Chapter XVIII. The Clash

The peculiar personality of Rita Sohlberg was such that by her very action she ordinarily allayed suspicion, or rather distracted it. Although a novice, she had a strange ease, courage, or balance of soul which kept her whole and self-possessed under the most trying of circumstances. She might have been overtaken in the most compromising of positions, but her manner would always have indicated ease, a sense of innocence, nothing unusual, for she had no sense of moral degradation in this matter—no troublesome emotion as to what was to flow from a relationship of this kind, no worry as to her own soul, sin, social opinion, or the like. She was really interested in art and life—a pagan, in fact. Some people are thus hardily equipped. It is the most notable attribute of the hardier type of personalities—not necessarily the most brilliant or successful. You might have said that her soul was naively unconscious of the agony of others in loss. She would have taken any loss to herself with an amazing equableness—some qualms, of course, but not many—because her vanity and sense of charm would have made her look forward to something better or as good.

She had called on Aileen quite regularly in the past, with or without Harold, and had frequently driven with the Cowperwoods or joined them at the theater or elsewhere. She had decided, after becoming intimate with Cowperwood, to study art again, which was a charming blind, for it called for attendance at afternoon or evening classes which she frequently skipped. Besides, since Harold had more money he was becoming gayer, more reckless and enthusiastic over women, and Cowperwood deliberately advised her to encourage him in some liaison which, in case exposure should subsequently come to them, would effectually tie his hands.

“Let him get in some affair, ” Cowperwood told Rita. “We’ll put detectives on his trail and get evidence. He won’t have a word to say.”

“We don’t really need to do that, ” she protested sweetly, naively. “He’s been in enough scrapes as it is. He’s given me some of the letters—” (she pronounced it “lettahs”)—“written him.”

“But we’ll need actual witnesses if we ever need anything at all. Just tell me when he’s in love again, and I’ll do the rest.”

“You know I think, ” she drawled, amusingly, “that he is now. I saw him on the street the other day with one of his students—rather a pretty girl, too.”

Cowperwood was pleased. Under the circumstances he would almost have been willing—not quite—for Aileen to succumb to Sohlberg in order to entrap her and make his situation secure. Yet he really did not wish it in the last analysis—would have been grieved temporarily if she had deserted him. However, in the case of Sohlberg, detectives were employed, the new affair with the flighty pupil was unearthed and sworn to by witnesses, and this, combined with the “lettahs” held by Rita, constituted ample material wherewith to “hush up” the musician if ever he became unduly obstreperous. So Cowperwood and Rita’s state was quite comfortable.

But Aileen, meditating over Antoinette Nowak, was beside herself with curiosity, doubt, worry. She did not want to injure Cowperwood in any way after his bitter Philadelphia experience, and yet when she thought of his deserting her in this way she fell into a great rage. Her vanity, as much as her love, was hurt. What could she do to justify or set at rest her suspicions? Watch him personally? She was too dignified and vain to lurk about street-corners or offices or hotels. Never! Start a quarrel without additional evidence—that would be silly. He was too shrewd to give her further evidence once she spoke. He would merely deny it. She brooded irritably, recalling after a time, and with an aching heart, that her father had put detectives on her track once ten years before, and had actually discovered her relations with Cowperwood and their rendezvous. Bitter as that memory was—torturing—yet now the same means seemed not too abhorrent to employ under the circumstances. No harm had come to Cowperwood in the former instance, she reasoned to herself—no especial harm—from that discovery (this was not true), and none would come to him now. (This also was not true.) But one must forgive a fiery, passionate soul, wounded to the quick, some errors of judgment. Her thought was that she would first be sure just what it was her beloved was doing, and then decide what course to take. But she knew that she was treading on dangerous ground, and mentally she recoiled from the consequences which might follow. He might leave her if she fought him too bitterly. He might treat her as he had treated his first wife, Lillian.

She studied her liege lord curiously these days, wondering if it were true that he had deserted her already, as he had deserted his first wife thirteen years before, wondering if he could really take up with a girl as common as Antoinette Nowak—wondering, wondering, wondering—half afraid and yet courageous. What could be done with him? If only he still loved her all would be well yet—but oh!

The detective agency to which she finally applied, after weeks of soul-racking suspense, was one of those disturbingly human implements which many are not opposed to using on occasion, when it is the only means of solving a troublous problem of wounded feelings or jeopardized interests. Aileen, being obviously rich, was forthwith shamefully overcharged; but the services agreed upon were well performed. To her amazement, chagrin, and distress, after a few weeks of observation Cowperwood was reported to have affairs not only with Antoinette Nowak, whom she did suspect, but also with Mrs. Sohlberg. And these two affairs at one and the same time. For the moment it left Aileen actually stunned and breathless.

The significance of Rita Sohlberg to her in this hour was greater than that of any woman before or after. Of all living things, women dread women most of all, and of all women the clever and beautiful. Rita Sohlberg had been growing on Aileen as a personage, for she had obviously been prospering during this past year, and her beauty had been amazingly enhanced thereby. Once Aileen had encountered Rita in a light trap on the Avenue, very handsome and very new, and she had commented on it to Cowperwood, whose reply had been: “Her father must be making some money. Sohlberg could never earn it for her.”

Aileen sympathized with Harold because of his temperament, but she knew that what Cowperwood said was true.

Another time, at a box-party at the theater, she had noted the rich elaborateness of Mrs. Sohlberg’s dainty frock, the endless pleatings of pale silk, the startling charm of the needlework and the ribbons—countless, rosetted, small—that meant hard work on the part of some one.

“How lovely this is, ” she had commented.

“Yes, ” Rita had replied, airily; “I thought, don’t you know, my dressmaker would never get done working on it.”

It had cost, all told, two hundred and twenty dollars, and Cowperwood had gladly paid the bill.

Aileen went home at the time thinking of Rita’s taste and of how well she had harmonized her materials to her personality. She was truly charming.

Now, however, when it appeared that the same charm that had appealed to her had appealed to Cowperwood, she conceived an angry, animal opposition to it all. Rita Sohlberg! Ha! A lot of satisfaction she’d get knowing as she would soon, that Cowperwood was sharing his affection for her with Antoinette Nowak—a mere stenographer. And a lot of satisfaction Antoinette would get—the cheap upstart—when she learned, as she would, that Cowperwood loved her so lightly that he would take an apartment for Rita Sohlberg and let a cheap hotel or an assignation-house do for her.

But in spite of this savage exultation her thoughts kept coming back to herself, to her own predicament, to torture and destroy her. Cowperwood, the liar! Cowperwood, the pretender! Cowperwood, the sneak! At one moment she conceived a kind of horror of the man because of all his protestations to her; at the next a rage—bitter, swelling; at the next a pathetic realization of her own altered position. Say what one will, to take the love of a man like Cowperwood away from a woman like Aileen was to leave her high and dry on land, as a fish out of its native element, to take all the wind out of her sails—almost to kill her. Whatever position she had once thought to hold through him, was now jeopardized. Whatever joy or glory she had had in being Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood, it was now tarnished. She sat in her room, this same day after the detectives had given their report, a tired look in her eyes, the first set lines her pretty mouth had ever known showing about it, her past and her future whirling painfully and nebulously in her brain. Suddenly she got up, and, seeing Cowperwood’s picture on her dresser, his still impressive eyes contemplating her, she seized it and threw it on the floor, stamping on his handsome face with her pretty foot, and raging at him in her heart. The dog! The brute! Her brain was full of the thought of Rita’s white arms about him, of his lips to hers. The spectacle of Rita’s fluffy gowns, her enticing costumes, was in her eyes. Rita should not have him; she should not have anything connected with him, nor, for that matter, Antoinette Nowak, either—the wretched upstart, the hireling. To think he should stoop to an office stenographer! Once on that thought, she decided that he should not be allowed to have a woman as an assistant any more. He owed it to her to love her after all she had done for him, the coward, and to let other women alone. Her brain whirled with strange thoughts. She was really not sane in her present state. She was so wrought up by her prospective loss that she could only think of rash, impossible, destructive things to do. She dressed swiftly, feverishly, and, calling a closed carriage from the coach-house, ordered herself to be driven to the New Arts Building. She would show this rosy cat of a woman, this smiling piece of impertinence, this she-devil, whether she would lure Cowperwood away. She meditated as she rode. She would not sit back and be robbed as Mrs. Cowperwood had been by her. Never! He could not treat her that way. She would die first! She would kill Rita Sohlberg and Antoinette Nowak and Cowperwood and herself first. She would prefer to die that way rather than lose his love. Oh yes, a thousand times! Fortunately, Rita Sohlberg was not at the New Arts Building, or Sohlberg, either. They had gone to a reception. Nor was she at the apartment on the North Side, where, under the name of Jacobs, as Aileen had been informed by the detectives, she and Cowperwood kept occasional tryst. Aileen hesitated for a moment, feeling it useless to wait, then she ordered the coachman to drive to her husband’s office. It was now nearly five o’clock. Antoinette and Cowperwood had both gone, but she did not know it. She changed her mind, however, before she reached the office—for it was Rita Sohlberg she wished to reach first—and ordered her coachman to drive back to the Sohlberg studio. But still they had not returned. In a kind of aimless rage she went home, wondering how she should reach Rita Sohlberg first and alone. Then, to her savage delight, the game walked into her bag. The Sohlbergs, returning home at six o’clock from some reception farther out Michigan Avenue, had stopped, at the wish of Harold, merely to pass the time of day with Mrs. Cowperwood. Rita was exquisite in a pale-blue and lavender concoction, with silver braid worked in here and there. Her gloves and shoes were pungent bits of romance, her hat a dream of graceful lines. At the sight of her, Aileen, who was still in the hall and had opened the door herself, fairly burned to seize her by the throat and strike her; but she restrained herself sufficiently to say, “Come in.” She still had sense enough and self-possession enough to conceal her wrath and to close the door. Beside his wife Harold was standing, offensively smug and inefficient in the fashionable frock-coat and silk hat of the time, a restraining influence as yet. He was bowing and smiling:

“Oh.” This sound was neither an “oh” nor an “ah, ” but a kind of Danish inflected “awe, ” which was usually not unpleasing to hear. “How are you, once more, Meeses Cowperwood? It eez sudge a pleasure to see you again—awe.”

“Won’t you two just go in the reception-room a moment, ” said Aileen, almost hoarsely. “I’ll be right in. I want to get something.” Then, as an afterthought, she called very sweetly: “Oh, Mrs. Sohlberg, won’t you come up to my room for a moment? I have something I want to show you.”

Rita responded promptly. She always felt it incumbent upon her to be very nice to Aileen.

“We have only a moment to stay, ” she replied, archly and sweetly, and coming out in the hall, “but I’ll come up.”

Aileen stayed to see her go first, then followed up-stairs swiftly, surely, entered after Rita, and closed the door. With a courage and rage born of a purely animal despair, she turned and locked it; then she wheeled swiftly, her eyes lit with a savage fire, her cheeks pale, but later aflame, her hands, her fingers working in a strange, unconscious way.

“So, ” she said, looking at Rita, and coming toward her quickly and angrily, “you’ll steal my husband, will you? You’ll live in a secret apartment, will you? You’ll come here smiling and lying to me, will you? You beast! You cat! You prostitute! I’ll show you now! You tow-headed beast! I know you now for what you are! I’ll teach you once for all! Take that, and that, and that! ”

Suiting action to word, Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor’s hat from her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty if she could. For the moment she was really crazy with rage.

By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back completely. It all came so swiftly, so terribly, she scarcely realized what was happening before the storm was upon her. There was no time for arguments, pleas, anything. Terrified, shamed, nonplussed, she went down quite limply under this almost lightning attack. When Aileen began to strike her she attempted in vain to defend herself, uttering at the same time piercing screams which could be heard throughout the house. She screamed shrilly, strangely, like a wild dying animal. On the instant all her fine, civilized poise had deserted her. From the sweetness and delicacy of the reception atmosphere—the polite cooings, posturings, and mouthings so charming to contemplate, so alluring in her—she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look of hunted horror, her lips and cheeks were pale and drawn. She retreated in a staggering, ungraceful way; she writhed and squirmed, screaming in the strong clutch of the irate and vigorous Aileen.

Cowperwood entered the hall below just before the screams began. He had followed the Sohlbergs almost immediately from his office, and, chancing to glance in the reception-room, he had observed Sohlberg smiling, radiant, an intangible air of self-ingratiating, social, and artistic sycophancy about him, his long black frock-coat buttoned smoothly around his body, his silk hat still in his hands.

“Awe, how do you do, Meezter Cowperwood, ” he was beginning to say, his curly head shaking in a friendly manner, “I’m soa glad to see you again” when—but who can imitate a scream of terror? We have no words, no symbols even, for those essential sounds of fright and agony. They filled the hall, the library, the reception-room, the distant kitchen even, and basement with a kind of vibrant terror.

Cowperwood, always the man of action as opposed to nervous cogitation, braced up on the instant like taut wire. What, for heaven’s sake, could that be? What a terrible cry! Sohlberg the artist, responding like a chameleon to the various emotional complexions of life, began to breathe stertorously, to blanch, to lose control of himself.

“My God! ” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, “that’s Rita! She’s up-stairs in your wife’s room! Something must have happened. Oh—” On the instant he was quite beside himself, terrified, shaking, almost useless. Cowperwood, on the contrary, without a moment’s hesitation had thrown his coat to the floor, dashed up the stairs, followed by Sohlberg. What could it be? Where was Aileen? As he bounded upward a clear sense of something untoward came over him; it was sickening, terrifying. Scream! Scream! Scream! came the sounds. “Oh, my God! don’t kill me! Help! Help! ” SCREAM—this last a long, terrified, ear-piercing wail.

Sohlberg was about to drop from heart failure, he was so frightened. His face was an ashen gray. Cowperwood seized the door-knob vigorously and, finding the door locked, shook, rattled, and banged at it.

“Aileen! ” he called, sharply. “Aileen! What’s the matter in there? Open this door, Aileen! ”

“Oh, my God! Oh, help! help! Oh, mercy—o-o-o-o-oh! ” It was the moaning voice of Rita.

“I’ll show you, you she-devil! ” he heard Aileen calling. “I’ll teach you, you beast! You cat, you prostitute! There! there! there! ”

“Aileen! ” he called, hoarsely. “Aileen! ” Then, getting no response, and the screams continuing, he turned angrily.

“Stand back! ” he exclaimed to Sohlberg, who was moaning helplessly. “Get me a chair, get me a table—anything.” The butler ran to obey, but before he could return Cowperwood had found an implement. “Here! ” he said, seizing a long, thin, heavily carved and heavily wrought oak chair which stood at the head of the stairs on the landing. He whirled it vigorously over his head. Smash! The sound rose louder than the screams inside.

Smash! The chair creaked and almost broke, but the door did not give.

Smash! The chair broke and the door flew open. He had knocked the lock loose and had leaped in to where Aileen, kneeling over Rita on the floor, was choking and beating her into insensibility. Like an animal he was upon her.

“Aileen, ” he shouted, fiercely, in a hoarse, ugly, guttural voice, “you fool! You idiot—let go! What the devil’s the matter with you? What are you trying to do? Have you lost your mind? —you crazy idiot! ”

He seized her strong hands and ripped them apart. He fairly dragged her back, half twisting and half throwing her over his knee, loosing her clutching hold. She was so insanely furious that she still struggled and cried, saying: “Let me at her! Let me at her! I’ll teach her! Don’t you try to hold me, you dog! I’ll show you, too, you brute—oh—”

“Pick up that woman, ” called Cowperwood, firmly, to Sohlberg and the butler, who had entered. “Get her out of here quick! My wife has gone crazy. Get her out of here, I tell you! This woman doesn’t know what she’s doing. Take her out and get a doctor. What sort of a hell’s melee is this, anyway? ”

“Oh, ” moaned Rita, who was torn and fainting, almost unconscious from sheer terror.

“I’ll kill her! ” screamed Aileen. “I’ll murder her! I’ll murder you too, you dog! Oh”—she began striking at him—“I’ll teach you how to run around with other women, you dog, you brute! ”

Cowperwood merely gripped her hands and shook her vigorously, forcefully.

“What the devil has got into you, anyway, you fool? ” he said to her, bitterly, as they carried Rita out. “What are you trying to do, anyway—murder her? Do you want the police to come in here? Stop your screaming and behave yourself, or I’ll shove a handkerchief in your mouth! Stop, I tell you! Stop! Do you hear me? This is enough, you fool! ” He clapped his hand over her mouth, pressing it tight and forcing her back against him. He shook her brutally, angrily. He was very strong. “Now will you stop, ” he insisted, “or do you want me to choke you quiet? I will, if you don’t. You’re out of your mind. Stop, I tell you! So this is the way you carry on when things don’t go to suit you? ” She was sobbing, struggling, moaning, half screaming, quite beside herself.

“Oh, you crazy fool! ” he said, swinging her round, and with an effort getting out a handkerchief, which he forced over her face and in her mouth. “There, ” he said, relievedly, “now will you shut up? ” holding her tight in an iron grip, he let her struggle and turn, quite ready to put an end to her breathing if necessary.

Now that he had conquered her, he continued to hold her tightly, stooping beside her on one knee, listening and meditating. Hers was surely a terrible passion. From some points of view he could not blame her. Great was her provocation, great her love. He knew her disposition well enough to have anticipated something of this sort. Yet the wretchedness, shame, scandal of the terrible affair upset his customary equilibrium. To think any one should give way to such a storm as this! To think that Aileen should do it! To think that Rita should have been so mistreated! It was not at all unlikely that she was seriously injured, marred for life—possibly even killed. The horror of that! The ensuing storm of public rage! A trial! His whole career gone up in one terrific explosion of woe, anger, death! Great God!

He called the butler to him by a nod of his head, when the latter, who had gone out with Rita, hurried back.

“How is she? ” he asked, desperately. “Seriously hurt? ”

“No, sir; I think not. I believe she’s just fainted. She’ll be all right in a little while, sir. Can I be of any service, sir? ”

Ordinarily Cowperwood would have smiled at such a scene. Now he was cold, sober.

“Not now, ” he replied, with a sigh of relief, still holding Aileen firmly. “Go out and close the door. Call a doctor. Wait in the hall. When he comes, call me.”

Aileen, conscious of things being done for Rita, of sympathy being extended to her, tried to get up, to scream again; but she couldn’t; her lord and master held her in an ugly hold. When the door was closed he said again: “Now, Aileen, will you hush? Will you let me get up and talk to you, or must we stay here all night? Do you want me to drop you forever after to-night? I understand all about this, but I am in control now, and I am going to stay so. You will come to your senses and be reasonable, or I will leave you to-morrow as sure as I am here.” His voice rang convincingly. “Now, shall we talk sensibly, or will you go on making a fool of yourself—disgracing me, disgracing the house, making yourself and myself the laughing-stock of the servants, the neighborhood, the city? This is a fine showing you’ve made to-day. Good God! A fine showing, indeed! A brawl in this house, a fight! I thought you had better sense—more self-respect—really I did. You have seriously jeopardized my chances here in Chicago. You have seriously injured and possibly killed a woman. You could even be hanged for that. Do you hear me? ”

“Oh, let them hang me, ” groaned Aileen. “I want to die.”

He took away his hand from her mouth, loosened his grip upon her arms, and let her get to her feet. She was still torrential, impetuous, ready to upbraid him, but once standing she was confronted by him, cold, commanding, fixing her with a fishy eye. He wore a look now she had never seen on his face before—a hard, wintry, dynamic flare, which no one but his commercial enemies, and only those occasionally, had seen.

“Now stop! ” he exclaimed. “Not one more word! Not one! Do you hear me? ”

She wavered, quailed, gave way. All the fury of her tempestuous soul fell, as the sea falls under a lapse of wind. She had had it in heart, on her lips, to cry again, “You dog! you brute! ” and a hundred other terrible, useless things, but somehow, under the pressure of his gaze, the hardness of his heart, the words on her lips died away. She looked at him uncertainly for a moment, then, turning, she threw herself on the bed near by, clutched her cheeks and mouth and eyes, and, rocking back and forth in an agony of woe, she began to sob:

“Oh, my God! my God! My heart! My life! I want to die! I want to die! ”

Standing there watching her, there suddenly came to Cowperwood a keen sense of her soul hurt, her heart hurt, and he was moved.

“Aileen, ” he said, after a moment or two, coming over and touching her quite gently, “Aileen! Don’t cry so. I haven’t left you yet. Your life isn’t utterly ruined. Don’t cry. This is bad business, but perhaps it is not without remedy. Come now, pull yourself together, Aileen! ”

For answer she merely rocked and moaned, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

Being anxious about conditions elsewhere, he turned and stepped out into the hall. He must make some show for the benefit of the doctor and the servants; he must look after Rita, and offer some sort of passing explanation to Sohlberg.

“Here, ” he called to a passing servant, “shut that door and watch it. If Mrs. Cowperwood comes out call me instantly.”

Chapter XIX.
“Hell Hath No Fury—”

Rita was not dead by any means—only seriously bruised, scratched, and choked. Her scalp was cut in one place. Aileen had repeatedly beaten her head on the floor, and this might have resulted seriously if Cowperwood had not entered as quickly as he had. Sohlberg for the moment—for some little time, in fact—was under the impression that Aileen had truly lost her mind, had suddenly gone crazy, and that those shameless charges he had heard her making were the emanations of a disordered brain. Nevertheless the things she had said haunted him. He was in a bad state himself—almost a subject for the doctor. His lips were bluish, his cheeks blanched. Rita had been carried into an adjoining bedroom and laid upon a bed; cold water, ointments, a bottle of arnica had been procured; and when Cowperwood appeared she was conscious and somewhat better. But she was still very weak and smarting from her wounds, both mental and physical. When the doctor arrived he had been told that a lady, a guest, had fallen down-stairs; when Cowperwood came in the physician was dressing her wounds.

As soon as he had gone Cowperwood said to the maid in attendance, “Go get me some hot water.” As the latter disappeared he bent over and kissed Rita’s bruised lips, putting his finger to his own in warning sign.

“Rita, ” he asked, softly, “are you fully conscious? ”

She nodded weakly.

“Listen, then, ” he said, bending over and speaking slowly. “Listen carefully. Pay strict attention to what I’m saying. You must understand every word, and do as I tell you. You are not seriously injured. You will be all right. This will blow over. I have sent for another doctor to call on you at your studio. Your husband has gone for some fresh clothes. He will come back in a little while. My carriage will take you home when you are a little stronger. You mustn’t worry. Everything will be all right, but you must deny everything, do you hear? Everything! In so far as you know, Mrs. Cowperwood is insane. I will talk to your husband to-morrow. I will send you a trained nurse. Meantime you must be careful of what you say and how you say it. Be perfectly calm. Don’t worry. You are perfectly safe here, and you will be there. Mrs. Cowperwood will not trouble you any more. I will see to that. I am so sorry; but I love you. I am near you all the while. You must not let this make any difference. You will not see her any more.”

Still he knew that it would make a difference.

Reassured as to Rita’s condition, he went back to Aileen’s room to plead with her again—to soothe her if he could. He found her up and dressing, a new thought and determination in her mind. Since she had thrown herself on the bed sobbing and groaning, her mood had gradually changed; she began to reason that if she could not dominate him, could not make him properly sorry, she had better leave. It was evident, she thought, that he did not love her any more, seeing that his anxiety to protect Rita had been so great; his brutality in restraining her so marked; and yet she did not want to believe that this was so. He had been so wonderful to her in times past. She had not given up all hope of winning a victory over him, and these other women—she loved him too much—but only a separation would do it. That might bring him to his senses. She would get up, dress, and go down-town to a hotel. He should not see her any more unless he followed her. She was satisfied that she had broken up the liaison with Rita Sohlberg, anyway for the present, and as for Antoinette Nowak, she would attend to her later. Her brain and her heart ached. She was so full of woe and rage, alternating, that she could not cry any more now. She stood before her mirror trying with trembling fingers to do over her toilet and adjust a street-costume. Cowperwood was disturbed, nonplussed at this unexpected sight.

“Aileen, ” he said, finally, coming up behind her, “can’t you and I talk this thing over peacefully now? You don’t want to do anything that you’ll be sorry for. I don’t want you to. I’m sorry. You don’t really believe that I’ve ceased to love you, do you? I haven’t, you know. This thing isn’t as bad as it looks. I should think you would have a little more sympathy with me after all we have been through together. You haven’t any real evidence of wrong-doing on which to base any such outburst as this.”

“Oh, haven’t I? ” she exclaimed, turning from the mirror, where, sorrowfully and bitterly, she was smoothing her red-gold hair. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes red. Just now she seemed as remarkable to him as she had seemed that first day, years ago, when in a red cape he had seen her, a girl of sixteen, running up the steps of her father’s house in Philadelphia. She was so wonderful then. It mellowed his mood toward her.

“That’s all you know about it, you liar! ” she declared. “It’s little you know what I know. I haven’t had detectives on your trail for weeks for nothing. You sneak! You’d like to smooth around now and find out what I know. Well, I know enough, let me tell you that. You won’t fool me any longer with your Rita Sohlbergs and your Antoinette Nowaks and your apartments and your houses of assignation. I know what you are, you brute! And after all your protestations of love for me! Ugh! ”

She turned fiercely to her task while Cowperwood stared at her, touched by her passion, moved by her force. It was fine to see what a dramatic animal she was—really worthy of him in many ways.

“Aileen, ” he said, softly, hoping still to ingratiate himself by degrees, “please don’t be so bitter toward me. Haven’t you any understanding of how life works—any sympathy with it? I thought you were more generous, more tender. I’m not so bad.”

He eyed her thoughtfully, tenderly, hoping to move her through her love for him.

“Sympathy! Sympathy! ” She turned on him blazing. “A lot you know about sympathy! I suppose I didn’t give you any sympathy when you were in the penitentiary in Philadelphia, did I? A lot of good it did me—didn’t it? Sympathy! Bah! To have you come out here to Chicago and take up with a lot of prostitutes—cheap stenographers and wives of musicians! You have given me a lot of sympathy, haven’t you? —with that woman lying in the next room to prove it! ”

She smoothed her lithe waist and shook her shoulders preparatory to putting on a hat and adjusting her wrap. She proposed to go just as she was, and send Fadette back for all her belongings.

“Aileen, ” he pleaded, determined to have his way, “I think you’re very foolish. Really I do. There is no occasion for all this—none in the world. Here you are talking at the top of your voice, scandalizing the whole neighborhood, fighting, leaving the house. It’s abominable. I don’t want you to do it. You love me yet, don’t you? You know you do. I know you don’t mean all you say. You can’t. You really don’t believe that I have ceased to love you, do you, Aileen? ”

“Love! ” fired Aileen. “A lot you know about love! A lot you have ever loved anybody, you brute! I know how you love. I thought you loved me once. Humph! I see how you loved me—just as you’ve loved fifty other women, as you love that snippy little Rita Sohlberg in the next room—the cat! —the dirty little beast! —the way you love Antoinette Nowak—a cheap stenographer! Bah! You don’t know what the word means.” And yet her voice trailed off into a kind of sob and her eyes filled with tears, hot, angry, aching. Cowperwood saw them and came over, hoping in some way to take advantage of them. He was truly sorry now—anxious to make her feel tender toward him once more.

“Aileen, ” he pleaded, “please don’t be so bitter. You shouldn’t be so hard on me. I’m not so bad. Aren’t you going to be reasonable? ” He put out a smoothing hand, but she jumped away.

“Don’t you touch me, you brute! ” she exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you lay a hand on me. I don’t want you to come near me. I’ll not live with you. I’ll not stay in the same house with you and your mistresses. Go and live with your dear, darling Rita on the North Side if you want to. I don’t care. I suppose you’ve been in the next room comforting her—the beast! I wish I had killed her—Oh, God! ” She tore at her throat in a violent rage, trying to adjust a button.

Cowperwood was literally astonished. Never had he seen such an outburst as this. He had not believed Aileen to be capable of it. He could not help admiring her. Nevertheless he resented the brutality of her assault on Rita and on his own promiscuous tendency, and this feeling vented itself in one last unfortunate remark.

“I wouldn’t be so hard on mistresses if I were you, Aileen, ” he ventured, pleadingly. “I should have thought your own experience would have—”

He paused, for he saw on the instant that he was making a grave mistake. This reference to her past as a mistress was crucial. On the instant she straightened up, and her eyes filled with a great pain. “So that’s the way you talk to me, is it? ” she asked. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it would come! ”

She turned to a tall chest of drawers as high as her breasts, laden with silverware, jewel-boxes, brushes and combs, and, putting her arms down, she laid her head upon them and began to cry. This was the last straw. He was throwing up her lawless girlhood love to her as an offense.

“Oh! ” she sobbed, and shook in a hopeless, wretched paroxysm. Cowperwood came over quickly. He was distressed, pained. “I didn’t mean that, Aileen, ” he explained. “I didn’t mean it in that way—not at all. You rather drew that out of me; but I didn’t mean it as a reproach. You were my mistress, but good Lord, I never loved you any the less for that—rather more. You know I did. I want you to believe that; it’s true. These other matters haven’t been so important to me—they really haven’t—”

He looked at her helplessly as she moved away to avoid him; he was distressed, nonplussed, immensely sorry. As he walked to the center of the room again she suddenly suffered a great revulsion of feeling, but only in the direction of more wrath. This was too much.

“So this is the way you talk to me, ” she exclaimed, “after all I have done for you! You say that to me after I waited for you and cried over you when you were in prison for nearly two years? Your mistress! That’s my reward, is it? Oh! ”

Suddenly she observed her jewel-case, and, resenting all the gifts he had given her in Philadelphia, in Paris, in Rome, here in Chicago, she suddenly threw open the lid and, grabbing the contents by handfuls, began to toss them toward him—to actually throw them in his face. Out they came, handfuls of gauds that he had given her in real affection: a jade necklace and bracelet of pale apple-green set in spun gold, with clasps of white ivory; a necklace of pearls, assorted as to size and matched in color, that shone with a tinted, pearly flame in the evening light; a handful of rings and brooches, diamonds, rubies, opals, amethysts; a dog-collar of emeralds, and a diamond hair-ornament. She flung them at him excitedly, strewing the floor, striking him on the neck, the face, the hands. “Take that! and that! and that! There they are! I don’t want anything more of yours. I don’t want anything more to do with you. I don’t want anything that belongs to you. Thank God, I have money enough of my own to live on! I hate you—I despise you—I never want to see you any more. Oh—” And, trying to think of something more, but failing, she dashed swiftly down the hall and down the stairs, while he stood for just one moment overwhelmed. Then he hurried after.

“Aileen! ” he called. “Aileen, come back here! Don’t go, Aileen! ” But she only hurried faster; she opened and closed the door, and actually ran out in the dark, her eyes wet, her heart bursting. So this was the end of that youthful dream that had begun so beautifully. She was no better than the others—just one of his mistresses. To have her past thrown up to her as a defense for the others! To be told that she was no better than they! This was the last straw. She choked and sobbed as she walked, vowing never to return, never to see him any more. But as she did so Cowperwood came running after, determined for once, as lawless as he was, that this should not be the end of it all. She had loved him, he reflected. She had laid every gift of passion and affection on the altar of her love. It wasn’t fair, really. She must be made to stay. He caught up at last, reaching her under the dark of the November trees.

“Aileen, ” he said, laying hold of her and putting his arms around her waist. “Aileen, dearest, this is plain madness. It is insanity. You’re not in your right mind. Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I love you! Don’t you know I do? Can’t you really see that? Don’t run away like this, and don’t cry. I do love you, and you know it. I always shall. Come back now. Kiss me. I’ll do better. Really I will. Give me another chance. Wait and see. Come now—won’t you? That’s my girl, my Aileen. Do come. Please! ”

She pulled on, but he held her, smoothing her arms, her neck, her face.

“Aileen! ” he entreated.

She tugged so that he was finally compelled to work her about into his arms; then, sobbing, she stood there agonized but happy once more, in a way.

“But I don’t want to, ” she protested. “You don’t love me any more. Let me go.”

But he kept hold of her, urging, and finally she said, her head upon his shoulder as of old, “Don’t make me come back to-night. I don’t want to. I can’t. Let me go down-town. I’ll come back later, maybe.”

“Then I’ll go with you, ” he said, endearingly. “It isn’t right. There are a lot of things I should be doing to stop this scandal, but I’ll go.”

And together they sought a street-car.

Chapter XX.
“Man and Superman”

It is a sad commentary on all save the most chemic unions—those dark red flowers of romance that bloom most often only for a tragic end—that they cannot endure the storms of disaster that are wont to overtake them. A woman like Rita Sohlberg, with a seemingly urgent feeling for Cowperwood, was yet not so charmed by him but that this shock to her pride was a marked sedative. The crushing weight of such an exposure as this, the Homeric laughter inherent, if not indicated in the faulty planning, the failure to take into account beforehand all the possibilities which might lead to such a disaster, was too much for her to endure. She was stung almost to desperation, maddened, at the thought of the gay, idle way in which she had walked into Mrs. Cowperwood’s clutches and been made into a spectacle and a laughing-stock by her. What a brute she was—what a demon! Her own physical weakness under the circumstances was no grief to her—rather a salve to her superior disposition; but just the same she had been badly beaten, her beauty turned into a ragamuffin show, and that was enough. This evening, in the Lake Shore Sanitarium, where she had been taken, she had but one thought—to get away when it should all be over and rest her wearied brain. She did not want to see Sohlberg any more; she did not want to see Cowperwood any more. Already Harold, suspicious and determined to get at the truth, was beginning to question her as to the strangeness of Aileen’s attack—her probable reason. When Cowperwood was announced, Sohlberg’s manner modified somewhat, for whatever his suspicions were, he was not prepared to quarrel with this singular man as yet.

“I am so sorry about this unfortunate business, ” said Cowperwood, coming in with brisk assurance. “I never knew my wife to become so strangely unbalanced before. It was most fortunate that I arrived when I did. I certainly owe you both every amend that can be made. I sincerely hope, Mrs. Sohlberg, that you are not seriously injured. If there is anything I can possibly do—anything either of you can suggest”—he looked around solicitously at Sohlberg—“I shall only be too glad to do it. How would it do for you to take Mrs. Sohlberg away for a little while for a rest? I shall so gladly pay all expenses in connection with her recovery.”

Sohlberg, brooding and heavy, remained unresponsive, smoldering; Rita, cheered by Cowperwood’s presence, but not wholly relieved by any means, was questioning and disturbed. She was afraid there was to be a terrific scene between them. She declared she was better and would be all right—that she did not need to go away, but that she preferred to be alone.

“It’s very strange, ” said Sohlberg, sullenly, after a little while. “I daunt onderstand it! I daunt onderstand it at all. Why should she do soach a thing? Why should she say soach things? Here we have been the best of friends opp to now. Then suddenly she attacks my wife and sais all these strange things.”

“But I have assured you, my dear Mr. Sohlberg, that my wife was not in her right mind. She has been subject to spells of this kind in the past, though never to anything so violent as this to-night. Already she has recovered her normal state, and she does not remember. But, perhaps, if we are going to discuss things now we had better go out in the hall. Your wife will need all the rest she can get.”

Once outside, Cowperwood continued with brilliant assurance: “Now, my dear Sohlberg, what is it I can say? What is it you wish me to do? My wife has made a lot of groundless charges, to say nothing of injuring your wife most seriously and shamefully. I cannot tell you, as I have said, how sorry I am. I assure you Mrs. Cowperwood is suffering from a gross illusion. There is absolutely nothing to do, nothing to say, so far as I can see, but to let the whole matter drop. Don’t you agree with me? ”

Harold was twisting mentally in the coils of a trying situation. His own position, as he knew, was not formidable. Rita had reproached him over and over for infidelity. He began to swell and bluster at once.

“That is all very well for you to say, Mr. Cowperwood, ” he commented, defiantly, “but how about me? Where do I come in? I daunt know what to theenk yet. It ees very strange. Supposing what your wife sais was true? Supposing my wife has been going around weeth some one? That ees what I want to find out. Eef she has! Eef eet is what I theenk it ees I shall—I shall—I daunt know what I shall do. I am a very violent man.”

Cowperwood almost smiled, concerned as he was over avoiding publicity; he had no fear of Sohlberg physically.

“See here, ” he exclaimed, suddenly, looking sharply at the musician and deciding to take the bull by the horns, “you are in quite as delicate a situation as I am, if you only stop to think. This affair, if it gets out, will involve not only me and Mrs. Cowperwood, but yourself and your wife, and if I am not mistaken, I think your own affairs are not in any too good shape. You cannot blacken your wife without blackening yourself—that is inevitable. None of us is exactly perfect. For myself I shall be compelled to prove insanity, and I can do this easily. If there is anything in your past which is not precisely what it should be it could not long be kept a secret. If you are willing to let the matter drop I will make handsome provision for you both; if, instead, you choose to make trouble, to force this matter into the daylight, I shall leave no stone unturned to protect myself, to put as good a face on this matter as I can.”

“What! ” exclaimed Sohlberg. “You threaten me? You try to frighten me after your wife charges that you have been running around weeth my wife? You talk about my past! I like that. Haw! We shall see about dis! What is it you knaw about me? ”

“Well, Mr. Sohlberg, ” rejoined Cowperwood, calmly, “I know, for instance, that for a long while your wife has not loved you, that you have been living on her as any pensioner might, that you have been running around with as many as six or seven women in as many years or less. For months I have been acting as your wife’s financial adviser, and in that time, with the aid of detectives, I have learned of Anna Stelmak, Jessie Laska, Bertha Reese, Georgia Du Coin—do I need to say any more? As a matter of fact, I have a number of your letters in my possession.”

“Saw that ees it! ” exclaimed Sohlberg, while Cowperwood eyed him fixedly. “You have been running around weeth my wife? Eet ees true, then. A fine situation! And you come here now weeth these threats, these lies to booldoze me. Haw! We weel see about them. We weel see what I can do. Wait teel I can consult a lawyer first. Then we weel see! ”

Cowperwood surveyed him coldly, angrily. “What an ass! ” he thought.

“See here, ” he said, urging Sohlberg, for privacy’s sake, to come down into the lower hall, and then into the street before the sanitarium, where two gas-lamps were fluttering fitfully in the dark and wind, “I see very plainly that you are bent on making trouble. It is not enough that I have assured you that there is nothing in this—that I have given you my word. You insist on going further. Very well, then. Supposing for argument’s sake that Mrs. Cowperwood was not insane; that every word she said was true; that I had been misconducting myself with your wife? What of it? What will you do? ”

He looked at Sohlberg smoothly, ironically, while the latter flared up.

“Haw! ” he shouted, melodramatically. “Why, I would keel you, that’s what I would do. I would keel her. I weel make a terrible scene. Just let me knaw that this is so, and then see! ”

“Exactly, ” replied Cowperwood, grimly. “I thought so. I believe you. For that reason I have come prepared to serve you in just the way you wish.” He reached in his coat and took out two small revolvers, which he had taken from a drawer at home for this very purpose. They gleamed in the dark. “Do you see these? ” he continued. “I am going to save you the trouble of further investigation, Mr. Sohlberg. Every word that Mrs. Cowperwood said to-night—and I am saying this with a full understanding of what this means to you and to me—is true. She is no more insane than I am. Your wife has been living in an apartment with me on the North Side for months, though you cannot prove that. She does not love you, but me. Now if you want to kill me here is a gun.” He extended his hand. “Take your choice. If I am to die you might as well die with me.”

He said it so coolly, so firmly, that Sohlberg, who was an innate coward, and who had no more desire to die than any other healthy animal, paled. The look of cold steel was too much. The hand that pressed them on him was hard and firm. He took hold of one, but his fingers trembled. The steely, metallic voice in his ear was undermining the little courage that he had. Cowperwood by now had taken on the proportions of a dangerous man—the lineaments of a demon. He turned away mortally terrified.

“My God! ” he exclaimed, shaking like a leaf. “You want to keel me, do you? I weel not have anything to do with you! I weel not talk to you! I weel see my lawyer. I weel talk to my wife first.”

“Oh, no you won’t, ” replied Cowperwood, intercepting him as he turned to go and seizing him firmly by the arm. “I am not going to have you do anything of the sort. I am not going to kill you if you are not going to kill me; but I am going to make you listen to reason for once. Now here is what else I have to say, and then I am through. I am not unfriendly to you. I want to do you a good turn, little as I care for you. To begin with, there is nothing in those charges my wife made, not a thing. I merely said what I did just now to see if you were in earnest. You do not love your wife any more. She doesn’t love you. You are no good to her. Now, I have a very friendly proposition to make to you. If you want to leave Chicago and stay away three years or more, I will see that you are paid five thousand dollars every year on January first—on the nail—five thousand dollars! Do you hear? Or you can stay here in Chicago and hold your tongue and I will make it three thousand—monthly or yearly, just as you please. But—and this is what I want you to remember—if you don’t get out of town or hold your tongue, if you make one single rash move against me, I will kill you, and I will kill you on sight. Now, I want you to go away from here and behave yourself. Leave your wife alone. Come and see me in a day or two—the money is ready for you any time.” He paused while Sohlberg stared—his eyes round and glassy. This was the most astonishing experience of his life. This man was either devil or prince, or both. “Good God! ” he thought. “He will do that, too. He will really kill me.” Then the astounding alternative—five thousand dollars a year—came to his mind. Well, why not? His silence gave consent.

“If I were you I wouldn’t go up-stairs again to-night, ” continued Cowperwood, sternly. “Don’t disturb her. She needs rest. Go on down-town and come and see me to-morrow—or if you want to go back I will go with you. I want to say to Mrs. Sohlberg what I have said to you. But remember what I’ve told you.”

“Nau, thank you, ” replied Sohlberg, feebly. “I will go down-town. Good night.” And he hurried away.

“I’m sorry, ” said Cowperwood to himself, defensively. “It is too bad, but it was the only way.”