第98章 Chapter XXIX A Family Quarrel(2)

She returned, fretting and grieving, to her room, where she meditated and meditated, wondering whether she should leave him, wondering whether she should reproach him openly, wondering whether she should employ more detectives. What good would it do? She had employed detectives once. Had it prevented the Stephanie Platow incident? Not at all. Would it prevent other liaisons in the future? Very likely not. Obviously her home life with Cowperwood was coming to a complete and disastrous end. Things could not go on in this way. She had done wrong, possibly, in taking him away from Mrs. Cowperwood number one, though she could scarcely believe that, for Mrs. Lillian Cowperwood was so unsuited to him--but this repayment! If she had been at all superstitious or religious, and had known her Bible, which she didn't, she might have quoted to herself that very fatalistic statement of the New Testament, "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again."

The truth was that Cowperwood's continued propensity to rove at liberty among the fair sex could not in the long run fail of some results of an unsatisfactory character. Coincident with the disappearance of Stephanie Platow, he launched upon a variety of episodes, the charming daughter of so worthy a man as Editor Haguenin, his sincerest and most sympathetic journalistic supporter; and the daughter of Aymar Cochrane, falling victims, among others, to what many would have called his wiles. As a matter of fact, in most cases he was as much sinned against as sinning, since the provocation was as much offered as given.

The manner in which he came to get in with Cecily Haguenin was simple enough. Being an old friend of the family, and a frequent visitor at her father's house, he found this particular daughter of desire an easy victim. She was a vigorous blonde creature of twenty at this time, very full and plump, with large, violet eyes, and with considerable alertness of mind--a sort of doll girl with whom Cowperwood found it pleasant to amuse himself. A playful gamboling relationship had existed between them when she was a mere child attending school, and had continued through her college years whenever she happened to be at home on a vacation. In these very latest days when Cowperwood on occasion sat in the Haguenin library consulting with the journalist-publisher concerning certain moves which he wished to have put right before the public he saw considerably more of Cecily. One night, when her father had gone out to look up the previous action of the city council in connection with some matter of franchises, a series of more or less sympathetic and understanding glances suddenly culminated in Cecily's playfully waving a new novel, which she happened to have in her hand, in Cowperwood's face; and he, in reply, laid hold caressingly of her arms.

"You can't stop me so easily," she observed, banteringly.

"Oh yes, I can," he replied.

A slight struggle ensued, in which he, with her semiwilful connivance, managed to manoeuver her into his arms, her head backward against his shoulder.

"Well," she said, looking up at him with a semi-nervous, semi-provocative glance, "now what? You'll just have to let me go."

"Not very soon, though."

"Oh yes, you will. My father will be here in a moment."

"Well, not until then, anyhow. You're getting to be the sweetest girl."

She did not resist, but remained gazing half nervously, half dreamily at him, whereupon he smoothed her cheek, and then kissed her. Her father's returning step put an end to this; but from this point on ascent or descent to a perfect understanding was easily made.

In the matter of Florence Cochrane, the daughter of Aymar Cochrane, the president of the Chicago West Division Company--a second affair of the period--the approach was only slightly different, the result the same. This girl, to furnish only a brief impression, was a blonde of a different type from Cecily--delicate, picturesque, dreamy. She was mildly intellectual at this time, engaged in reading Marlowe and Jonson; and Cowperwood, busy in the matter of the West Chicago Street Railway, and conferring with her father, was conceived by her as a great personage of the Elizabethan order.

In a tentative way she was in revolt against an apple-pie order of existence which was being forced upon her. Cowperwood recognized the mood, trifled with her spiritedly, looked into her eyes, and found the response he wanted. Neither old Aymar Cochrane nor his impeccably respectable wife ever discovered.

Subsequently Aileen, reflecting upon these latest developments, was from one point of view actually pleased or eased. There is always safety in numbers, and she felt that if Cowperwood were going to go on like this it would not be possible for him in the long run to take a definite interest in any one; and so, all things considered, and other things being equal, he would probably just as leave remain married to her as not.