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?”