The Titan : Chapter 63

Chapter 63
In Retrospect

The world is dosed with too much religion. Life is to be learned from life, and the professional moralist is at best but a manufacturer of shoddy wares. At the ultimate remove, God or the life force, if anything, is an equation, and at its nearest expression for man—the contract social—it is that also. Its method of expression appears to be that of generating the individual, in all his glittering variety and scope, and through him progressing to the mass with its problems. In the end a balance is invariably struck wherein the mass subdues the individual or the individual the mass—for the time being. For, behold, the sea is ever dancing or raging.

In the mean time there have sprung up social words and phrases expressing a need of balance—of equation. These are right, justice, truth, morality, an honest mind, a pure heart—all words meaning: a balance must be struck. The strong must not be too strong; the weak not too weak. But without variation how could the balance be maintained? Nirvana! Nirvana! The ultimate, still, equation.

Rushing like a great comet to the zenith, his path a blazing trail, Cowperwood did for the hour illuminate the terrors and wonders of individuality. But for him also the eternal equation—the pathos of the discovery that even giants are but pygmies, and that an ultimate balance must be struck. Of the strange, tortured, terrified reflection of those who, caught in his wake, were swept from the normal and the commonplace, what shall we say? Legislators by the hundred, who were hounded from politics into their graves; a half-hundred aldermen of various councils who were driven grumbling or whining into the limbo of the dull, the useless, the commonplace. A splendid governor dreaming of an ideal on the one hand, succumbing to material necessity on the other, traducing the spirit that aided him the while he tortured himself with his own doubts. A second governor, more amenable, was to be greeted by the hisses of the populace, to retire brooding and discomfited, and finally to take his own life. Schryhart and Hand, venomous men both, unable to discover whether they had really triumphed, were to die eventually, puzzled. A mayor whose greatest hour was in thwarting one who contemned him, lived to say: "It is a great mystery. He was a strange man." A great city struggled for a score of years to untangle that which was all but beyond the power of solution—a true Gordian knot.

And this giant himself, rushing on to new struggles and new difficulties in an older land, forever suffering the goad of a restless heart—for him was no ultimate peace, no real understanding, but only hunger and thirst and wonder. Wealth, wealth, wealth! A new grasp of a new great problem and its eventual solution. Anew the old urgent thirst for life, and only its partial quenchment. In Dresden a palace for one woman, in Rome a second for another. In London a third for his beloved Berenice, the lure of beauty ever in his eye. The lives of two women wrecked, a score of victims despoiled; Berenice herself weary, yet brilliant, turning to others for recompense for her lost youth. And he resigned, and yet not—loving, understanding, doubting, caught at last by the drug of a personality which he could not gainsay.

What shall we say of life in the last analysis—"Peace, be still"? Or shall we battle sternly for that equation which we know will be maintained whether we battle or no, in order that the strong become not too strong or the weak not too weak? Or perchance shall we say (sick of dullness): "Enough of this. I will have strong meat or die!" And die? Or live?

Each according to his temperament—that something which he has not made and cannot always subdue, and which may not always be subdued by others for him. Who plans the steps that lead lives on to splendid glories, or twist them into gnarled sacrifices, or make of them dark, disdainful, contentious tragedies? The soul within? And whence comes it? Of God?

What thought engendered the spirit of Circe, or gave to a Helen the lust of tragedy? What lit the walls of Troy? Or prepared the woes of an Andromache? By what demon counsel was the fate of Hamlet prepared? And why did the weird sisters plan ruin to the murderous Scot?

Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

In a mulch of darkness are bedded the roots of endless sorrows—and of endless joys. Canst thou fix thine eye on the morning? Be glad. And if in the ultimate it blind thee, be glad also! Thou hast lived.

The Titan : Chapter 62

Chapter 62
The Recompense

You have seen, perhaps, a man whose heart was weighted by a great woe. You have seen the eye darken, the soul fag, and the spirit congeal under the breath of an icy disaster. At ten-thirty of this particular evening Cowperwood, sitting alone in the library of his Michigan Avenue house, was brought face to face with the fact that he had lost. He had built so much on the cast of this single die. It was useless to say to himself that he could go into the council a week later with a modified ordinance or could wait until the storm had died out. He refused himself these consolations. Already he had battled so long and so vigorously, by every resource and subtlety which his mind had been able to devise. All week long on divers occasions he had stood in the council-chamber where the committee had been conducting its hearings. Small comfort to know that by suits, injunctions, appeals, and writs to intervene he could tie up this transit situation and leave it for years and years the prey of lawyers, the despair of the city, a hopeless muddle which would not be unraveled until he and his enemies should long be dead. This contest had been so long in the brewing, he had gone about it with such care years before. And now the enemy had been heartened by a great victory. His aldermen, powerful, hungry, fighting men all—like those picked soldiers of the ancient Roman emperors—ruthless, conscienceless, as desperate as himself, had in their last redoubt of personal privilege fallen, weakened, yielded. How could he hearten them to another struggle—how face the blazing wrath of a mighty populace that had once learned how to win? Others might enter here—Haeckelheimer, Fishel, any one of a half-dozen Eastern giants—and smooth out the ruffled surface of the angry sea that he had blown to fury. But as for him, he was tired, sick of Chicago, sick of this interminable contest. Only recently he had promised himself that if he were to turn this great trick he would never again attempt anything so desperate or requiring so much effort. He would not need to. The size of his fortune made it of little worth. Besides, in spite of his tremendous vigor, he was getting on.

Since he had alienated Aileen he was quite alone, out of touch with any one identified with the earlier years of his life. His all-desired Berenice still evaded him. True, she had shown lately a kind of warming sympathy; but what was it? Gracious tolerance, perhaps—a sense of obligation? Certainly little more, he felt. He looked into the future, deciding heavily that he must fight on, whatever happened, and then—

While he sat thus drearily pondering, answering a telephone call now and then, the door-bell rang and the servant brought a card which he said had been presented by a young woman who declared that it would bring immediate recognition. Glancing at it, Cowperwood jumped to his feet and hurried down-stairs into the one presence he most craved.

There are compromises of the spirit too elusive and subtle to be traced in all their involute windings. From that earliest day when Berenice Fleming had first set eyes on Cowperwood she had been moved by a sense of power, an amazing and fascinating individuality. Since then by degrees he had familiarized her with a thought of individual freedom of action and a disregard of current social standards which were destructive to an earlier conventional view of things. Following him through this Chicago fight, she had been caught by the wonder of his dreams; he was on the way toward being one of the world's greatest money giants. During his recent trips East she had sometimes felt that she was able to read in the cast of his face the intensity of this great ambition, which had for its ultimate aim—herself. So he had once assured her. Always with her he had been so handsome, so pleading, so patient.

So here she was in Chicago to-night, the guest of friends at the Richelieu, and standing in Cowperwood's presence.

"Why, Berenice!" he said, extending a cordial hand.

"When did you arrive in town? Whatever brings you here?" He had once tried to make her promise that if ever her feeling toward him changed she would let him know of it in some way. And here she was to-night—on what errand? He noted her costume of brown silk and velvet—how well it seemed to suggest her cat-like grace!

"You bring me here," she replied, with an indefinable something in her voice which was at once a challenge and a confession. "I thought from what I had just been reading that you might really need me now."

"You mean—?" he inquired, looking at her with vivid eyes. There he paused.

"That I have made up my mind. Besides, I ought to pay some time."

"Berenice!" he exclaimed, reproachfully.

"No, I don't mean that, either," she replied. "I am sorry now. I think I understand you better. Besides," she added, with a sudden gaiety that had a touch of self-consolation in it, "I want to."

"Berenice! Truly?"

"Can't you tell?" she queried.

"Well, then," he smiled, holding out his hands; and, to his amazement, she came forward.

"I can't explain myself to myself quite," she added, in a hurried low, eager tone, "but I couldn't stay away any longer. I had the feeling that you might be going to lose here for the present. But I want you to go somewhere else if you have to—London or Paris. The world won't understand us quite—but I do."

"Berenice!" He smothered her cheek and hair.

"Not so close, please. And there aren't to be any other ladies, unless you want me to change my mind."

"Not another one, as I hope to keep you. You will share everything I have… "

For answer—

How strange are realities as opposed to illusion!

The Titan : Chapter 61

Chapter 61
The Cataclysm

And now at last Chicago is really facing the thing which it has most feared. A giant monopoly is really reaching out to enfold it with an octopus-like grip. And Cowperwood is its eyes, its tentacles, its force! Embedded in the giant strength and good will of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co., he is like a monument based on a rock of great strength. A fifty-year franchise, to be delivered to him by a majority of forty-eight out of a total of sixty-eight aldermen (in case the ordinance has to be passed over the mayor's veto), is all that now stands between him and the realization of his dreams. What a triumph for his iron policy of courage in the face of all obstacles! What a tribute to his ability not to flinch in the face of storm and stress! Other men might have abandoned the game long before, but not he. What a splendid windfall of chance that the money element should of its own accord take fright at the Chicago idea of the municipalization of public privilege and should hand him this giant South Side system as a reward for his stern opposition to fol-de-rol theories.

Through the influence of these powerful advocates he was invited to speak before various local commercial bodies—the Board of Real Estate Dealers, the Property Owners' Association, the Merchants' League, the Bankers' Union, and so forth, where he had an opportunity to present his case and justify his cause. But the effect of his suave speechifyings in these quarters was largely neutralized by newspaper denunciation. "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" was the regular inquiry. That section of the press formerly beholden to Hand and Schryhart stood out as bitterly as ever; and most of the other newspapers, being under no obligation to Eastern capital, felt it the part of wisdom to support the rank and file. The most searching and elaborate mathematical examinations were conducted with a view to showing the fabulous profits of the streetcar trust in future years. The fine hand of Eastern banking-houses was detected and their sinister motives noised abroad. "Millions for everybody in the trust, but not one cent for Chicago," was the Inquirer's way of putting it. Certain altruists of the community were by now so aroused that in the destruction of Cowperwood they saw their duty to God, to humanity, and to democracy straight and clear. The heavens had once more opened, and they saw a great light. On the other hand the politicians—those in office outside the mayor—constituted a petty band of guerrillas or free-booters who, like hungry swine shut in a pen, were ready to fall upon any and all propositions brought to their attention with but one end in view: that they might eat, and eat heartily. In times of great opportunity and contest for privilege life always sinks to its lowest depths of materialism and rises at the same time to its highest reaches of the ideal. When the waves of the sea are most towering its hollows are most awesome.

Finally the summer passed, the council assembled, and with the first breath of autumn chill the very air of the city was touched by a premonition of contest. Cowperwood, disappointed by the outcome of his various ingratiatory efforts, decided to fall back on his old reliable method of bribery. He fixed on his price—twenty thousand dollars for each favorable vote, to begin with. Later, if necessary, he would raise it to twenty-five thousand, or even thirty thousand, making the total cost in the neighborhood of a million and a half. Yet it was a small price indeed when the ultimate return was considered. He planned to have his ordinance introduced by an alderman named Ballenberg, a trusted lieutenant, and handed thereafter to the clerk, who would read it, whereupon another henchman would rise to move that it be referred to the joint committee on streets and alleys, consisting of thirty-four members drawn from all the standing committees. By this committee it would be considered for one week in the general council-chamber, where public hearings would be held. By keeping up a bold front Cowperwood thought the necessary iron could be put into his followers to enable them to go through with the scorching ordeal which was sure to follow. Already aldermen were being besieged at their homes and in the precincts of the ward clubs and meeting-places. Their mail was being packed with importuning or threatening letters. Their very children were being derided, their neighbors urged to chastise them. Ministers wrote them in appealing or denunciatory vein. They were spied upon and abused daily in the public prints. The mayor, shrewd son of battle that he was, realizing that he had a whip of terror in his hands, excited by the long contest waged, and by the smell of battle, was not backward in urging the most drastic remedies.

"Wait till the thing comes up," he said to his friends, in a great central music-hall conference in which thousands participated, and when the matter of ways and means to defeat the venal aldermen was being discussed. "We have Mr. Cowperwood in a corner, I think. He cannot do anything for two weeks, once his ordinance is in, and by that time we shall be able to organize a vigilance committee, ward meetings, marching clubs, and the like. We ought to organize a great central mass-meeting for the Sunday night before the Monday when the bill comes up for final hearing. We want overflow meetings in every ward at the same time. I tell you, gentlemen, that, while I believe there are enough honest voters in the city council to prevent the Cowperwood crowd from passing this bill over my veto, yet I don't think the matter ought to be allowed to go that far. You never can tell what these rascals will do once they see an actual cash bid of twenty or thirty thousand dollars before them. Most of them, even if they were lucky, would never make the half of that in a lifetime. They don't expect to be returned to the Chicago City Council. Once is enough. There are too many others behind them waiting to get their noses in the trough. Go into your respective wards and districts and organize meetings. Call your particular alderman before you. Don't let him evade you or quibble or stand on his rights as a private citizen or a public officer. Threaten—don't cajole. Soft or kind words won't go with that type of man. Threaten, and when you have managed to extract a promise be on hand with ropes to see that he keeps his word. I don't like to advise arbitrary methods, but what else is to be done? The enemy is armed and ready for action right now. They're just waiting for a peaceful moment. Don't let them find it. Be ready. Fight. I'm your mayor, and ready to do all I can, but I stand alone with a mere pitiful veto right. You help me and I'll help you. You fight for me and I'll fight for you."

Witness hereafter the discomfiting situation of Mr. Simon Pinski at 9 P.M. on the second evening following the introduction of the ordinance, in the ward house of the Fourteenth Ward Democratic Club. Rotund, flaccid, red-faced, his costume a long black frock-coat and silk hat, Mr. Pinski was being heckled by his neighbors and business associates. He had been called here by threats to answer for his prospective high crimes and misdemeanors. By now it was pretty well understood that nearly all the present aldermen were criminal and venal, and in consequence party enmities were practically wiped out. There were no longer for the time being Democrats and Republicans, but only pro or anti Cowperwoods—principally anti. Mr. Pinski, unfortunately, had been singled out by the Transcript, the Inquirer, and the Chronicle as one of those open to advance questioning by his constituents. Of mixed Jewish and American extraction, he had been born and raised in the Fourteenth and spoke with a decidedly American accent. He was neither small nor large—sandy-haired, shifty-eyed, cunning, and on most occasions amiable. Just now he was decidedly nervous, wrathy, and perplexed, for he had been brought here against his will. His slightly oleaginous eye—not unlike that of a small pig—had been fixed definitely and finally on the munificent sum of thirty thousand dollars, no less, and this local agitation threatened to deprive him of his almost unalienable right to the same. His ordeal took place in a large, low-ceiled room illuminated by five very plain, thin, two-armed gas-jets suspended from the ceiling and adorned by posters of prizefights, raffles, games, and the "Simon Pinski Pleasure Association" plastered here and there freely against dirty, long-unwhitewashed walls. He stood on the low raised platform at the back of the room, surrounded by a score or more of his ward henchmen, all more or less reliable, all black-frocked, or at least in their Sunday clothes; all scowling, nervous, defensive, red-faced, and fearing trouble. Mr. Pinski has come armed. This talk of the mayor's concerning guns, ropes, drums, marching clubs, and the like has been given very wide publicity, and the public seems rather eager for a Chicago holiday in which the slaughter of an alderman or so might furnish the leading and most acceptable feature.

"Hey, Pinski!" yells some one out of a small sea of new and decidedly unfriendly faces. (This is no meeting of Pinski followers, but a conglomerate outpouring of all those elements of a distrait populace bent on enforcing for once the principles of aldermanic decency. There are even women here—local church-members, and one or two advanced civic reformers and W. C. T. U. bar-room smashers. Mr. Pinski has been summoned to their presence by the threat that if he didn't come the noble company would seek him out later at his own house.)

"Hey, Pinski! You old boodler! How much do you expect to get out of this traction business?" (This from a voice somewhere in the rear.)

Mr. Pinski (turning to one side as if pinched in the neck). "The man that says I am a boodler is a liar! I never took a dishonest dollar in my life, and everybody in the Fourteenth Ward knows it."

The Five Hundred People Assembled. "Ha! ha! ha! Pinski never took a dollar! Ho! ho! ho! Whoop-ee!"

Mr. Pinski (very red-faced, rising). "It is so. Why should I talk to a lot of loafers that come here because the papers tell them to call me names? I have been an alderman for six years now. Everybody knows me."

A Voice. "You call us loafers. You crook!"

Another Voice (referring to his statement of being known). "You bet they do!"

Another Voice (this from a small, bony plumber in workclothes). "Hey, you old grafter! Which way do you expect to vote? For or against this franchise? Which way?"

Still Another Voice (an insurance clerk). "Yes, which way?"

Mr. Pinski (rising once more, for in his nervousness he is constantly rising or starting to rise, and then sitting down again). "I have a right to my own mind, ain't I? I got a right to think. What for am I an alderman, then? The constitution… "

An Anti-Pinski Republican (a young law clerk). "To hell with the constitution! No fine words now, Pinski. Which way do you expect to vote? For or against? Yes or no?"

A Voice (that of a bricklayer, anti-Pinski). "He daresn't say. He's got some of that bastard's money in his jeans now, I'll bet."

A Voice from Behind (one of Pinski's henchmen—a heavy, pugilistic Irishman). "Don't let them frighten you, Sim. Stand your ground. They can't hurt you. We're here."

Pinski (getting up once more). "This is an outrage, I say. Ain't I gon' to be allowed to say what I think? There are two sides to every question. Now, I think whatever the newspapers say that Cowperwood—"

A Journeyman Carpenter (a reader of the Inquirer). "You're bribed, you thief! You're beating about the bush. You want to sell out."

The Bony Plumber. "Yes, you crook! You want to get away with thirty thousand dollars, that's what you want, you boodler!"

Mr. Pinski (defiantly, egged on by voices from behind). "I want to be fair—that's what. I want to keep my own mind. The constitution gives everybody the right of free speech—even me. I insist that the street-car companies have some rights; at the same time the people have rights too."

A Voice. "What are those rights?"

Another Voice. "He don't know. He wouldn't know the people's rights from a sawmill."

Another Voice. "Or a load of hay."

Pinski (continuing very defiantly now, since he has not yet been slain). "I say the people have their rights. The companies ought to be made to pay a fair tax. But this twenty-year-franchise idea is too little, I think. The Mears bill now gives them fifty years, and I think all told—"

The Five Hundred (in chorus). "Ho, you robber! You thief! You boodler! Hang him! Ho! ho! ho! Get a rope!"

Pinski (retreating within a defensive circle as various citizens approach him, their eyes blazing, their teeth showing, their fists clenched). "My friends, wait! Ain't I goin' to be allowed to finish?"

A Voice. "We'll finish you, you stiff!"

A Citizen (advancing; a bearded Pole). "How will you vote, hey? Tell us that! How? Hey?"

A Second Citizen (a Jew). "You're a no-good, you robber. I know you for ten years now already. You cheated me when you were in the grocery business."

A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). "Answer me this, Mr. Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don't want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?"

Pinski (hesitating).

The Five Hundred. "Ho! look at the scoundrel! He's afraid to say. He don't know whether he'll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!"

A Voice from Behind. "Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don't be afraid." Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). "If the people don't want me to do it, of course I won't do it. Why should I? Ain't I their representative?"

A Voice. "Yes, when you think you're going to get the wadding kicked out of you."

Another Voice. "You wouldn't be honest with your mother, you bastard. You couldn't be!"

Pinski. "If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn't do it."

A Voice. "Well, we'll get the voters to ask you, all right. We'll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night."

An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). "If you don't vote right we'll hang you, and I'll be there to help pull the rope myself."

One of Pinski's Lieutenants. "Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him."

The Gas Collector. "Not from you, you carrot-faced terrier. Come outside and see." (Business of friends interfering).

The meeting becomes disorderly. Pinski is escorted out by friends—completely surrounded—amid shrieks and hisses, cat-calls, cries of "Boodler!" "Thief!" "Robber!"

There were many such little dramatic incidents after the ordinance had been introduced.

Henceforth on the streets, in the wards and outlying sections, and even, on occasion, in the business heart, behold the marching clubs—those sinister, ephemeral organizations which on demand of the mayor had cropped out into existence—great companies of the unheralded, the dull, the undistinguished—clerks, working-men, small business men, and minor scions of religion or morality; all tramping to and fro of an evening, after working-hours, assembling in cheap halls and party club-houses, and drilling themselves to what end? That they might march to the city hall on the fateful Monday night when the street-railway ordinances should be up for passage and demand of unregenerate lawmakers that they do their duty. Cowperwood, coming down to his office one morning on his own elevated lines, was the observer of a button or badge worn upon the coat lapel of stolid, inconsequential citizens who sat reading their papers, unconscious of that presence which epitomized the terror and the power they all feared. One of these badges had for its device a gallows with a free noose suspended; another was blazoned with the query: "Are we going to be robbed?" On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four by six feet in dimension, were displayed.

WALDEN H. LUCAS

against the

BOODLERS
===========================
Every citizen of Chicago should
come down to the City Hall

TO-NIGHT
MONDAY, DEC. 12
===========================
and every Monday night
thereafter while the Street-car
Franchises are under consideration,
and see that the interests
of the city are protected against

BOODLEISM
=========
Citizens, Arouse and Defeat the Boodlers!

In the papers were flaring head-lines; in the clubs, halls, and churches fiery speeches could nightly be heard. Men were drunk now with a kind of fury of contest. They would not succumb to this Titan who was bent on undoing them. They would not be devoured by this gorgon of the East. He should be made to pay an honest return to the city or get out. No fifty-year franchise should be granted him. The Mears law must be repealed, and he must come into the city council humble and with clean hands. No alderman who received as much as a dollar for his vote should in this instance be safe with his life.

Needless to say that in the face of such a campaign of intimidation only great courage could win. The aldermen were only human. In the council committee-chamber Cowperwood went freely among them, explaining as he best could the justice of his course and making it plain that, although willing to buy his rights, he looked on them as no more than his due. The rule of the council was barter, and he accepted it. His unshaken and unconquerable defiance heartened his followers greatly, and the thought of thirty thousand dollars was as a buttress against many terrors. At the same time many an alderman speculated solemnly as to what he would do afterward and where he would go once he had sold out.

At last the Monday night arrived which was to bring the final test of strength. Picture the large, ponderous structure of black granite—erected at the expense of millions and suggesting somewhat the somnolent architecture of ancient Egypt—which served as the city hall and county court-house combined. On this evening the four streets surrounding it were packed with thousands of people. To this throng Cowperwood has become an astounding figure: his wealth fabulous, his heart iron, his intentions sinister—the acme of cruel, plotting deviltry. Only this day, the Chronicle, calculating well the hour and the occasion, has completely covered one of its pages with an intimate, though exaggerated, description of Cowperwood's house in New York: his court of orchids, his sunrise room, the baths of pink and blue alabaster, the finishings of marble and intaglio. Here Cowperwood was represented as seated in a swinging divan, his various books, art treasures, and comforts piled about him. The idea was vaguely suggested that in his sybaritic hours odalesques danced before him and unnamable indulgences and excesses were perpetrated.

At this same hour in the council-chamber itself were assembling as hungry and bold a company of gray wolves as was ever gathered under one roof. The room was large, ornamented to the south by tall windows, its ceiling supporting a heavy, intricate chandelier, its sixty-six aldermanic desks arranged in half-circles, one behind the other; its woodwork of black oak carved and highly polished; its walls a dark blue-gray decorated with arabesques in gold—thus giving to all proceedings an air of dignity and stateliness. Above the speaker's head was an immense portrait in oil of a former mayor—poorly done, dusty, and yet impressive. The size and character of the place gave on ordinary occasions a sort of resonance to the voices of the speakers. To-night through the closed windows could be heard the sound of distant drums and marching feet. In the hall outside the council door were packed at least a thousand men with ropes, sticks, a fife-and-drum corps which occasionally struck up "Hail! Columbia, Happy Land," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "Dixie." Alderman Schlumbohm, heckled to within an inch of his life, followed to the council door by three hundred of his fellow-citizens, was there left with the admonition that they would be waiting for him when he should make his exit. He was at last seriously impressed.

"What is this?" he asked of his neighbor and nearest associate, Alderman Gavegan, when he gained the safety of his seat. "A free country?"

"Search me!" replied his compatriot, wearily. "I never seen such a band as I have to deal with out in the Twentieth. Why, my God! a man can't call his name his own any more out here. It's got so now the newspapers tell everybody what to do."

Alderman Pinski and Alderman Hoherkorn, conferring together in one corner, were both very dour. "I'll tell you what, Joe," said Pinski to his confrere; "it's this fellow Lucas that has got the people so stirred up. I didn't go home last night because I didn't want those fellows to follow me down there. Me and my wife stayed down-town. But one of the boys was over here at Jake's a little while ago, and he says there must 'a' been five hundred people around my house at six o'clock, already. Whad ye think o' that?"

"Same here. I don't take much stock in this lynching idea. Still, you can't tell. I don't know whether the police could help us much or not. It's a damned outrage. Cowperwood has a fair proposition. What's the matter with them, anyhow?"

Renewed sounds of "Marching Through Georgia" from without.

Enter at this time Aldermen Ziner, Knudson, Revere, Rogers, Tiernan, and Kerrigan. Of all the aldermen perhaps Messrs. Tiernan and Kerrigan were as cool as any. Still the spectacle of streets blocked with people who carried torches and wore badges showing slip-nooses attached to a gallows was rather serious.

"I'll tell you, Pat," said "Smiling Mike," as they eventually made the door through throngs of jeering citizens; "it does look a little rough. Whad ye think?"

"To hell with them!" replied Kerrigan, angry, waspish, determined. "They don't run me or my ward. I'll vote as I damn please."

"Same here," replied Tiernan, with a great show of courage. "That goes for me. But it's putty warm, anyhow, eh?"

"Yes, it's warm, all right," replied Kerrigan, suspicious lest his companion in arms might be weakening, "but that'll never make a quitter out of me."

"Nor me, either," replied the Smiling One.

Enter now the mayor, accompanied by a fife-and-drum corps rendering "Hail to the Chief." He ascends the rostrum. Outside in the halls the huzzas of the populace. In the gallery overhead a picked audience. As the various aldermen look up they contemplate a sea of unfriendly faces. "Get on to the mayor's guests," commented one alderman to another, cynically.

A little sparring for time while minor matters are considered, and the gallery is given opportunity for comment on the various communal lights, identifying for itself first one local celebrity and then another. "There's Johnnie Dowling, that big blond fellow with the round head; there's Pinski—look at the little rat; there's Kerrigan. Get on to the emerald. Eh, Pat, how's the jewelry? You won't get any chance to do any grafting to-night, Pat. You won't pass no ordinance to-night."

Alderman Winkler (pro-Cowperwood). "If the chair pleases, I think something ought to be done to restore order in the gallery and keep these proceedings from being disturbed. It seems to me an outrage, that, on an occasion of this kind, when the interests of the people require the most careful attention—"

A Voice. "The interests of the people!"

Another Voice. "Sit down. You're bought!"

Alderman Winkler. "If the chair pleases—"

The Mayor. "I shall have to ask the audience in the gallery to keep quiet in order that the business in hand may be considered." (Applause, and the gallery lapses into silence.)

Alderman Guigler (to Alderman Sumulsky). "Well trained, eh?"

Alderman Ballenberg (pro-Cowperwood, getting up—large, brown, florid, smooth-faced). "Before calling up an ordinance which bears my name I should like to ask permission of the council to make a statement. When I introduced this ordinance last week I said—"

A Voice. "We know what you said."

Alderman Ballenberg. "I said that I did so by request. I want to explain that it was at the request of a number of gentlemen who have since appeared before the committee of this council that now has this ordinance—"

A Voice. "That's all right, Ballenberg. We know by whose request you introduced it. You've said your little say."

Alderman Ballenberg. "If the chair pleases—"

A Voice. "Sit down, Ballenberg. Give some other boodler a chance."

The Mayor. "Will the gallery please stop interrupting."

Alderman Horanek (jumping to his feet). "This is an outrage. The gallery is packed with people come here to intimidate us. Here is a great public corporation that has served this city for years, and served it well, and when it comes to this body with a sensible proposition we ain't even allowed to consider it. The mayor packs the gallery with his friends, and the papers stir up people to come down here by thousands and try to frighten us. I for one—"

A Voice. "What's the matter, Billy? Haven't you got your money yet?"

Alderman Hvranek (Polish-American, intelligent, even artistic looking, shaking his fist at the gallery). "You dare not come down here and say that, you coward!"

A Chorus of Fifty Voices. "Rats!" (also) "Billy, you ought to have wings."

Alderman Tiernan (rising). "I say now, Mr. Mayor, don't you think we've had enough of this?"

A Voice. "Well, look who's here. If it ain't Smiling Mike."

Another Voice. "How much do you expect to get, Mike?"

Alderman Tiernan (turning to gallery). "I want to say I can lick any man that wants to come down here and talk to me to my face. I'm not afraid of no ropes and no guns. These corporations have done everything for the city—"

A Voice. "Aw!"

Alderman Tiernan. "If it wasn't for the street-car companies we wouldn't have any city."

Ten Voices. "Aw!"

Alderman Tiernan (bravely). "My mind ain't the mind of some people."

A Voice. "I should say not."

Alderman Tiernan. "I'm talking for compensation for the privileges we expect to give."

A Voice. "You're talking for your pocket-book."

Alderman Tiernan. "I don't give a damn for these cheap skates and cowards in the gallery. I say treat these corporations right. They have helped make the city."

A Chorus of Fifty Voices. "Aw! You want to treat yourself right, that's what you want. You vote right to-night or you'll be sorry."

By now the various aldermen outside of the most hardened characters were more or less terrified by the grilling contest. It could do no good to battle with this gallery or the crowd outside. Above them sat the mayor, before them reporters, ticking in shorthand every phrase and word. "I don't see what we can do," said Alderman Pinski to Alderman Hvranek, his neighbor. "It looks to me as if we might just as well not try."

At this point arose Alderman Gilleran, small, pale, intelligent, anti-Cowperwood. By prearrangement he had been scheduled to bring the second, and as it proved, the final test of strength to the issue. "If the chair pleases," he said, "I move that the vote by which the Ballenberg fifty-year ordinance was referred to the joint committee of streets and alleys be reconsidered, and that instead it be referred to the committee on city hall."

This was a committee that hitherto had always been considered by members of council as of the least importance. Its principal duties consisted in devising new names for streets and regulating the hours of city-hall servants. There were no perquisites, no graft. In a spirit of ribald defiance at the organization of the present session all the mayor's friends—the reformers—those who could not be trusted—had been relegated to this committee. Now it was proposed to take this ordinance out of the hands of friends and send it here, from whence unquestionably it would never reappear. The great test had come.

Alderman Hoberkorn (mouthpiece for his gang because the most skilful in a parliamentary sense). "The vote cannot be reconsidered." He begins a long explanation amid hisses.

A Voice. "How much have you got?"

A Second Voice. "You've been a boodler all your life."

Alderman Hoberkorn (turning to the gallery, a light of defiance in his eye). "You come here to intimidate us, but you can't do it. You're too contemptible to notice."

A Voice. "You hear the drums, don't you?"

A Second Voice. "Vote wrong, Hoberkorn, and see. We know you."

Alderman Tiernan (to himself). "Say, that's pretty rough, ain't it?"

The Mayor. "Motion overruled. The point is not well taken."

Alderman Guigler (rising a little puzzled). "Do we vote now on the Gilleran resolution?"

A Voice. "You bet you do, and you vote right."

The Mayor. "Yes. The clerk will call the roll."

The Clerk (reading the names, beginning with the A's). "Altvast?" (pro-Cowperwood).

Alderman Altvast. "Yea." Fear had conquered him.

Alderman Tiernan (to Alderman Kerrigan). "Well, there's one baby down."

Alderman Kerrigan. "Yep."

"Ballenberg?" (Pro-Cowperwood; the man who had introduced the ordinance.)

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "Say, has Ballenberg weakened?"

Alderman Kerrigan. "It looks that way."

"Canna?"

"Yea."

"Fogarty?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan (nervously). "There goes Fogarty."

"Hvranek?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "And Hvranek!"

Alderman Kerrigan (referring to the courage of his colleagues). "It's coming out of their hair."

In exactly eighty seconds the roll-call was in and Cowperwood had lost—41 to 25. It was plain that the ordinance could never be revived.

The Titan : Chapter 60

Chapter 60
The Net

The storm which burst in connection with Cowperwood's machinations at Springfield early in 1897, and continued without abating until the following fall, attracted such general attention that it was largely reported in the Eastern papers. F. A. Cowperwood versus the state of Illinois—thus one New York daily phrased the situation. The magnetizing power of fame is great. Who can resist utterly the luster that surrounds the individualities of some men, causing them to glow with a separate and special effulgence? Even in the case of Berenice this was not without its value. In a Chicago paper which she found lying one day on a desk which Cowperwood had occupied was an extended editorial which interested her greatly. After reciting his various misdeeds, particularly in connection with the present state legislature, it went on to say: "He has an innate, chronic, unconquerable contempt for the rank and file. Men are but slaves and thralls to draw for him the chariot of his greatness. Never in all his history has he seen fit to go to the people direct for anything. In Philadelphia, when he wanted public-franchise control, he sought privily and by chicane to arrange his affairs with a venal city treasurer. In Chicago he has uniformly sought to buy and convert to his own use the splendid privileges of the city, which should really redound to the benefit of all. Frank Algernon Cowperwood does not believe in the people; he does not trust them. To him they constitute no more than a field upon which corn is to be sown, and from which it is to be reaped. They present but a mass of bent backs, their knees and faces in the mire, over which as over a floor he strides to superiority. His private and inmost faith is in himself alone. Upon the majority he shuts the gates of his glory in order that the sight of their misery and their needs may not disturb nor alloy his selfish bliss. Frank Algernon Cowperwood does not believe in the people."

This editorial battle-cry, flung aloft during the latter days of the contest at Springfield and taken up by the Chicago papers generally and by those elsewhere, interested Berenice greatly. As she thought of him—waging his terrific contests, hurrying to and fro between New York and Chicago, building his splendid mansion, collecting his pictures, quarreling with Aileen—he came by degrees to take on the outlines of a superman, a half-god or demi-gorgon. How could the ordinary rules of life or the accustomed paths of men be expected to control him? They could not and did not. And here he was pursuing her, seeking her out with his eyes, grateful for a smile, waiting as much as he dared on her every wish and whim.

Say what one will, the wish buried deep in every woman's heart is that her lover should be a hero. Some, out of the veriest stick or stone, fashion the idol before which they kneel, others demand the hard reality of greatness; but in either case the illusion of paragon-worship is maintained.

Berenice, by no means ready to look upon Cowperwood as an accepted lover, was nevertheless gratified that his erring devotion was the tribute of one able apparently to command thought from the whole world. Moreover, because the New York papers had taken fire from his great struggle in the Middle West and were charging him with bribery, perjury, and intent to thwart the will of the people, Cowperwood now came forward with an attempt to explain his exact position to Berenice and to justify himself in her eyes. During visits to the Carter house or in entr'actes at the opera or the theater, he recounted to her bit by bit his entire history. He described the characters of Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and the motives of jealousy and revenge which had led to their attack upon him in Chicago. "No human being could get anything through the Chicago City Council without paying for it," he declared. "It's simply a question of who's putting up the money." He told how Truman Leslie MacDonald had once tried to "shake him down" for fifty thousand dollars, and how the newspapers had since found it possible to make money, to increase their circulation, by attacking him. He frankly admitted the fact of his social ostracism, attributing it partially to Aileen's deficiencies and partially to his own attitude of Promethean defiance, which had never yet brooked defeat.

"And I will defeat them now," he said, solemnly, to Berenice one day over a luncheon-table at the Plaza when the room was nearly empty. His gray eyes were a study in colossal enigmatic spirit. "The governor hasn't signed my fifty-year franchise bill" (this was before the closing events at Springfield), "but he will sign it. Then I have one more fight ahead of me. I'm going to combine all the traffic lines out there under one general system. I am the logical person to provide it. Later on, if public ownership ever arrives, the city can buy it."

"And then—" asked Berenice sweetly, flattered by his confidences.

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose I'll live abroad. You don't seem to be very much interested in me. I'll finish my picture collection—"

"But supposing you should lose?"

"I don't contemplate losing," he remarked, coolly. "Whatever happens, I'll have enough to live on. I'm a little tired of contest."

He smiled, but Berenice saw that the thought of defeat was a gray one. With victory was his heart, and only there. Owing to the national publicity being given to Cowperwood's affairs at this time the effect upon Berenice of these conversations with him was considerable. At the same time another and somewhat sinister influence was working in his favor. By slow degrees she and her mother were coming to learn that the ultra-conservatives of society were no longer willing to accept them. Berenice had become at last too individual a figure to be overlooked. At an important luncheon given by the Harris Haggertys, some five months after the Beales Chadsey affair, she had been pointed out to Mrs. Haggerty by a visiting guest from Cincinnati as some one with whom rumor was concerning itself. Mrs. Haggerty wrote to friends in Louisville for information, and received it. Shortly after, at the coming-out party of a certain Geraldine Borga, Berenice, who had been her sister's schoolmate, was curiously omitted. She took sharp note of that. Subsequently the Haggertys failed to include her, as they had always done before, in their generous summer invitations. This was true also of the Lanman Zeiglers and the Lucas Demmigs. No direct affront was offered; she was simply no longer invited. Also one morning she read in the Tribune that Mrs. Corscaden Batjer had sailed for Italy. No word of this had been sent to Berenice. Yet Mrs. Batjer was supposedly one of her best friends. A hint to some is of more avail than an open statement to others. Berenice knew quite well in which direction the tide was setting.

True, there were a number—the ultra-smart of the smart world—who protested. Mrs. Patrick Gilbennin, for instance: "No! You don't tell me? What a shame! Well, I like Bevy and shall always like her. She's clever, and she can come here just as long as she chooses. It isn't her fault. She's a lady at heart and always will be. Life is so cruel." Mrs. Augustus Tabreez: "Is that really true? I can't believe it. Just the same, she's too charming to be dropped. I for one propose to ignore these rumors just as long as I dare. She can come here if she can't go anywhere else." Mrs. Pennington Drury: "That of Bevy Fleming! Who says so? I don't believe it. I like her anyhow. The idea of the Haggertys cutting her—dull fools! Well, she can be my guest, the dear thing, as long as she pleases. As though her mother's career really affected her!"

Nevertheless, in the world of the dull rich—those who hold their own by might of possession, conformity, owl-eyed sobriety, and ignorance—Bevy Fleming had become persona non grata. How did she take all this? With that air of superior consciousness which knows that no shift of outer material ill-fortune can detract one jot from an inward mental superiority. The truly individual know themselves from the beginning and rarely, if ever, doubt. Life may play fast and loose about them, running like a racing, destructive tide in and out, but they themselves are like a rock, still, serene, unmoved. Bevy Fleming felt herself to be so immensely superior to anything of which she was a part that she could afford to hold her head high even now Just the same, in order to remedy the situation she now looked about her with an eye single to a possible satisfactory marriage. Braxmar had gone for good. He was somewhere in the East—in China, she heard—his infatuation for her apparently dead. Kilmer Duelma was gone also—snapped up—an acquisition on the part of one of those families who did not now receive her. However, in the drawing-rooms where she still appeared—and what were they but marriage markets?—one or two affairs did spring up—tentative approachments on the part of scions of wealth. They were destined to prove abortive. One of these youths, Pedro Ricer Marcado, a Brazilian, educated at Oxford, promised much for sincerity and feeling until he learned that Berenice was poor in her own right—and what else? Some one had whispered something in his ear. Again there was a certain William Drake Bowdoin, the son of a famous old family, who lived on the north side of Washington Square. After a ball, a morning musicale, and one other affair at which they met Bowdoin took Berenice to see his mother and sister, who were charmed. "Oh, you serene divinity!" he said to her, ecstatically, one day. "Won't you marry me?" Bevy looked at him and wondered. "Let us wait just a little longer, my dear," she counseled. "I want you to be sure that you really love me. Shortly thereafter, meeting an old classmate at a club, Bowdoin was greeted as follows:

"Look here, Bowdoin. You're a friend of mine. I see you with that Miss Fleming. Now, I don't know how far things have gone, and I don't want to intrude, but are you sure you are aware of all the aspects of the case?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Bowdoin. "I want you to speak out."

"Oh, pardon, old man. No offense, really. You know me. I couldn't. College—and all that. Just this, though, before you go any further. Inquire about. You may hear things. If they're true you ought to know. If not, the talking ought to stop. If I'm wrong call on me for amends. I hear talk, I tell you. Best intentions in the world, old man. I do assure you."

More inquiries. The tongues of jealousy and envy. Mr. Bowdoin was sure to inherit three million dollars. Then a very necessary trip to somewhere, and Berenice stared at herself in the glass. What was it? What were people saying, if anything? This was strange. Well, she was young and beautiful. There were others. Still, she might have come to love Bowdoin. He was so airy, artistic in an unconscious way. Really, she had thought better of him.

The effect of all this was not wholly depressing. Enigmatic, disdainful, with a touch of melancholy and a world of gaiety and courage, Berenice heard at times behind joy the hollow echo of unreality. Here was a ticklish business, this living. For want of light and air the finest flowers might die. Her mother's error was not so inexplicable now. By it had she not, after all, preserved herself and her family to a certain phase of social superiority? Beauty was of such substance as dreams are made of, and as fleeting. Not one's self alone—one's inmost worth, the splendor of one's dreams—but other things—name, wealth, the presence or absence of rumor, and of accident—were important. Berenice's lip curled. But life could be lived. One could lie to the world. Youth is optimistic, and Berenice, in spite of her splendid mind, was so young. She saw life as a game, a good chance, that could be played in many ways. Cowperwood's theory of things began to appeal to her. One must create one's own career, carve it out, or remain horribly dull or bored, dragged along at the chariot wheels of others. If society was so finicky, if men were so dull—well, there was one thing she could do. She must have life, life—and money would help some to that end.

Besides, Cowperwood by degrees was becoming attractive to her; he really was. He was so much better than most of the others, so very powerful. She was preternaturally gay, as one who says, "Victory shall be mine anyhow."

The Titan : Chapter 59

Chapter 59
Capital and Public Rights

Between the passage on June 5, 1897, of the Mears bill—so christened after the doughty representative who had received a small fortune for introducing it—and its presentation to the Chicago City Council in December of the same year, what broodings, plottings, politickings, and editorializings on the part of all and sundry! In spite of the intense feeling of opposition to Cowperwood there was at the same time in local public life one stratum of commercial and phlegmatic substance that could not view him in an altogether unfavorable light. They were in business themselves. His lines passed their doors and served them. They could not see wherein his street-railway service differed so much from that which others might give. Here was the type of materialist who in Cowperwood's defiance saw a justification of his own material point of view and was not afraid to say so. But as against these there were the preachers—poor wind-blown sticks of unreason who saw only what the current palaver seemed to indicate. Again there were the anarchists, socialists, single-taxers, and public-ownership advocates. There were the very poor who saw in Cowperwood's wealth and in the fabulous stories of his New York home and of his art-collection a heartless exploitation of their needs. At this time the feeling was spreading broadcast in America that great political and economic changes were at hand—that the tyranny of iron masters at the top was to give way to a richer, freer, happier life for the rank and file. A national eight-hour-day law was being advocated, and the public ownership of public franchises. And here now was a great street-railway corporation, serving a population of a million and a half, occupying streets which the people themselves created by their presence, taking toll from all these humble citizens to the amount of sixteen or eighteen millions of dollars in the year and giving in return, so the papers said, poor service, shabby cars, no seats at rush-hours, no universal transfers (as a matter of fact, there were in operation three hundred and sixty-two separate transfer points) and no adequate tax on the immense sums earned. The workingman who read this by gas or lamp light in the kitchen or parlor of his shabby flat or cottage, and who read also in other sections of his paper of the free, reckless, glorious lives of the rich, felt himself to be defrauded of a portion of his rightful inheritance. It was all a question of compelling Frank A. Cowperwood to do his duty by Chicago. He must not again be allowed to bribe the aldermen; he must not be allowed to have a fifty-year franchise, the privilege of granting which he had already bought from the state legislature by the degradation of honest men. He must be made to succumb, to yield to the forces of law and order. It was claimed—and with a justice of which those who made the charge were by no means fully aware—that the Mears bill had been put through the house and senate by the use of cold cash, proffered even to the governor himself. No legal proof of this was obtainable, but Cowperwood was assumed to be a briber on a giant scale. By the newspaper cartoons he was represented as a pirate commander ordering his men to scuttle another vessel—the ship of Public Rights. He was pictured as a thief, a black mask over his eyes, and as a seducer, throttling Chicago, the fair maiden, while he stole her purse. The fame of this battle was by now becoming world-wide. In Montreal, in Cape Town, in Buenos Ayres and Melbourne, in London and Paris, men were reading of this singular struggle. At last, and truly, he was a national and international figure. His original dream, however, modified by circumstances, had literally been fulfilled.

Meanwhile be it admitted that the local elements in finance which had brought about this terrific onslaught on Cowperwood were not a little disturbed as to the eventual character of the child of their own creation. Here at last was a public opinion definitely inimical to Cowperwood; but here also were they themselves, tremendous profit-holders, with a desire for just such favors as Cowperwood himself had exacted, deliberately setting out to kill the goose that could lay the golden egg. Men such as Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb, Fishel, tremendous capitalists in the East and foremost in the directorates of huge transcontinental lines, international banking-houses, and the like, were amazed that the newspapers and the anti-Cowperwood element should have gone so far in Chicago. Had they no respect for capital? Did they not know that long-time franchises were practically the basis of all modern capitalistic prosperity? Such theories as were now being advocated here would spread to other cities unless checked. America might readily become anti-capitalistic—socialistic. Public ownership might appear as a workable theory—and then what?

"Those men out there are very foolish," observed Mr. Haeckelheimer at one time to Mr. Fishel, of Fishel, Stone & Symons. "I can't see that Mr. Cowperwood is different from any other organizer of his day. He seems to me perfectly sound and able. All his companies pay. There are no better investments than the North and West Chicago railways. It would be advisable, in my judgment, that all the lines out there should be consolidated and be put in his charge. He would make money for the stockholders. He seems to know how to run street-railways."

"You know," replied Mr. Fishel, as smug and white as Mr. Haeckelheimer, and in thorough sympathy with his point of view, "I have been thinking of something like that myself. All this quarreling should be hushed up. It's very bad for business—very. Once they get that public-ownership nonsense started, it will be hard to stop. There has been too much of it already."

Mr. Fishel was stout and round like Mr. Haeckelheimer, but much smaller. He was little more than a walking mathematical formula. In his cranium were financial theorems and syllogisms of the second, third, and fourth power only.

And now behold a new trend of affairs. Mr. Timothy Arneel, attacked by pneumonia, dies and leaves his holdings in Chicago City to his eldest son, Edward Arneel. Mr. Fishel and Mr. Haeckelheimer, through agents and then direct, approach Mr. Merrill in behalf of Cowperwood. There is much talk of profits—how much more profitable has been the Cowperwood regime over street-railway lines than that of Mr. Schryhart. Mr. Fishel is interested in allaying socialistic excitement. So, by this time, is Mr. Merrill. Directly hereafter Mr. Haeckelheimer approaches Mr. Edward Arneel, who is not nearly so forceful as his father, though he would like to be so. He, strange to relate, has come rather to admire Cowperwood and sees no advantage in a policy that can only tend to municipalize local lines. Mr. Merrill, for Mr. Fishel, approaches Mr. Hand. "Never! never! never!" says Hand. Mr. Haeckelheimer approaches Mr. Hand. "Never! never! never! To the devil with Mr. Cowperwood!" But as a final emissary for Mr. Haeckelheimer and Mr. Fishel there now appears Mr. Morgan Frankhauser, the partner of Mr. Hand in a seven-million-dollar traction scheme in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Why will Mr. Hand be so persistent? Why pursue a scheme of revenge which only stirs up the masses and makes municipal ownership a valid political idea, thus disturbing capital elsewhere? Why not trade his Chicago holdings to him, Frankhauser, for Pittsburg traction stock—share and share alike—and then fight Cowperwood all he pleases on the outside?

Mr. Hand, puzzled, astounded, scratching his round head, slaps a heavy hand on his desk. "Never!" he exclaims. "Never, by God—as long as I am alive and in Chicago!" And then he yields. Life does shifty things, he is forced to reflect in a most puzzled way. Never would he have believed it! "Schryhart," he declared to Frankhauser, "will never come in. He will die first. Poor old Timothy—if he were alive—he wouldn't either."

"Leave Mr. Schryhart out of it, for Heaven's sake," pleaded Mr. Frankhauser, a genial American German. "Haven't I troubles enough?"

Mr. Schryhart is enraged. Never! never! never! He will sell out first—but he is in a minority, and Mr. Frankhauser, for Mr. Fishel or Mr. Haeckelheimer, will gladly take his holdings.

Now behold in the autumn of 1897 all rival Chicago street-railway lines brought to Mr. Cowperwood on a platter, as it were—a golden platter.

"Ve haff it fixed," confidentially declared Mr. Gotloeb to Mr. Cowperwood, over an excellent dinner in the sacred precincts of the Metropolitan Club in New York. Time, 8.30 P.M. Wine—sparkling burgundy. "A telegram come shusst to-day from Frankhauser. A nice man dot. You shouldt meet him sometime. Hant—he sells out his stock to Frankhauser. Merrill unt Edward Arneel vork vit us. Ve hantle efferyt'ing for dem. Mr. Fishel vill haff his friends pick up all de local shares he can, unt mit dees tree ve control de board. Schryhart iss out. He sess he vill resign. Very goot. I don't subbose dot vill make you veep any. It all hintges now on vether you can get dot fifty-year-franchise ordinance troo de city council or not. Haeckelheimer sess he prefers you to all utters to run t'ings. He vill leef everytink positifely in your hands. Frankhauser sess de same. Vot Haeckelheimer sess he doess. Now dere you are. It's up to you. I vish you much choy. It is no small chop you haff, beating de newspapers, unt you still haff Hant unt Schryhart against you. Mr. Haeckelheimer askt me to pay his complimends to you unt to say vill you dine vit him next veek, or may he dine vit you—vicheffer iss most conveniend. So."

In the mayor's chair of Chicago at this time sat a man named Walden H. Lucas. Aged thirty-eight, he was politically ambitious. He had the elements of popularity—the knack or luck of fixing public attention. A fine, upstanding, healthy young buck he was, subtle, vigorous, a cool, direct, practical thinker and speaker, an eager enigmatic dreamer of great political honors to come, anxious to play his cards just right, to make friends, to be the pride of the righteous, and yet the not too uncompromising foe of the wicked. In short, a youthful, hopeful Western Machiavelli, and one who could, if he chose, serve the cause of the anti-Cowperwood struggle exceedingly well indeed.

Cowperwood, disturbed, visits the mayor in his office.

"Mr. Lucas, what is it you personally want? What can I do for you? Is it future political preferment you are after?"

"Mr. Cowperwood, there isn't anything you can do for me. You do not understand me, and I do not understand you. You cannot understand me because I am an honest man."

"Ye gods!" replied Cowperwood. "This is certainly a case of self-esteem and great knowledge. Good afternoon."

Shortly thereafter the mayor was approached by one Mr. Carker, who was the shrewd, cold, and yet magnetic leader of Democracy in the state of New York. Said Carker:

"You see, Mr. Lucas, the great money houses of the East are interested in this local contest here in Chicago. For example, Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. would like to see a consolidation of all the lines on a basis that will make them an attractive investment for buyers generally and will at the same time be fair and right to the city. A twenty-year contract is much too short a term in their eyes. Fifty is the least they could comfortably contemplate, and they would prefer a hundred. It is little enough for so great an outlay. The policy now being pursued here can lead only to the public ownership of public utilities, and that is something which the national Democratic party at large can certainly not afford to advocate at present. It would antagonize the money element from coast to coast. Any man whose political record was definitely identified with such a movement would have no possible chance at even a state nomination, let alone a national one. He could never be elected. I make myself clear, do I not?"

"You do."

"A man can just as easily be taken from the mayor's office in Chicago as from the governor's office at Springfield," pursued Mr. Carker. "Mr. Haeckelheimer and Mr. Fishel have personally asked me to call on you. If you want to be mayor of Chicago again for two years or governor next year, until the time for picking a candidate for the Presidency arrives, suit yourself. In the mean time you will be unwise, in my judgment, to saddle yourself with this public-ownership idea. The newspapers in fighting Mr. Cowperwood have raised an issue which never should have been raised."

After Mr. Carker's departure, arrived Mr. Edward Arneel, of local renown, and then Mr. Jacob Bethal, the Democratic leader in San Francisco, both offering suggestions which if followed might result in mutual support. There were in addition delegations of powerful Republicans from Minneapolis and from Philadelphia. Even the president of the Lake City Bank and the president of the Prairie National—once anti-Cowperwood—arrived to say what had already been said. So it went. Mr. Lucas was greatly nonplussed. A political career was surely a difficult thing to effect. Would it pay to harry Mr. Cowperwood as he had set out to do? Would a steadfast policy advocating the cause of the people get him anywhere? Would they be grateful? Would they remember? Suppose the current policy of the newspapers should be modified, as Mr. Carker had suggested that it might be. What a mess and tangle politics really were!

"Well, Bessie," he inquired of his handsome, healthy, semi-blonde wife, one evening, "what would you do if you were I?"

She was gray-eyed, gay, practical, vain, substantially connected in so far as family went, and proud of her husband's position and future. He had formed the habit of talking over his various difficulties with her.

"Well, I'll tell you, Wally," she replied. "You've got to stick to something. It looks to me as though the winning side was with the people this time. I don't see how the newspapers can change now after all they've done. You don't have to advocate public ownership or anything unfair to the money element, but just the same I'd stick to my point that the fifty-year franchise is too much. You ought to make them pay the city something and get their franchise without bribery. They can't do less than that. I'd stick to the course you've begun on. You can't get along without the people, Wally. You just must have them. If you lose their good will the politicians can't help you much, nor anybody else."

Plainly there were times when the people had to be considered. They just had to be!

The Titan : Chapter 58

Chapter 58
A Marauder Upon the Commonwealth

The spring and summer months of 1897 and the late fall of 1898 witnessed the final closing battle between Frank Algernon Cowperwood and the forces inimical to him in so far as the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and indeed the United States of America, were concerned. When in 1896 a new governor and a new group of state representatives were installed Cowperwood decided that it would be advisable to continue the struggle at once. By the time this new legislature should convene for its labors a year would have passed since Governor Swanson had vetoed the original public-service-commission bill. By that time public sentiment as aroused by the newspapers would have had time to cool. Already through various favorable financial interests—particularly Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. and all the subsurface forces they represented—he had attempted to influence the incoming governor, and had in part succeeded.

The new governor in this instance—one Corporal A. E. Archer—or ex-Congressman Archer, as he was sometimes called—was, unlike Swanson, a curious mixture of the commonplace and the ideal—one of those shiftily loyal and loyally shifty who make their upward way by devious, if not too reprehensible methods. He was a little man, stocky, brown-haired, brown-eyed, vigorous, witty, with the ordinary politician's estimate of public morality—namely, that there is no such thing. A drummer-boy at fourteen in the War of the Rebellion, a private at sixteen and eighteen, he had subsequently been breveted for conspicuous military service. At this later time he was head of the Grand Army of the Republic, and conspicuous in various stirring eleemosynary efforts on behalf of the old soldiers, their widows and orphans. A fine American, flag-waving, tobacco-chewing, foul-swearing little man was this—and one with noteworthy political ambitions. Other Grand Army men had been conspicuous in the lists for Presidential nominations. Why not he? An excellent orator in a high falsetto way, and popular because of good-fellowship, presence, force, he was by nature materially and commercially minded—therefore without basic appeal to the higher ranks of intelligence. In seeking the nomination for governorship he had made the usual overtures and had in turn been sounded by Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb, and various other corporate interests who were in league with Cowperwood as to his attitude in regard to a proposed public-service commission. At first he had refused to commit himself. Later, finding that the C. W. & I. and the Chicago & Pacific (very powerful railroads both) were interested, and that other candidates were running him a tight chase in the gubernatorial contest, he succumbed in a measure, declaring privately that in case the legislature proved to be strongly in favor of the idea and the newspapers not too crushingly opposed he might be willing to stand as its advocate. Other candidates expressed similar views, but Corporal Archer proved to have the greater following, and was eventually nominated and comfortably elected.

Shortly after the new legislature had convened, it so chanced that a certain A. S. Rotherhite, publisher of the South Chicago Journal, was one day accidentally sitting as a visitor in the seat of a state representative by the name of Clarence Mulligan. While so occupied Rotherhite was familiarly slapped on the back by a certain Senator Ladrigo, of Menard, and was invited to come out into the rotunda, where, posing as Representative Mulligan, he was introduced by Senator Ladrigo to a stranger by the name of Gerard. The latter, with but few preliminary remarks, began as follows:

"Mr. Mulligan, I want to fix it with you in regard to this Southack bill which is soon to come up in the house. We have seventy votes, but we want ninety. The fact that the bill has gone to a second reading in the senate shows our strength. I am authorized to come to terms with you this morning if you would like. Your vote is worth two thousand dollars to you the moment the bill is signed."

Mr. Rotherhite, who happened to be a newly recruited member of the Opposition press, proved very canny in this situation.

"Excuse me," he stammered, "I did not understand your name?"

"Gerard. G-er-ard. Henry A. Gerard," replied this other.

"Thank you. I will think it over," was the response of the presumed Representative Mulligan.

Strange to state, at this very instant the authentic Mulligan actually appeared—heralded aloud by several of his colleagues who happened to be lingering near by in the lobby. Whereupon the anomalous Mr. Gerard and the crafty Senator Ladrigo discreetly withdrew. Needless to say that Mr. Rotherhite hurried at once to the forces of righteousness. The press should spread this little story broadcast. It was a very meaty incident; and it brought the whole matter once more into the fatal, poisonous field of press discussion.

At once the Chicago papers flew to arms. The cry was raised that the same old sinister Cowperwoodian forces were at work. The members of the senate and the house were solemnly warned. The sterling attitude of ex-Governor Swanson was held up as an example to the present Governor Archer. "The whole idea," observed an editorial in Truman Leslie MacDonald's Inquirer, "smacks of chicane, political subtlety, and political jugglery. Well do the citizens of Chicago and the people of Illinois know who and what particular organization would prove the true beneficiaries. We do not want a public-service commission at the behest of a private street-railway corporation. Are the tentacles of Frank A. Cowperwood to envelop this legislature as they did the last?"

This broadside, coming in conjunction with various hostile rumblings in other papers, aroused Cowperwood to emphatic language.

"They can all go to the devil," he said to Addison, one day at lunch. "I have a right to an extension of my franchises for fifty years, and I am going to get it. Look at New York and Philadelphia. Why, the Eastern houses laugh. They don't understand such a situation. It's all the inside work of this Hand-Schryhart crowd. I know what they're doing and who's pulling the strings. The newspapers yap-yap every time they give an order. Hyssop waltzes every time Arneel moves. Little MacDonald is a stool-pigeon for Hand. It's got down so low now that it's anything to beat Cowperwood. Well, they won't beat me. I'll find a way out. The legislature will pass a bill allowing for a fifty-year franchise, and the governor will sign it. I'll see to that personally. I have at least eighteen thousand stockholders who want a decent run for their money, and I propose to give it to them. Aren't other men getting rich? Aren't other corporations earning ten and twelve per cent? Why shouldn't I? Is Chicago any the worse? Don't I employ twenty thousand men and pay them well? All this palaver about the rights of the people and the duty to the public—rats! Does Mr. Hand acknowledge any duty to the public where his special interests are concerned? Or Mr. Schryhart? Or Mr. Arneel? The newspapers be damned! I know my rights. An honest legislature will give me a decent franchise to save me from the local political sharks."

By this time, however, the newspapers had become as subtle and powerful as the politicians themselves. Under the great dome of the capitol at Springfield, in the halls and conference chambers of the senate and house, in the hotels, and in the rural districts wherever any least information was to be gathered, were their representatives—to see, to listen, to pry. Out of this contest they were gaining prestige and cash. By them were the reform aldermen persuaded to call mass-meetings in their respective districts. Property-owners were urged to organize; a committee of one hundred prominent citizens led by Hand and Schryhart was formed. It was not long before the halls, chambers, and committee-rooms of the capitol at Springfield and the corridors of the one principal hotel were being tramped over almost daily by rampant delegations of ministers, reform aldermen, and civil committeemen, who arrived speechifying, threatening, and haranguing, and departed, only to make room for another relay.

"Say, what do you think of these delegations, Senator?" inquired a certain Representative Greenough of Senator George Christian, of Grundy, one morning, the while a group of Chicago clergymen accompanied by the mayor and several distinguished private citizens passed through the rotunda on their way to the committee on railroads, where the house bill was privily being discussed. "Don't you think they speak well for our civic pride and moral upbringing?" He raised his eyes and crossed his fingers over his waistcoat in the most sanctimonious and reverential attitude.

"Yes, dear Pastor," replied the irreverent Christian, without the shadow of a smile. He was a little sallow, wiry man with eyes like a ferret, a small mustache and goatee ornamenting his face. "But do not forget that the Lord has called us also to this work."

"Even so," acquiesced Greenough. "We must not weary in well doing. The harvest is truly plenteous and the laborers are few."

"Tut, tut, Pastor. Don't overdo it. You might make me larf," replied Christian; and the twain parted with knowing and yet weary smiles.

Yet how little did the accommodating attitude of these gentlemen avail in silencing the newspapers. The damnable newspapers! They were here, there, and everywhere reporting each least fragment of rumor, conversation, or imaginary programme. Never did the citizens of Chicago receive so keen a drilling in statecraft—its subtleties and ramifications. The president of the senate and the speaker of the house were singled out and warned separately as to their duty. A page a day devoted to legislative proceeding in this quarter was practically the custom of the situation. Cowperwood was here personally on the scene, brazen, defiant, logical, the courage of his convictions in his eyes, the power of his magnetism fairly enslaving men. Throwing off the mask of disinterestedness—if any might be said to have covered him—he now frankly came out in the open and, journeying to Springfield, took quarters at the principal hotel. Like a general in time of battle, he marshaled his forces about him. In the warm, moonlit atmosphere of June nights when the streets of Springfield were quiet, the great plain of Illinois bathed for hundreds of miles from north to south in a sweet effulgence and the rurals slumbering in their simple homes, he sat conferring with his lawyers and legislative agents.

Pity in such a crisis the poor country-jake legislator torn between his desire for a justifiable and expedient gain and his fear lest he should be assailed as a betrayer of the people's interests. To some of these small-town legislators, who had never seen as much as two thousand dollars in cash in all their days, the problem was soul-racking. Men gathered in private rooms and hotel parlors to discuss it. They stood in their rooms at night and thought about it alone. The sight of big business compelling its desires the while the people went begging was destructive. Many a romantic, illusioned, idealistic young country editor, lawyer, or statesman was here made over into a minor cynic or bribe-taker. Men were robbed of every vestige of faith or even of charity; they came to feel, perforce, that there was nothing outside the capacity for taking and keeping. The surface might appear commonplace—ordinary men of the state of Illinois going here and there—simple farmers and small-town senators and representatives conferring and meditating and wondering what they could do—yet a jungle-like complexity was present, a dark, rank growth of horrific but avid life—life at the full, life knife in hand, life blazing with courage and dripping at the jaws with hunger.

However, because of the terrific uproar the more cautious legislators were by degrees becoming fearful. Friends in their home towns, at the instigation of the papers, were beginning to write them. Political enemies were taking heart. It meant too much of a sacrifice on the part of everybody. In spite of the fact that the bait was apparently within easy reach, many became evasive and disturbed. When a certain Representative Sparks, cocked and primed, with the bill in his pocket, arose upon the floor of the house, asking leave to have it spread upon the minutes, there was an instant explosion. The privilege of the floor was requested by a hundred. Another representative, Disback, being in charge of the opposition to Cowperwood, had made a count of noses and was satisfied in spite of all subtlety on the part of the enemy that he had at least one hundred and two votes, the necessary two-thirds wherewith to crush any measure which might originate on the floor. Nevertheless, his followers, because of caution, voted it to a second and a third reading. All sorts of amendments were made—one for a three-cent fare during the rush-hours, another for a 20 per cent. tax on gross receipts. In amended form the measure was sent to the senate, where the changes were stricken out and the bill once more returned to the house. Here, to Cowperwood's chagrin, signs were made manifest that it could not be passed. "It can't be done, Frank," said Judge Dickensheets. "It's too grilling a game. Their home papers are after them. They can't live."

Consequently a second measure was devised—more soothing and lulling to the newspapers, but far less satisfactory to Cowperwood. It conferred upon the Chicago City Council, by a trick of revising the old Horse and Dummy Act of 1865, the right to grant a franchise for fifty instead of for twenty years. This meant that Cowperwood would have to return to Chicago and fight out his battle there. It was a severe blow, yet better than nothing. Providing that he could win one more franchise battle within the walls of the city council in Chicago, it would give him all that he desired. But could he? Had he not come here to the legislature especially to evade such a risk? His motives were enduring such a blistering exposure. Yet perhaps, after all, if the price were large enough the Chicago councilmen would have more real courage than these country legislators—would dare more. They would have to.

So, after Heaven knows what desperate whisperings, conferences, arguments, and heartening of members, there was originated a second measure which—after the defeat of the first bill, 104 to 49—was introduced, by way of a very complicated path, through the judiciary committee. It was passed; and Governor Archer, after heavy hours of contemplation and self-examination, signed it. A little man mentally, he failed to estimate an aroused popular fury at its true import to him. At his elbow was Cowperwood in the clear light of day, snapping his fingers in the face of his enemies, showing by the hard, cheerful glint in his eye that he was still master of the situation, giving all assurance that he would yet live to whip the Chicago papers into submission. Besides, in the event of the passage of the bill, Cowperwood had promised to make Archer independently rich—a cash reward of five hundred thousand dollars.

The Titan : Chapter 57

Chapter 57
Aileen's Last Card

It was not until some little time after they were established in the new house that Aileen first came upon any evidence of the existence of Berenice Fleming. In a general way she assumed that there were women—possibly some of whom she had known—Stephanie, Mrs. Hand, Florence Cochrane, or later arrivals—yet so long as they were not obtruded on her she permitted herself the semi-comforting thought that things were not as bad as they might be. So long, indeed, as Cowperwood was genuinely promiscuous, so long as he trotted here and there, not snared by any particular siren, she could not despair, for, after all, she had ensnared him and held him deliciously—without variation, she believed, for all of ten years—a feat which no other woman had achieved before or after. Rita Sohlberg might have succeeded—the beast! How she hated the thought of Rita! By this time, however, Cowperwood was getting on in years. The day must come when he would be less keen for variability, or, at least, would think it no longer worth while to change. If only he did not find some one woman, some Circe, who would bind and enslave him in these Later years as she had herself done in his earlier ones all might yet be well. At the same time she lived in daily terror of a discovery which was soon to follow.

She had gone out one day to pay a call on some one to whom Rhees Grier, the Chicago sculptor, had given her an introduction. Crossing Central Park in one of the new French machines which Cowperwood had purchased for her indulgence, her glance wandered down a branch road to where another automobile similar to her own was stalled. It was early in the afternoon, at which time Cowperwood was presumably engaged in Wall Street. Yet there he was, and with him two women, neither of whom, in the speed of passing, could Aileen quite make out. She had her car halted and driven to within seeing-distance behind a clump of bushes. A chauffeur whom she did not know was tinkering at a handsome machine, while on the grass near by stood Cowperwood and a tall, slender girl with red hair somewhat like Aileen's own. Her expression was aloof, poetic, rhapsodical. Aileen could not analyze it, but it fixed her attention completely. In the tonneau sat an elderly lady, whom Aileen at once assumed to be the girl's mother. Who were they? What was Cowperwood doing here in the Park at this hour? Where were they going? With a horrible retch of envy she noted upon Cowperwood's face a smile the like and import of which she well knew. How often she had seen it years and years before! Having escaped detection, she ordered her chauffeur to follow the car, which soon started, at a safe distance. She saw Cowperwood and the two ladies put down at one of the great hotels, and followed them into the dining-room, where, from behind a screen, after the most careful manoeuvering, she had an opportunity of studying them at her leisure. She drank in every detail of Berenice's face—the delicately pointed chin, the clear, fixed blue eyes, the straight, sensitive nose and tawny hair. Calling the head waiter, she inquired the names of the two women, and in return for a liberal tip was informed at once. "Mrs. Ira Carter, I believe, and her daughter, Miss Fleming, Miss Berenice Fleming. Mrs. Carter was Mrs. Fleming once." Aileen followed them out eventually, and in her own car pursued them to their door, into which Cowperwood also disappeared. The next day, by telephoning the apartment to make inquiry, she learned that they actually lived there. After a few days of brooding she employed a detective, and learned that Cowperwood was a constant visitor at the Carters', that the machine in which they rode was his maintained at a separate garage, and that they were of society truly. Aileen would never have followed the clue so vigorously had it not been for the look she had seen Cowperwood fix on the girl in the Park and in the restaurant—an air of soul-hunger which could not be gainsaid.

Let no one ridicule the terrors of unrequited love. Its tentacles are cancerous, its grip is of icy death. Sitting in her boudoir immediately after these events, driving, walking, shopping, calling on the few with whom she had managed to scrape an acquaintance, Aileen thought morning, noon, and night of this new woman. The pale, delicate face haunted her. What were those eyes, so remote in their gaze, surveying? Love? Cowperwood? Yes! Yes! Gone in a flash, and permanently, as it seemed to Aileen, was the value of this house, her dream of a new social entrance. And she had already suffered so much; endured so much. Cowperwood being absent for a fortnight, she moped in her room, sighed, raged, and then began to drink. Finally she sent for an actor who had once paid attention to her in Chicago, and whom she had later met here in the circle of the theaters. She was not so much burning with lust as determined in her drunken gloom that she would have revenge. For days there followed an orgy, in which wine, bestiality, mutual recrimination, hatred, and despair were involved. Sobering eventually, she wondered what Cowperwood would think of her now if he knew this? Could he ever love her any more? Could he even tolerate her? But what did he care? It served him right, the dog! She would show him, she would wreck his dream, she would make her own life a scandal, and his too! She would shame him before all the world. He should never have a divorce! He should never be able to marry a girl like that and leave her alone—never, never, never! When Cowperwood returned she snarled at him without vouchsafing an explanation.

He suspected at once that she had been spying upon his manoeuvers. Moreover, he did not fail to notice her heavy eyes, superheated cheeks, and sickly breath. Obviously she had abandoned her dream of a social victory of some kind, and was entering on a career of what—debauchery? Since coming to New York she had failed utterly, he thought, to make any single intelligent move toward her social rehabilitation. The banal realms of art and the stage, with which in his absence or neglect she had trifled with here, as she had done in Chicago, were worse than useless; they were destructive. He must have a long talk with her one of these days, must confess frankly to his passion for Berenice, and appeal to her sympathy and good sense. What scenes would follow! Yet she might succumb, at that. Despair, pride, disgust might move her. Besides, he could now bestow upon her a very large fortune. She could go to Europe or remain here and live in luxury. He would always remain friendly with her—helpful, advisory—if she would permit it.

The conversation which eventually followed on this topic was of such stuff as dreams are made of. It sounded hollow and unnatural within the walls where it took place. Consider the great house in upper Fifth Avenue, its magnificent chambers aglow, of a stormy Sunday night. Cowperwood was lingering in the city at this time, busy with a group of Eastern financiers who were influencing his contest in the state legislature of Illinois. Aileen was momentarily consoled by the thought that for him perhaps love might, after all, be a thing apart—a thing no longer vital and soul-controlling. To-night he was sitting in the court of orchids, reading a book—the diary of Cellini, which some one had recommended to him—stopping to think now and then of things in Chicago or Springfield, or to make a note. Outside the rain was splashing in torrents on the electric-lighted asphalt of Fifth Avenue—the Park opposite a Corot-like shadow. Aileen was in the music-room strumming indifferently. She was thinking of times past—Lynde, from whom she had not heard in half a year; Watson Skeet, the sculptor, who was also out of her ken at present. When Cowperwood was in the city and in the house she was accustomed from habit to remain indoors or near. So great is the influence of past customs of devotion that they linger long past the hour when the act ceases to become valid.

"What an awful night!" she observed once, strolling to a window to peer out from behind a brocaded valance.

"It is bad, isn't it?" replied Cowperwood, as she returned. "Hadn't you thought of going anywhere this evening?"

"No—oh no," replied Aileen, indifferently. She rose restlessly from the piano, and strolled on into the great picture-gallery. Stopping before one of Raphael Sanzio's Holy Families, only recently hung, she paused to contemplate the serene face—medieval, Madonnaesque, Italian.

The lady seemed fragile, colorless, spineless—without life. Were there such women? Why did artists paint them? Yet the little Christ was sweet. Art bored Aileen unless others were enthusiastic. She craved only the fanfare of the living—not painted resemblances. She returned to the music-room, to the court of orchids, and was just about to go up-stairs to prepare herself a drink and read a novel when Cowperwood observed:

"You're bored, aren't you?"

"Oh no; I'm used to lonely evenings," she replied, quietly and without any attempt at sarcasm.

Relentless as he was in hewing life to his theory—hammering substance to the form of his thought—yet he was tender, too, in the manner of a rainbow dancing over an abyss. For the moment he wanted to say, "Poor girlie, you do have a hard time, don't you, with me?" but he reflected instantly how such a remark would be received. He meditated, holding his book in his hand above his knee, looking at the purling water that flowed and flowed in sprinkling showers over the sportive marble figures of mermaids, a Triton, and nymphs astride of fishes.

"You're really not happy in this state, any more, are you?" he inquired. "Would you feel any more comfortable if I stayed away entirely?"

His mind had turned of a sudden to the one problem that was fretting him and to the opportunities of this hour.

"You would," she replied, for her boredom merely concealed her unhappiness in no longer being able to command in the least his interest or his sentiment.

"Why do you say that in just that way?" he asked.

"Because I know you would. I know why you ask. You know well enough that it isn't anything I want to do that is concerned. It's what you want to do. You'd like to turn me off like an old horse now that you are tired of me, and so you ask whether I would feel any more comfortable. What a liar you are, Frank! How really shifty you are! I don't wonder you're a multimillionaire. If you could live long enough you would eat up the whole world. Don't you think for one moment that I don't know of Berenice Fleming here in New York, and how you're dancing attendance on her—because I do. I know how you have been hanging about her for months and months—ever since we have been here, and for long before. You think she's wonderful now because she's young and in society. I've seen you in the Waldorf and in the Park hanging on her every word, looking at her with adoring eyes. What a fool you are, to be so big a man! Every little snip, if she has pink cheeks and a doll's face, can wind you right around her finger. Rita Sohlberg did it; Stephanie Platow did it; Florence Cochrane did it; Cecily Haguenin—and Heaven knows how many more that I never heard of. I suppose Mrs. Hand still lives with you in Chicago—the cheap strumpet! Now it's Berenice Fleming and her frump of a mother. From all I can learn you haven't been able to get her yet—because her mother's too shrewd, perhaps—but you probably will in the end. It isn't you so much as your money that they're after. Pah! Well, I'm unhappy enough, but it isn't anything you can remedy any more. Whatever you could do to make me unhappy you have done, and now you talk of my being happier away from you. Clever boy, you! I know you the way I know my ten fingers. You don't deceive me at any time in any way any more. I can't do anything about it. I can't stop you from making a fool of yourself with every woman you meet, and having people talk from one end of the country to the other. Why, for a woman to be seen with you is enough to fix her reputation forever. Right now all Broadway knows you're running after Berenice Fleming. Her name will soon be as sweet as those of the others you've had. She might as well give herself to you. If she ever had a decent reputation it's gone by now, you can depend upon that."

These remarks irritated Cowperwood greatly—enraged him—particularly her references to Berenice. What were you to do with such a woman? he thought. Her tongue was becoming unbearable; her speech in its persistence and force was that of a termagant. Surely, surely, he had made a great mistake in marrying her. At the same time the control of her was largely in his own hands even yet.

"Aileen," he said, coolly, at the end of her speech, "you talk too much. You rave. You're growing vulgar, I believe. Now let me tell you something." And he fixed her with a hard, quieting eye. "I have no apologies to make. Think what you please. I know why you say what you do. But here is the point. I want you to get it straight and clear. It may make some difference eventually if you're any kind of a woman at all. I don't care for you any more. If you want to put it another way—I'm tired of you. I have been for a long while. That's why I've run with other women. If I hadn't been tired of you I wouldn't have done it. What's more, I'm in love with somebody else—Berenice Fleming, and I expect to stay in love. I wish I were free so I could rearrange my life on a different basis and find a little comfort before I die. You don't really care for me any more. You can't. I'll admit I have treated you badly; but if I had really loved you I wouldn't have done it, would I? It isn't my fault that love died in me, is it? It isn't your fault. I'm not blaming you. Love isn't a bunch of coals that can be blown by an artificial bellows into a flame at any time. It's out, and that's an end of it. Since I don't love you and can't, why should you want me to stay near you? Why shouldn't you let me go and give me a divorce? You'll be just as happy or unhappy away from me as with me. Why not? I want to be free again. I'm miserable here, and have been for a long time. I'll make any arrangement that seems fair and right to you. I'll give you this house—these pictures, though I really don't see what you'd want with them." (Cowperwood had no intention of giving up the gallery if he could help it.) "I'll settle on you for life any income you desire, or I'll give you a fixed sum outright. I want to be free, and I want you to let me be. Now why won't you be sensible and let me do this?"

During this harangue Cowperwood had first sat and then stood. At the statement that his love was really dead—the first time he had ever baldly and squarely announced it—Aileen had paled a little and put her hand to her forehead over her eyes. It was then he had arisen. He was cold, determined, a little revengeful for the moment. She realized now that he meant this—that in his heart was no least feeling for all that had gone before—no sweet memories, no binding thoughts of happy hours, days, weeks, years, that were so glittering and wonderful to her in retrospect. Great Heavens, it was really true! His love was dead; he had said it! But for the nonce she could not believe it; she would not. It really couldn't be true.

"Frank," she began, coming toward him, the while he moved away to evade her. Her eyes were wide, her hands trembling, her lips moving in an emotional, wavy, rhythmic way. "You really don't mean that, do you? Love isn't wholly dead, is it? All the love you used to feel for me? Oh, Frank, I have raged, I have hated, I have said terrible, ugly things, but it has been because I have been in love with you! All the time I have. You know that. I have felt so bad—O God, how bad I have felt! Frank, you don't know it—but my pillow has been wet many and many a night. I have cried and cried. I have got up and walked the floor. I have drunk whisky—plain, raw whisky—because something hurt me and I wanted to kill the pain. I have gone with other men, one after another—you know that—but, oh! Frank, Frank, you know that I didn't want to, that I didn't mean to! I have always despised the thought of them afterward. It was only because I was lonely and because you wouldn't pay any attention to me or be nice to me. Oh, how I have longed and longed for just one loving hour with you—one night, one day! There are women who could suffer in silence, but I can't. My mind won't let me alone, Frank—my thoughts won't. I can't help thinking how I used to run to you in Philadelphia, when you would meet me on your way home, or when I used to come to you in Ninth Street or on Eleventh. Oh, Frank, I probably did wrong to your first wife. I see it now—how she must have suffered! But I was just a silly girl then, and I didn't know. Don't you remember how I used to come to you in Ninth Street and how I saw you day after day in the penitentiary in Philadelphia? You said then you would love me always and that you would never forget. Can't you love me any more—just a little? Is it really true that your love is dead? Am I so old, so changed? Oh, Frank, please don't say that—please don't—please, please please! I beg of you!"

She tried to reach him and put a hand on his arm, but he stepped aside. To him, as he looked at her now, she was the antithesis of anything he could brook, let alone desire artistically or physically. The charm was gone, the spell broken. It was another type, another point of view he required, but, above all and principally, youth, youth—the spirit, for instance, that was in Berenice Fleming. He was sorry—in his way. He felt sympathy, but it was like the tinkling of a far-off sheep-bell—the moaning of a whistling buoy heard over the thrash of night-black waves on a stormy sea.

"You don't understand how it is, Aileen," he said. "I can't help myself. My love is dead. It is gone. I can't recall it. I can't feel it. I wish I could, but I can't; you must understand that. Some things are possible and some are not."

He looked at her, but with no relenting. Aileen, for her part, saw in his eyes nothing, as she believed, save cold philosophic logic—the man of business, the thinker, the bargainer, the plotter. At the thought of the adamantine character of his soul, which could thus definitely close its gates on her for ever and ever, she became wild, angry, feverish—not quite sane.

"Oh, don't say that!" she pleaded, foolishly. "Please don't. Please don't say that. It might come back a little if—if—you would only believe in it. Don't you see how I feel? Don't you see how it is?"

She dropped to her knees and clasped him about the waist. "Oh, Frank! Oh, Frank! Oh, Frank!" she began to call, crying. "I can't stand it! I can't! I can't! I can't! I shall die."

"Don't give way like that, Aileen," he pleaded. "It doesn't do any good. I can't lie to myself. I don't want to lie to you. Life is too short. Facts are facts. If I could say and believe that I loved you I would say so now, but I can't. I don't love you. Why should I say that I do?"

In the content of Aileen's nature was a portion that was purely histrionic, a portion that was childish—petted and spoiled—a portion that was sheer unreason, and a portion that was splendid emotion—deep, dark, involved. At this statement of Cowperwood's which seemed to throw her back on herself for ever and ever to be alone, she first pleaded willingness to compromise—to share. She had not fought Stephanie Platow, she had not fought Florence Cochrane, nor Cecily Haguenin, nor Mrs. Hand, nor, indeed, anybody after Rita, and she would fight no more. She had not spied on him in connection with Berenice—she had accidentally met them. True, she had gone with other men, but? Berenice was beautiful, she admitted it, but so was she in her way still—a little, still. Couldn't he find a place for her yet in his life? Wasn't there room for both?

At this expression of humiliation and defeat Cowperwood was sad, sick, almost nauseated. How could one argue? How make her understand?

"I wish it were possible, Aileen," he concluded, finally and heavily, "but it isn't."

All at once she arose, her eyes red but dry.

"You don't love me, then, at all, do you? Not a bit?"

"No, Aileen, I don't. I don't mean by that that I dislike you. I don't mean to say that you aren't interesting in your way as a woman and that I don't sympathize with you. I do. But I don't love you any more. I can't. The thing I used to feel I can't feel any more."

She paused for a moment, uncertain how to take this, the while she whitened, grew more tense, more spiritual than she had been in many a day. Now she felt desperate, angry, sick, but like the scorpion that ringed by fire can turn only on itself. What a hell life was, she told herself. How it slipped away and left one aging, horribly alone! Love was nothing, faith nothing—nothing, nothing!

A fine light of conviction, intensity, intention lit her eye for the moment. "Very well, then," she said, coolly, tensely. "I know what I'll do. I'll not live this way. I'll not live beyond to-night. I want to die, anyhow, and I will."

It was by no means a cry, this last, but a calm statement. It should prove her love. To Cowperwood it seemed unreal, bravado, a momentary rage intended to frighten him. She turned and walked up the grand staircase, which was near—a splendid piece of marble and bronze fifteen feet wide, with marble nereids for newel-posts, and dancing figures worked into the stone. She went into her room quite calmly and took up a steel paper-cutter of dagger design—a knife with a handle of bronze and a point of great sharpness. Coming out and going along the balcony over the court of orchids, where Cowperwood still was seated, she entered the sunrise room with its pool of water, its birds, its benches, its vines. Locking the door, she sat down and then, suddenly baring an arm, jabbed a vein—ripped it for inches—and sat there to bleed. Now she would see whether she could die, whether he would let her.

Uncertain, astonished, not able to believe that she could be so rash, not believing that her feeling could be so great, Cowperwood still remained where she had left him wondering. He had not been so greatly moved—the tantrums of women were common—and yet— Could she really be contemplating death? How could she? How ridiculous! Life was so strange, so mad. But this was Aileen who had just made this threat, and she had gone up the stairs to carry it out, perhaps. Impossible! How could it be? Yet back of all his doubts there was a kind of sickening feeling, a dread. He recalled how she had assaulted Rita Sohlberg.

He hurried up the steps now and into her room. She was not there. He went quickly along the balcony, looking here and there, until he came to the sunrise room. She must be there, for the door was shut. He tried it—it was locked.

"Aileen," he called. "Aileen! Are you in there?" No answer. He listened. Still no answer. "Aileen!" he repeated. "Are you in there? What damned nonsense is this, anyhow?"

"George!" he thought to himself, stepping back; "she might do it, too—perhaps she has." He could not hear anything save the odd chattering of a toucan aroused by the light she had switched on. Perspiration stood out on his brow. He shook the knob, pushed a bell for a servant, called for keys which had been made for every door, called for a chisel and hammer.

"Aileen," he said, "if you don't open the door this instant I will see that it is opened. It can be opened quick enough."

Still no sound.

"Damn it!" he exclaimed, becoming wretched, horrified. A servant brought the keys. The right one would not enter. A second was on the other side. "There is a bigger hammer somewhere," Cowperwood said. "Get it! Get me a chair!" Meantime, with terrific energy, using a large chisel, he forced the door.

There on one of the stone benches of the lovely room sat Aileen, the level pool of water before her, the sunrise glow over every thing, tropic birds in their branches, and she, her hair disheveled, her face pale, one arm—her left—hanging down, ripped and bleeding, trickling a thick stream of rich, red blood. On the floor was a pool of blood, fierce, scarlet, like some rich cloth, already turning darker in places.

Cowperwood paused—amazed. He hurried forward, seized her arm, made a bandage of a torn handkerchief above the wound, sent for a surgeon, saying the while: "How could you, Aileen? How impossible! To try to take your life! This isn't love. It isn't even madness. It's foolish acting."

"Don't you really care?" she asked.

"How can you ask? How could you really do this?"

He was angry, hurt, glad that she was alive, shamed—many things.

"Don't you really care?" she repeated, wearily.

"Aileen, this is nonsense. I will not talk to you about it now. Have you cut yourself anywhere else?" he asked, feeling about her bosom and sides.

"Then why not let me die?" she replied, in the same manner. "I will some day. I want to."

"Well, you may, some day," he replied, "but not to-night. I scarcely think you want to now. This is too much, Aileen—really impossible."

He drew himself up and looked at her—cool, unbelieving, the light of control, even of victory, in his eyes. As he had suspected, it was not truly real. She would not have killed herself. She had expected him to come—to make the old effort. Very good. He would see her safely in bed and in a nurse's hands, and would then avoid her as much as possible in the future. If her intention was genuine she would carry it out in his absence, but he did not believe she would.