss from your mind at once the thought that I am going to take an unfair advantage of you in any way. I have no present intention of publishing your correspondence with Mrs. Brandon." (As he said this he took from his drawer a bundle of letters which Mayor Sluss recognized at once as the enthusiastic missives which he had sometime before penned to the fair Claudia. Mr. Sluss groaned as he beheld this incriminating evidence.) "I am not trying," continued Cowperwood, "to wreck your career, nor to make you do anything which you do not feel that you can conscientiously undertake. The letters that I have here, let me say, have come to me quite by accident. I did not seek them. But, since I do have them, I thought I might as well mention them as a basis for a possible talk and compromise between us."

Cowperwood did not smile. He merely looked thoughtfully at Sluss; then, by way of testifying to the truthfulness of what he had been saying, thumped the letters up and down, just to show that they were real.

"Yes," said Mr. Sluss, heavily, "I see."

He studied the bundle—a small, solid affair—while Cowperwood looked discreetly elsewhere. He contemplated his own shoes, the floor. He rubbed his hands and then his knees.

Cowperwood saw how completely he had collapsed. It was ridiculous, pitiable.

"Come, Mr. Sluss," said Cowperwood, amiably, "cheer up. Things are not nearly as desperate as you think. I give you my word right now that nothing which you yourself, on mature thought, could say was unfair will be done. You are the mayor of Chicago. I am a citizen. I merely wish fair play from you. I merely ask you to give me your word of honor that from now on you will take no part in this fight which is one of pure spite against me. If you cannot conscientiously aid me in what I consider to be a perfectly legitimate demand for additional franchises, you will, at least, not go out of your way to publicly attack me. I will put these letters in my safe, and there they will stay until the next campaign is over, when I will take them out and destroy them. I have no personal feeling against you—none in the world. I do not ask you to sign any ordinance which the council may pass giving me elevated-road rights. What I do wish you to do at this time is to refrain from stirring up public sentiment against me, especially if the council should see fit to pass an ordinance over your veto. Is that satisfactory?"

"But my friends? The public? The Republican party? Don't you see it is expected of me that I should wage some form of campaign against you?" queried Sluss, nervously.

"No, I don't," replied Cowperwood, succinctly, "and, anyhow, there are ways and ways of waging a public campaign. Go through the motions, if you wish, but don't put too much heart in it. And, anyhow, see some one of my lawyers from time to time when they call on you. Judge Dickensheets is an able and fair man. So is General Van Sickle. Why not confer with them occasionally?—not publicly, of course, but in some less conspicuous way. You will find both of them most helpful."

Cowperwood smiled encouragingly, quite beneficently, and Chaffee Thayer Sluss, his political hopes gone glimmering, sat and mused for a few moments in a sad and helpless quandary.

"Very well," he said, at last, rubbing his hands feverishly. "It is what I might have expected. I should have known. There is no other way, but—" Hardly able to repress the hot tears now burning beneath his eyelids, the Hon. Mr. Sluss picked up his hat and left the room. Needless to add that his preachings against Cowperwood were permanently silenced.



Chapter XLV

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.



Chapter XLVI

Depths and Heights

The complications which had followed his various sentimental affairs left Cowperwood in a quandary at times as to whether there could be any peace or satisfaction outside of monogamy, after all. Although Mrs. Hand had gone to Europe at the crisis of her affairs, she had returned to seek him out. Cecily Haguenin found many opportunities of writing him letters and assuring him of her undying affection. Florence Cochrane persisted in seeing or attempting to see him even after his interest in her began to wane. For another thing Aileen, owing to the complication and general degeneracy of her affairs, had recently begun to drink. Owing to the failure of her affair with Lynde—for in spite of her yielding she had never had any real heart interest in it—and to the cavalier attitude with which Cowperwood took her disloyalty, she had reached that state of speculative doldrums where the human animal turns upon itself in bitter self-analysis; the end with the more sensitive or the less durable is dissipation or even death. Woe to him who places his faith in illusion—the only reality—and woe to him who does not. In one way lies disillusion with its pain, in the other way regret.

After Lynde's departure for Europe, whither she had refused to follow him, Aileen took up with a secondary personage by the name of Watson Skeet, a sculptor. Unlike most artists, he was the solitary heir of the president of an immense furniture-manufacturing company in which he refused to take any interest. He had studied abroad, but had returned to Chicago with a view to propagating art in the West. A large, blond, soft-fleshed man, he had a kind of archaic naturalness and simplicity which appealed to Aileen. They had met at the Rhees Griers'. Feeling herself neglected after Lynde's departure, and dreading loneliness above all things, Aileen became intimate with Skeet, but to no intense mental satisfaction. That driving standard within—that obsessing ideal which requires that all things be measured by it—was still dominant. Who has not experienced the chilling memory of the better thing? How it creeps over the spirit of one's current dreams! Like the specter at the banquet it stands, its substanceless eyes viewing with a sad philosophy the makeshift feast. The what-might-have-been of her life with Cowperwood walked side by side with her wherever she went. Once occasionally indulging in cigarettes, she now smoked almost constantly. Once barely sipping at wines, cocktails, brandy-and-soda, she now took to the latter, or, rather, to a new whisky-and-soda combination known as "highball" with a kind of vehemence which had little to do with a taste for the thing itself. True, drinking is, after all, a state of mind, and not an appetite. She had found on a number of occasions when she had been quarreling with Lynde or was mentally depressed that in partaking of these drinks a sort of warm, speculative indifference seized upon her. She was no longer so sad. She might cry, but it was in a soft, rainy, relieving way. Her sorrows were as strange, enticing figures in dreams. They moved about and around her, not as things actually identical with her, but as ills which she could view at a distance. Sometimes both she and they (for she saw herself also as in a kind of mirage or inverted vision) seemed beings of another state, troubled, but not bitterly painful. The old nepenthe of the bottle had seized upon her. After a few accidental lapses, in which she found it acted as a solace or sedative, the highball visioned itself to her as a resource. Why should she not drink if it relieved her, as it actually did, of physical and mental pain? There were apparently no bad after-effects. The whisky involved was diluted to an almost watery state. It was her custom now when at home alone to go to the butler's pantry where the liquors were stored and prepare a drink for herself, or to order a tray with a siphon and bottle placed in her room. Cowperwood, noticing the persistence of its presence there and the fact that she drank heavily at table, commented upon it.

"You're not taking too much of that, are you, Aileen?" he questioned one evening, watching her drink down a tumbler of whisky and water as she sat contemplating a pattern of needlework with which the table was ornamented.

"Certainly I'm not," she replied, irritably, a little flushed and thick of tongue. "Why do you ask?" She herself had been wondering whether in the course of time it might not have a depreciating effect on her complexion. This was the only thing that still concerned her—her beauty.

"Well, I see you have that bottle in your room all the time. I was wondering if you might not be forgetting how much you are using it."

Because she was so sensitive he was trying to be tactful.

"Well," she answered, crossly, "what if I am? It wouldn't make any particular difference if I did. I might as well drink as do some other things that are done."

It was a kind of satisfaction to her to bait him in this way. His inquiry, being a proof of continued interest on his part, was of some value. At least he was not entirely indifferent to her.

"I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Aileen," he replied. "I have no objection to your drinking some. I don't suppose it makes any difference to you now whether I object or not. But you are too good-looking, too well set up physically, to begin that. You don't need it, and it's such a short road to hell. Your state isn't so bad. Good heavens! many another woman has been in your position. I'm not going to leave you unless you want to leave me. I've told you that over and over. I'm just sorry people change—we all do. I suppose I've changed some, but that's no reason for your letting yourself go to pieces. I wish you wouldn't be desperate about this business. It may come out better than you think in the long run."

He was merely talking to console her.

"Oh! oh! oh!" Aileen suddenly began to rock and cry in a foolish drunken way, as though her heart would break, and Cowperwood got up. He was horrified after a fashion.

"Oh, don't come near me!" Aileen suddenly exclaimed, sobering in an equally strange way. "I know why you come. I know how much you care about me or my looks. Don't you worry whether I drink or not. I'll drink if I please, or do anything else if I choose. If it helps me over my difficulties, that's my business, not yours," and in defiance she prepared another glass and drank it.

Cowperwood shook his head, looking at her steadily and sorrowfully. "It's too bad, Aileen," he said. "I don't know what to do about you exactly. You oughtn't to go on this way. Whisky won't get you anywhere. It will simply ruin your looks and make you miserable in the bargain."

"Oh, to hell with my looks!" she snapped. "A lot of good they've done me." And, feeling contentious and sad, she got up and left the table. Cowperwood followed her after a time, only to see her dabbing at her eyes and nose with powder. A half-filled glass of whisky and water was on the dressing-table beside her. It gave him a strange feeling of responsibility and helplessness.

Mingled with his anxiety as to Aileen were thoughts of the alternate rise and fall of his hopes in connection with Berenice. She was such a superior girl, developing so definitely as an individual. To his satisfaction she had, on a few recent occasions when he had seen her, unbent sufficiently to talk to him in a friendly and even intimate way, for she was by no means hoity-toity, but a thinking, reasoning being of the profoundest intellectual, or, rather, the highest artistic tendencies. She was so care-free, living in a high and solitary world, at times apparently enwrapt in thoughts serene, at other times sharing vividly in the current interests of the social world of which she was a part, and which she dignified as much as it dignified her.

One Sunday morning at Pocono, in late June weather, when he had come East to rest for a few days, and all was still and airy on the high ground which the Carter cottage occupied, Berenice came out on the veranda where Cowperwood was sitting, reading a fiscal report of one of his companies and meditating on his affairs. By now they had become somewhat more sympatica than formerly, and Berenice had an easy, genial way in his presence. She liked him, rather. With an indescribable smile which wrinkled her nose and eyes, and played about the corners of her mouth, she said: "Now I am going to catch a bird."

"A what?" asked Cowperwood, looking up and pretending he had not heard, though he had. He was all eyes for any movement of hers. She was dressed in a flouncy morning gown eminently suitable for the world in which she was moving.

"A bird," she replied, with an airy toss of her head. "This is June-time, and the sparrows are teaching their young to fly."

Cowperwood, previously engrossed in financial speculations, was translated, as by the wave of a fairy wand, into another realm where birds and fledglings and grass and the light winds of heaven were more important than brick and stone and stocks and bonds. He got up and followed her flowing steps across the grass to where, near a clump of alder bushes, she had seen a mother sparrow enticing a fledgling to take wing. From her room upstairs, she had been watching this bit of outdoor sociology. It suddenly came to Cowperwood, with great force, how comparatively unimportant in the great drift of life were his own affairs when about him was operative all this splendid will to existence, as sensed by her. He saw her stretch out her hands downward, and run in an airy, graceful way, stooping here and there, while before her fluttered a baby sparrow, until suddenly she dived quickly and then, turning, her face agleam, cried: "See, I have him! He wants to fight, too! Oh, you little dear!"

She was holding "him," as she chose to characterize it, in the hollow of her hand, the head between her thumb and forefinger, with the forefinger of her free hand petting it the while she laughed and kissed it. It was not so much bird-love as the artistry of life and of herself that was moving her. Hearing the parent bird chirping distractedly from a nearby limb, she turned and called: "Don't make such a row! I sha'n't keep him long."

Cowperwood laughed—trig in the morning sun. "You can scarcely blame her," he commented.

"Oh, she knows well enough I wouldn't hurt him," Berenice replied, spiritedly, as though it were literally true.

"Does she, indeed?" inquired Cowperwood. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's true. Don't you think they know when their children are really in danger?"

"But why should they?" persisted Cowperwood, charmed and interested by the involute character of her logic. She was quite deceptive to him. He could not be sure what she thought.

She merely fixed him a moment with her cool, slate-blue eyes. "Do you think the senses of the world are only five?" she asked, in the most charming and non-reproachful way. "Indeed, they know well enough. She knows." She turned and waved a graceful hand in the direction of the tree, where peace now reigned. The chirping had ceased. "She knows I am not a cat."

Again that enticing, mocking smile that wrinkled her nose, her eye-corners, her mouth. The word "cat" had a sharp, sweet sound in her mouth. It seemed to be bitten off closely with force and airy spirit. Cowperwood surveyed her as he would have surveyed the ablest person he knew. Here was a woman, he saw, who could and would command the utmost reaches of his soul in every direction. If he interested her at all, he would need them all. The eyes of her were at once so elusive, so direct, so friendly, so cool and keen. "You will have to be interesting, indeed, to interest me," they seemed to say; and yet they were by no means averse, apparently, to a hearty camaraderie. That nose-wrinkling smile said as much. Here was by no means a Stephanie Platow, nor yet a Rita Sohlberg. He could not assume her as he had Ella Hubby, or Florence Cochrane, or Cecily Haguenin. Here was an iron individuality with a soul for romance and art and philosophy and life. He could not take her as he had those others. And yet Berenice was really beginning to think more than a little about Cowperwood. He must be an extraordinary man; her mother said so, and the newspapers were always mentioning his name and noting his movements.

A little later, at Southampton, whither she and her mother had gone, they met again. Together with a young man by the name of Greanelle, Cowperwood and Berenice had gone into the sea to bathe. It was a wonderful afternoon.

To the east and south and west spread the sea, a crinkling floor of blue, and to their left, as they faced it, was a lovely outward-curving shore of tawny sand. Studying Berenice in blue-silk bathing costume and shoes, Cowperwood had been stung by the wonder of passing life—how youth comes in, ever fresh and fresh, and age goes out. Here he was, long crowded years of conflict and experience behind him, and yet this twenty-year-old girl, with her incisive mind and keen tastes, was apparently as wise in matters of general import as himself. He could find no flaw in her armor in those matters which they could discuss. Her knowledge and comments were so ripe and sane, despite a tendency to pose a little, which was quite within her rights. Because Greanelle had bored her a little she had shunted him off and was amusing herself talking to Cowperwood, who fascinated her by his compact individuality.

"Do you know," she confided to him, on this occasion, "I get so very tired of young men sometimes. They can be so inane. I do declare, they are nothing more than shoes and ties and socks and canes strung together in some unimaginable way. Vaughn Greanelle is for all the world like a perambulating manikin to-day. He is just an English suit with a cane attached walking about."

"Well, bless my soul," commented Cowperwood, "what an indictment!"

"It's true," she replied. "He knows nothing at all except polo, and the latest swimming-stroke, and where everybody is, and who is going to marry who. Isn't it dull?"

She tossed her head back and breathed as though to exhale the fumes of the dull and the inane from her inmost being.

"Did you tell him that?" inquired Cowperwood, curiously.

"Certainly I did."

"I don't wonder he looks so solemn," he said, turning and looking back at Greanelle and Mrs. Carter; they were sitting side by side in sand-chairs, the former beating the sand with his toes. "You're a curious girl, Berenice," he went on, familiarly. "You are so direct and vital at times.

"Not any more than you are, from all I can hear," she replied, fixing him with those steady eyes. "Anyhow, why should I be bored? He is so dull. He follows me around out here all the time, and I don't want him."

She tossed her head and began to run up the beach to where bathers were fewer and fewer, looking back at Cowperwood as if to say, "Why don't you follow?" He developed a burst of enthusiasm and ran quite briskly, overtaking her near some shallows where, because of a sandbar offshore, the waters were thin and bright.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Berenice, when he came up. "See, the fish! O-oh!"

She dashed in to where a few feet offshore a small school of minnows as large as sardines were playing, silvery in the sun. She ran as she had for the bird, doing her best to frighten them into a neighboring pocket or pool farther up on the shore. Cowperwood, as gay as a boy of ten, joined in the chase. He raced after them briskly, losing one school, but pocketing another a little farther on and calling to her to come.

"Oh!" exclaimed Berenice at one point. "Here they are now. Come quick! Drive them in here!"

Her hair was blowy, her face a keen pink, her eyes an electric blue by contrast. She was bending low over the water—Cowperwood also—their hands outstretched, the fish, some five in all, nervously dancing before them in their efforts to escape. All at once, having forced them into a corner, they dived; Berenice actually caught one. Cowperwood missed by a fraction, but drove the fish she did catch into her hands.

"Oh," she exclaimed, jumping up, "how wonderful! It's alive. I caught it."

She danced up and down, and Cowperwood, standing before her, was sobered by her charm. He felt an impulse to speak to her of his affection, to tell her how delicious she was to him.

"You," he said, pausing over the word and giving it special emphasis—"you are the only thing here that is wonderful to me."

She looked at him a moment, the live fish in her extended hands, her eyes keying to the situation. For the least fraction of a moment she was uncertain, as he could see, how to take this. Many men had been approximative before. It was common to have compliments paid to her. But this was different. She said nothing, but fixed him with a look which said quite plainly, "You had better not say anything more just now, I think." Then, seeing that he understood, that his manner softened, and that he was troubled, she crinkled her nose gaily and added: "It's like fairyland. I feel as though I had caught it out of another world." Cowperwood understood. The direct approach was not for use in her case; and yet there was something, a camaraderie, a sympathy which he felt and which she felt. A girls' school, conventions, the need of socially placing herself, her conservative friends, and their viewpoint—all were working here. If he were only single now, she told herself, she would be willing to listen to him in a very different spirit, for he was charming. But this way— And he, for his part, concluded that here was one woman whom he would gladly marry if she would have him.



Chapter XLVII

American Match

Following Cowperwood's coup in securing cash by means of his seeming gift of three hundred thousand dollars for a telescope his enemies rested for a time, but only because of a lack of ideas wherewith to destroy him. Public sentiment—created by the newspapers—was still against him. Yet his franchises had still from eight to ten years to run, and meanwhile he might make himself unassailably powerful. For the present he was busy, surrounded by his engineers and managers and legal advisers, constructing his several elevated lines at a whirlwind rate. At the same time, through Videra, Kaffrath, and Addison, he was effecting a scheme of loaning money on call to the local Chicago banks—the very banks which were most opposed to him—so that in a crisis he could retaliate. By manipulating the vast quantity of stocks and bonds of which he was now the master he was making money hand over fist, his one rule being that six per cent. was enough to pay any holder who had merely purchased his stock as an outsider. It was most profitable to himself. When his stocks earned more than that he issued new ones, selling them on 'change and pocketing the difference. Out of the cash-drawers of his various companies he took immense sums, temporary loans, as it were, which later he had charged by his humble servitors to "construction," "equipment," or "operation." He was like a canny wolf prowling in a forest of trees of his own creation.

The weak note in this whole project of elevated lines was that for some time it was destined to be unprofitable. Its very competition tended to weaken the value of his surface-line companies. His holdings in these as well as in elevated-road shares were immense. If anything happened to cause them to fall in price immense numbers of these same stocks held by others would be thrown on the market, thus still further depreciating their value and compelling him to come into the market and buy. With the most painstaking care he began at once to pile up a reserve in government bonds for emergency purposes, which he decided should be not less than eight or nine million dollars, for he feared financial storms as well as financial reprisal, and where so much was at stake he did not propose to be caught napping.

At the time that Cowperwood first entered on elevated-road construction there was no evidence that any severe depression in the American money-market was imminent. But it was not long before a new difficulty began to appear. It was now the day of the trust in all its watery magnificence. Coal, iron, steel, oil, machinery, and a score of other commercial necessities had already been "trustified," and others, such as leather, shoes, cordage, and the like, were, almost hourly, being brought under the control of shrewd and ruthless men. Already in Chicago Schryhart, Hand, Arneel, Merrill, and a score of others were seeing their way to amazing profits by underwriting these ventures which required ready cash, and to which lesser magnates, content with a portion of the leavings of Dives's table, were glad to bring to their attention. On the other hand, in the nation at large there was growing up a feeling that at the top there were a set of giants—Titans—who, without heart or soul, and without any understanding of or sympathy with the condition of the rank and file, were setting forth to enchain and enslave them. The vast mass, writhing in ignorance and poverty, finally turned with pathetic fury to the cure-all of a political leader in the West. This latter prophet, seeing gold becoming scarcer and scarcer and the cash and credits of the land falling into the hands of a few who were manipulating them for their own benefit, had decided that what was needed was a greater volume of currency, so that credits would be easier and money cheaper to come by in the matter of interest. Silver, of which there was a superabundance in the mines, was to be coined at the ratio of sixteen dollars of silver for every one of gold in circulation, and the parity of the two metals maintained by fiat of government. Never again should the few be able to make a weapon of the people's medium of exchange in order to bring about their undoing. There was to be ample money, far beyond the control of central banks and the men in power over them. It was a splendid dream worthy of a charitable heart, but because of it a disturbing war for political control of the government was shortly threatened and soon began. The money element, sensing the danger of change involved in the theories of the new political leader, began to fight him and the element in the Democratic party which he represented. The rank and file of both parties—the more or less hungry and thirsty who lie ever at the bottom on both sides—hailed him as a heaven-sent deliverer, a new Moses come to lead them out of the wilderness of poverty and distress. Woe to the political leader who preaches a new doctrine of deliverance, and who, out of tenderness of heart, offers a panacea for human ills. His truly shall be a crown of thorns.

Cowperwood, no less than other men of wealth, was opposed to what he deemed a crack-brained idea—that of maintaining a parity between gold and silver by law. Confiscation was his word for it—the confiscation of the wealth of the few for the benefit of the many. Most of all was he opposed to it because he feared that this unrest, which was obviously growing, foreshadowed a class war in which investors would run to cover and money be locked in strong-boxes. At once he began to shorten sail, to invest only in the soundest securities, and to convert all his weaker ones into cash.

To meet current emergencies, however, he was compelled to borrow heavily here and there, and in doing so he was quick to note that those banks representing his enemies in Chicago and elsewhere were willing to accept his various stocks as collateral, providing he would accept loans subject to call. He did so gladly, at the same time suspecting Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill of some scheme to wreck him, providing they could get him where the calling of his loans suddenly and in concert would financially embarrass him. "I think I know what that crew are up to," he once observed to Addison, at this period. "Well, they will have to rise very early in the morning if they catch me napping."

The thing that he suspected was really true. Schryhart, Hand, and Arneel, watching him through their agents and brokers, had soon discovered—in the very earliest phases of the silver agitation and before the real storm broke—that he was borrowing in New York, in London, in certain quarters of Chicago, and elsewhere. "It looks to me," said Schryhart, one day, to his friend Arneel, "as if our friend has gotten in a little too deep. He has overreached himself. These elevated-road schemes of his have eaten up too much capital. There is another election coming on next fall, and he knows we are going to fight tooth and nail. He needs money to electrify his surface lines. If we could trace out exactly where he stands, and where he has borrowed, we might know what to do."

"Unless I am greatly mistaken," replied Arneel, "he is in a tight place or is rapidly getting there. This silver agitation is beginning to weaken stocks and tighten money. I suggest that our banks here loan him all the money he wants on call. When the time comes, if he isn't ready, we can shut him up tighter than a drum. If we can pick up any other loans he's made anywhere else, well and good."

Mr. Arneel said this without a shadow of bitterness or humor. In some tight hour, perhaps, now fast approaching, Mr. Cowperwood would be promised salvation—"saved" on condition that he should leave Chicago forever. There were those who would take over his property in the interest of the city and upright government and administer it accordingly.

Unfortunately, at this very time Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel were themselves concerned in a little venture to which the threatened silver agitation could bode nothing but ill. This concerned so simple a thing as matches, a commodity which at this time, along with many others, had been trustified and was yielding a fine profit. "American Match" was a stock which was already listed on every exchange and which was selling steadily around one hundred and twenty.

The geniuses who had first planned a combination of all match concerns and a monopoly of the trade in America were two men, Messrs. Hull and Stackpole—bankers and brokers, primarily. Mr. Phineas Hull was a small, ferret-like, calculating man with a sparse growth of dusty-brown hair and an eyelid, the right one, which was partially paralyzed and drooped heavily, giving him a characterful and yet at times a sinister expression.

His partner, Mr. Benoni Stackpole, had been once a stage-driver in Arkansas, and later a horse-trader. He was a man of great force and calculation—large, oleaginous, politic, and courageous. Without the ultimate brain capacity of such men as Arneel, Hand, and Merrill, he was, nevertheless, resourceful and able. He had started somewhat late in the race for wealth, but now, with all his strength, he was endeavoring to bring to fruition this plan which, with the aid of Hull, he had formulated. Inspired by the thought of great wealth, they had first secured control of the stock of one match company, and had then put themselves in a position to bargain with the owners of others. The patents and processes controlled by one company and another had been combined, and the field had been broadened as much as possible.

But to do all this a great deal of money had been required, much more than was in possession of either Hull or Stackpole. Both of them being Western men, they looked first to Western capital. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill were in turn appealed to, and great blocks of the new stock were sold to them at inside figures. By the means thus afforded the combination proceeded apace. Patents for exclusive processes were taken over from all sides, and the idea of invading Europe and eventually controlling the market of the world had its inception. At the same time it occurred to each and all of their lordly patrons that it would be a splendid thing if the stock they had purchased at forty-five, and which was now selling in open market at one hundred and twenty, should go to three hundred, where, if these monopolistic dreams were true, it properly belonged. A little more of this stock—the destiny of which at this time seemed sure and splendid—would not be amiss. And so there began a quiet campaign on the part of each capitalist to gather enough of it to realize a true fortune on the rise.

A game of this kind is never played with the remainder of the financial community entirely unaware of what is on foot. In the inner circles of brokerage life rumors were soon abroad that a tremendous boom was in store for American Match. Cowperwood heard of it through Addison, always at the center of financial rumor, and the two of them bought heavily, though not so heavily but that they could clear out at any time with at least a slight margin in their favor. During a period of eight months the stock slowly moved upward, finally crossing the two-hundred mark and reaching two-twenty, at which figure both Addison and Cowperwood sold, realizing nearly a million between them on their investment.

In the mean time the foreshadowed political storm was brewing. At first a cloud no larger than a man's hand, it matured swiftly in the late months of 1895, and by the spring of 1896 it had become portentous and was ready to burst. With the climacteric nomination of the "Apostle of Free Silver" for President of the United States, which followed in July, a chill settled down over the conservative and financial elements of the country. What Cowperwood had wisely proceeded to do months before, others less far-seeing, from Maine to California and from the Gulf to Canada, began to do now. Bank-deposits were in part withdrawn; feeble or uncertain securities were thrown upon the market. All at once Schryhart, Arneel, Hand, and Merrill realized that they were in more or less of a trap in regard to their large holdings in American Match. Having gathered vast quantities of this stock, which had been issued in blocks of millions, it was now necessary to sustain the market or sell at a loss. Since money was needed by many holders, and this stock was selling at two-twenty, telegraphic orders began to pour in from all parts of the country to sell on the Chicago Exchange, where the deal was being engineered and where the market obviously existed. All of the instigators of the deal conferred, and decided to sustain the market. Messrs. Hull and Stackpole, being the nominal heads of the trust, were delegated to buy, they in turn calling on the principal investors to take their share, pro rata. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill, weighted with this inpouring flood of stock, which they had to take at two-twenty, hurried to their favorite banks, hypothecating vast quantities at one-fifty and over, and using the money so obtained to take care of the additional shares which they were compelled to buy.

At last, however, their favorite banks were full to overflowing and at the danger-point. They could take no more.

"No, no, no!" Hand declared to Phineas Hull over the 'phone. "I can't risk another dollar in this venture, and I won't! It's a perfect proposition. I realize all its merits just as well as you do. But enough is enough. I tell you a financial slump is coming. That's the reason all this stock is coming out now. I am willing to protect my interests in this thing up to a certain point. As I told you, I agree not to throw a single share on the market of all that I now have. But more than that I cannot do. The other gentlemen in this agreement will have to protect themselves as best they can. I have other things to look out for that are just as important to me, and more so, than American Match."

It was the same with Mr. Schryhart, who, stroking a crisp, black mustache, was wondering whether he had not better throw over what holdings he had and clear out; however, he feared the rage of Hand and Arneel for breaking the market and thus bringing on a local panic. It was risky business. Arneel and Merrill finally agreed to hold firm to what they had; but, as they told Mr. Hull, nothing could induce them to "protect" another share, come what might.

In this crisis naturally Messrs. Hull and Stackpole—estimable gentlemen both—were greatly depressed. By no means so wealthy as their lofty patrons, their private fortunes were in much greater jeopardy. They were eager to make any port in so black a storm. Witness, then, the arrival of Benoni Stackpole at the office of Frank Algernon Cowperwood. He was at the end of his tether, and Cowperwood was the only really rich man in the city not yet involved in this speculation. In the beginning he had heard both Hand and Schryhart say that they did not care to become involved if Cowperwood was in any way, shape, or manner to be included, but that had been over a year ago, and Schryhart and Hand were now, as it were, leaving both him and his partner to their fates. They could have no objection to his dealing with Cowperwood in this crisis if he could make sure that the magnate would not sell him out. Mr. Stackpole was six feet one in his socks and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds. Clad in a brown linen suit and straw hat (for it was late July), he carried a palm-leaf fan as well as his troublesome stocks in a small yellow leather bag. He was wet with perspiration and in a gloomy state of mind. Failure was staring him in the face—giant failure. If American Match fell below two hundred he would have to close his doors as banker and broker and, in view of what he was carrying, he and Hull would fail for approximately twenty million dollars. Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill would lose in the neighborhood of six or eight millions between them. The local banks would suffer in proportion, though not nearly so severely, for, loaning at one-fifty, they would only sacrifice the difference between that and the lowest point to which the stock might fall.

Cowperwood eyed the new-comer, when he entered, with an equivocal eye, for he knew well now what was coming. Only a few days before he had predicted an eventual smash to Addison.

"Mr. Cowperwood," began Stackpole, "in this bag I have fifteen thousand shares of American Match, par value one million five hundred thousand dollars, market value three million three hundred thousand at this moment, and worth every cent of three hundred dollars a share and more. I don't know how closely you have been following the developments of American Match. We own all the patents on labor-saving machines and, what's more, we're just about to close contracts with Italy and France to lease our machines and processes to them for pretty nearly one million dollars a year each. We're dickering with Austria and England, and of course we'll take up other countries later. The American Match Company will yet make matches for the whole world, whether I'm connected with it or not. This silver agitation has caught us right in mid-ocean, and we're having a little trouble weathering the storm. I'm a perfectly frank man when it comes to close business relations of this kind, and I'm going to tell you just how things stand. If we can scull over this rough place that has come up on account of the silver agitation our stock will go to three hundred before the first of the year. Now, if you want to take it you can have it outright at one hundred and fifty dollars—that is, providing you'll agree not to throw any of it back on the market before next December; or, if you won't promise that" (he paused to see if by any chance he could read Cowperwood's inscrutable face) "I want you to loan me one hundred and fifty dollars a share on these for thirty days at least at ten or fifteen, or whatever rate you care to fix."

Cowperwood interlocked his fingers and twiddled his thumbs as he contemplated this latest evidence of earthly difficulty and uncertainty. Time and chance certainly happened to all men, and here was one opportunity of paying out those who had been nagging him. To take this stock at one-fifty on loan and peddle it out swiftly and fully at two-twenty or less would bring American Match crumbling about their ears. When it was selling at one-fifty or less he could buy it back, pocket his profit, complete his deal with Mr. Stackpole, pocket his interest, and smile like the well-fed cat in the fable. It was as simple as twiddling his thumbs, which he was now doing.

"Who has been backing this stock here in Chicago besides yourself and Mr. Hull?" he asked, pleasantly. "I think that I already know, but I should like to be certain if you have no objection."

"None in the least, none in the least," replied Mr. Stackpole, accommodatingly. "Mr. Hand, Mr. Schryhart, Mr. Arneel, and Mr. Merrill."

"That is what I thought," commented Cowperwood, easily. "They can't take this up for you? Is that it? Saturated?"

"Saturated," agreed Mr. Stackpole, dully. "But there's one thing I'd have to stipulate in accepting a loan on these. Not a share must be thrown on the market, or, at least, not before I have failed to respond to your call. I have understood that there is a little feeling between you and Mr. Hand and the other gentlemen I have mentioned. But, as I say—and I'm talking perfectly frankly now—I'm in a corner, and it's any port in a storm. If you want to help me I'll make the best terms I can, and I won't forget the favor."

He opened the bag and began to take out the securities—long greenish-yellow bundles, tightly gripped in the center by thick elastic bands. They were in bundles of one thousand shares each. Since Stackpole half proffered them to him, Cowperwood took them in one hand and lightly weighed them up and down.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stackpole," he said, sympathetically, after a moment of apparent reflection, "but I cannot possibly help you in this matter. I'm too involved in other things myself, and I do not often indulge in stock-peculations of any kind. I have no particular malice toward any one of the gentlemen you mention. I do not trouble to dislike all who dislike me. I might, of course, if I chose, take these stocks and pay them out and throw them on the market to-morrow, but I have no desire to do anything of the sort. I only wish I could help you, and if I thought I could carry them safely for three or four months I would. As it is—" He lifted his eyebrows sympathetically. "Have you tried all the bankers in town?"

"Practically every one."

"And they can't help you?"

"They are carrying all they can stand now."

"Too bad. I'm sorry, very. By the way, do you happen, by any chance, to know Mr. Millard Bailey or Mr. Edwin Kaffrath?"

"No, I don't," replied Stackpole, hopefully.

"Well, now, there are two men who are much richer than is generally supposed. They often have very large sums at their disposal. You might look them up on a chance. Then there's my friend Videra. I don't know how he is fixed at present. You can always find him at the Twelfth Ward Bank. He might be inclined to take a good portion of that—I don't know. He's much better off than most people seem to think. I wonder you haven't been directed to some one of these men before." (As a matter of fact, no one of the individuals in question would have been interested to take a dollar of this loan except on Cowperwood's order, but Stackpole had no reason for knowing this. They were not prominently identified with the magnate.)

"Thank you very much. I will," observed Stackpole, restoring his undesired stocks to his bag.

Cowperwood, with an admirable show of courtesy, called a stenographer, and pretended to secure for his guest the home addresses of these gentlemen. He then bade Mr. Stackpole an encouraging farewell. The distrait promoter at once decided to try not only Bailey and Kaffrath, but Videra; but even as he drove toward the office of the first-mentioned Cowperwood was personally busy reaching him by telephone.

"I say, Bailey," he called, when he had secured the wealthy lumberman on the wire, "Benoni Stackpole, of Hull & Stackpole, was here to see me just now."

"Yes."

"He has with him fifteen thousand shares of American Match—par value one hundred, market value to-day two-twenty."

"Yes."

"He is trying to hypothecate the lot or any part of it at one-fifty."

"Yes."

"You know what the trouble with American Match is, don't you?"

"No. I only know it's being driven up to where it is now by a bull campaign."

"Well, listen to me. It's going to break. American Match is going to bust."

"Yes."

"But I want you to loan this man five hundred thousand dollars at one-twenty or less and then recommend that he go to Edwin Kaffrath or Anton Videra for the balance."

"But, Frank, I haven't any five hundred thousand to spare. You say American Match is going to bust."

"I know you haven't, but draw the check on the Chicago Trust, and Addison will honor it. Send the stock to me and forget all about it. I will do the rest. But under no circumstances mention my name, and don't appear too eager. Not more than one-twenty at the outside, do you hear? and less if you can get it. You recognize my voice, do you?"

"Perfectly."

"Drive over afterward if you have time and let me know what happens."

"Very good," commented Mr. Bailey, in a businesslike way.

Cowperwood next called for Mr. Kaffrath. Conversing to similar effect with that individual and with Videra, before three-quarters of an hour Cowperwood had arranged completely for Mr. Stackpole's tour. He was to have his total loan at one-twenty or less. Checks were to be forthcoming at once. Different banks were to be drawn on—banks other than the Chicago Trust Company. Cowperwood would see, in some roundabout way, that these checks were promptly honored, whether the cash was there or not. In each case the hypothecated stocks were to be sent to him. Then, having seen to the perfecting of this little programme, and that the banks to be drawn upon in this connection understood perfectly that the checks in question were guaranteed by him or others, he sat down to await the arrival of his henchmen and the turning of the stock into his private safe.



Chapter XLVIII

Panic

On August 4, 1896, the city of Chicago, and for that matter the entire financial world, was startled and amazed by the collapse of American Match, one of the strongest of market securities, and the coincident failure of Messrs. Hull and Stackpole, its ostensible promoters, for twenty millions. As early as eleven o'clock of the preceding day the banking and brokerage world of Chicago, trading in this stock, was fully aware that something untoward was on foot in connection with it. Owing to the high price at which the stock was "protected," and the need of money to liquidate, blocks of this stock from all parts of the country were being rushed to the market with the hope of realizing before the ultimate break. About the stock-exchange, which frowned like a gray fortress at the foot of La Salle Street, all was excitement—as though a giant anthill had been ruthlessly disturbed. Clerks and messengers hurried to and fro in confused and apparently aimless directions. Brokers whose supply of American Match had been apparently exhausted on the previous day now appeared on 'change bright and early, and at the clang of the gong began to offer the stock in sizable lots of from two hundred to five hundred shares. The agents of Hull & Stackpole were in the market, of course, in the front rank of the scrambling, yelling throng, taking up whatever stock appeared at the price they were hoping to maintain. The two promoters were in touch by 'phone and wire not only with those various important personages whom they had induced to enter upon this bull campaign, but with their various clerks and agents on 'change. Naturally, under the circumstances both were in a gloomy frame of mind. This game was no longer moving in those large, easy sweeps which characterize the more favorable aspects of high finance. Sad to relate, as in all the troubled flumes of life where vast currents are compressed in narrow, tortuous spaces, these two men were now concerned chiefly with the momentary care of small but none the less heartbreaking burdens. Where to find fifty thousand to take care of this or that burden of stock which was momentarily falling upon them? They were as two men called upon, with their limited hands and strength, to seal up the ever-increasing crevices of a dike beyond which raged a mountainous and destructive sea.

At eleven o'clock Mr. Phineas Hull rose from the chair which sat before his solid mahogany desk, and confronted his partner.

"I'll tell you, Ben," he said, "I'm afraid we can't make this. We've hypothecated so much of this stock around town that we can't possibly tell who's doing what. I know as well as I'm standing on this floor that some one, I can't say which one, is selling us out. You don't suppose it could be Cowperwood or any of those people he sent to us, do you?"

Stackpole, worn by his experiences of the past few weeks, was inclined to be irritable.

"How should I know, Phineas?" he inquired, scowling in troubled thought. "I don't think so. I didn't notice any signs that they were interested in stock-gambling. Anyhow, we had to have the money in some form. Any one of the whole crowd is apt to get frightened now at any moment and throw the whole thing over. We're in a tight place, that's plain."

For the fortieth time he plucked at a too-tight collar and pulled up his shirt-sleeves, for it was stifling, and he was coatless and waistcoatless. Just then Mr. Hull's telephone bell rang—the one connecting with the firm's private office on 'change, and the latter jumped to seize the receiver.

"Yes?" he inquired, irritably.

"Two thousand shares of American offered at two-twenty! Shall I take them?"

The man who was 'phoning was in sight of another man who stood at the railing of the brokers' gallery overlooking "the pit," or central room of the stock-exchange, and who instantly transferred any sign he might receive to the man on the floor. So Mr. Hull's "yea" or "nay" would be almost instantly transmuted into a cash transaction on 'change.

"What do you think of that?" asked Hull of Stackpole, putting his hand over the receiver's mouth, his right eyelid drooping heavier than ever. "Two thousand more to take up! Where d'you suppose they are coming from? Tch!"

"Well, the bottom's out, that's all," replied Stackpole, heavily and gutturally. "We can't do what we can't do. I say this, though: support it at two-twenty until three o'clock. Then we'll figure up where we stand and what we owe. And meanwhile I'll see what I can do. If the banks won't help us and Arneel and that crowd want to get from under, we'll fail, that's all; but not before I've had one more try, by Jericho! They may not help us, but—"

Actually Mr. Stackpole did not see what was to be done unless Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel were willing to risk much more money, but it grieved and angered him to think he and Hull should be thus left to sink without a sigh. He had tried Kaffrath, Videra, and Bailey, but they were adamant. Thus cogitating, Stackpole put on his wide-brimmed straw hat and went out. It was nearly ninety-six in the shade. The granite and asphalt pavements of the down-town district reflected a dry, Turkish-bath-room heat. There was no air to speak of. The sky was a burning, milky blue, with the sun gleaming feverishly upon the upper walls of the tall buildings.

Mr. Hand, in his seventh-story suite of offices in the Rookery Building, was suffering from the heat, but much more from mental perturbation. Though not a stingy or penurious man, it was still true that of all earthly things he suffered most from a financial loss. How often had he seen chance or miscalculation sweep apparently strong and valiant men into the limbo of the useless and forgotten! Since the alienation of his wife's affections by Cowperwood, he had scarcely any interest in the world outside his large financial holdings, which included profitable investments in a half-hundred companies. But they must pay, pay, pay heavily in interest—all of them—and the thought that one of them might become a failure or a drain on his resources was enough to give him an almost physical sensation of dissatisfaction and unrest, a sort of spiritual and mental nausea which would cling to him for days and days or until he had surmounted the difficulty. Mr. Hand had no least corner in his heart for failure.

As a matter of fact, the situation in regard to American Match had reached such proportions as to be almost numbing. Aside from the fifteen thousand shares which Messrs. Hull and Stackpole had originally set aside for themselves, Hand, Arneel, Schryhart, and Merrill had purchased five thousand shares each at forty, but had since been compelled to sustain the market to the extent of over five thousand shares more each, at prices ranging from one-twenty to two-twenty, the largest blocks of shares having been bought at the latter figure. Actually Hand was caught for nearly one million five hundred thousand dollars, and his soul was as gray as a bat's wing. At fifty-seven years of age men who are used only to the most successful financial calculations and the credit that goes with unerring judgment dread to be made a mark by chance or fate. It opens the way for comment on their possibly failing vitality or judgment. And so Mr. Hand sat on this hot August afternoon, ensconced in a large carved mahogany chair in the inner recesses of his inner offices, and brooded. Only this morning, in the face of a falling market, he would have sold out openly had he not been deterred by telephone messages from Arneel and Schryhart suggesting the advisability of a pool conference before any action was taken. Come what might on the morrow, he was determined to quit unless he saw some clear way out—to be shut of the whole thing unless the ingenuity of Stackpole and Hull should discover a way of sustaining the market without his aid. While he was meditating on how this was to be done Mr. Stackpole appeared, pale, gloomy, wet with perspiration.