Chapter 12

And it was following this general understanding that Cowperwood, Berenice, and her mother left for New York, the women going first and Cowperwood following later. His purpose was to investigate the American investment situation and also to find some international brokerage house through which he might have the original proposition in regard to the Charing Cross line redirected to him for his consideration; that is, without his appearing to be interested.

Of course, there were his own New York and London brokers, Jarkins, Kloorfain & Randolph, but in such a portentous business as this he did not wholly trust them. Jarkins, the principal figure in the American branch of the concern, though cunning and in some ways useful, was still too self-interested and also at times talked too much. Yet to go to a strange brokerage firm would be no better. It might even be worse. He finally decided to have someone whom he could trust suggest to Jarkins that it might be wise for Greaves and Henshaw to approach him again.

In this connection, he recalled that one of the letters of introduction presented to him by Greaves and Henshaw on their first call was from a certain Raphael Cole, a retired New York banker of considerable wealth, who some years before had tried to interest him in New York transit. Though Cowperwood had been too engrossed at the time with his Chicago affairs to consider Cole’s proposition, the conversation had resulted in a friendship, and later Cole had invested in some of Cowperwood’s Chicago properties.

His present idea in regard to Cole was not only to prime him for a possible investment in this London venture but to get him to suggest, through Jarkins, that Greaves and Henshaw approach him again. He decided to invite Cole to dinner at his Fifth Avenue home, with Aileen as hostess. Thus he would begin the placation of Aileen and at the same time give Cole the impression that he was a contented husband, for Cole led a more or less conventional life. And this London plan would certainly require some such conventional background in order to forestall public criticism. In fact, Berenice had said to him, just before leaving for New York: “Now, remember, Frank, the more attention you show Aileen publicly, the better it will be for all of us.” And with that she had given him a still, blue look, which in force and suggestiveness seemed to embody all the subtlety of the ages.

And in consequence, en route to New York, thinking over the wisdom of Berenice’s words, he wired Aileen of his coming. And, incidentally, too, he now planned to get in touch with a certain Edward Bingham, a bond salesman of the social type who came to see him quite frequently, and who would probably be able to supply information in regard to this man Tollifer.

And it was with this full program that he telephoned Berenice at the Park Avenue home which he had recently given her. After arranging for a meeting with her later in the day, he telephoned Cole. He also learned, after calling his office in the Netherlands Hotel, that among other messages there happened to be one from Bingham asking when it would be agreeable for Cowperwood to see him. Finally, he proceeded to his home, a man very different in mood from the one Aileen had seen some months before.

In fact, seeing him enter her bedroom this morning, she sensed at once that something agreeable was afoot, since his look and his stride so indicated.

“Well, how are you, my dear, ” he began at once, in the genial manner he had not seen fit to display before her for a long time. “I suppose you got my telegram.”

“Yes, ” returned Aileen, calmly and a little dubiously. At the same time, she watched him interestedly, since in her feeling for him there was affection as well as resentment.

“Ah, reading a detective story! ” he said, observing the book on her bedside table and at the same time contrasting in his mind her mental resources with those of Berenice.

“Yes, ” she replied, crossly. “What would you have me read—the Bible, or one of your monthly balance sheets, or your art catalogues? ”

She was sad and hurt because of the fact that throughout his Chicago troubles he had neglected to write to her.

“The truth is, my dear, ” he went on, placatingly and graciously, “I’ve been intending to write you, but I’ve been rushed to death. I really have. Besides, I knew you were probably reading the papers. It’s been in all of them. But I did get your wire, and it was nice of you, very! I thought I answered it. I should have, I know.” He referred to an encouraging telegram Aileen had sent him just after his much publicized defeat in the Chicago City Council.

“Oh, all right! ” snapped Aileen, who at eleven o’clock in the morning was still idling over her dressing. “I’ll assume that you did. What else? ”

He noticed her snowy, flouncy, white dressing gown, the kind she always favored, since it tended to show off her red hair, which at one time he had so greatly admired. He also noticed that her face was heavily powdered. The necessity for it weighed on his mind, as it was probably weighing on hers. Time! Time! Time! Always the erosive process at work! She was getting older, older, older. And she could do nothing except bleed at the heart, for well she knew how much he disliked signs of age in a woman, although he never mentioned it and appeared even to ignore it.

He felt not a little sorry for her, and therefore inclined to be amiable. In fact, looking at her and thinking of Berenice’s broad-minded view in regard to her, he saw no reason why this seeming reconciliation between them should not be stretched to include a trip abroad for Aileen. It need not necessarily be in his immediate company, but rather around the same time, in order to give the impression that all was well in regard to his married life. She might even go on the same boat, if it could be arranged for this Tollifer, or someone else, to take her off his hands. For it would be well that the person chosen to interest himself in her should pursue her abroad as well as here, since she must be kept out of the path of Berenice and himself.

“Doing anything tonight? ” he asked, ingratiatingly.

“No, nothing special, ” she replied, coldly, since his look, friendly as it was, seemed to imply that he wanted something of her, though what it was she could not guess. “Are you expecting to stay here for a while? ”

“Yes, for some little time. At least, I shall be in and out of here. I have some plans which may take me abroad for a few weeks, and I want to talk to you about that.” He paused here, a little uncertain as to how to proceed. It was all very difficult, very complicated. “And I’d like you to do a little entertaining for me while I’m here. Do you mind? ”

“No, ” she said, briefly, sensing his aloofness. She felt that his thoughts were not with her, even now after their long separation. All at once she was too tired and too discouraged to argue with him.

“You wouldn’t care to go to the opera tonight, would you? ” he then asked her.

“Why, yes, if you really want to go.” After all, it was a comfort to have him, even for a little while.

“Certainly, I do, ” he replied, “and I want you to go with me. After all, you’re my wife, and mistress here, and regardless of how you feel about me, it’s necessary for us to keep up a favorable public appearance. It can’t do either of us any harm, and it may help us both. The fact is, Aileen, ” he continued, confidentially, “now that I’ve had all this trouble in Chicago, I find it necessary to do one of two things: either drop all business activities in this country and retire—and I don’t feel much in the mood for that—or find something different to tackle somewhere else. I don’t want to die of dry rot, exactly, ” he concluded.

“Oh, you! ‘Dry rot’! ” interpolated Aileen, looking at him amusedly. “As though dry rot would ever overtake you! More likely you would overtake dry rot and chase it out! ” This caused Cowperwood to smile. “At any rate, ” he went on, “the only two things I’ve heard of so far that might interest me are a proposed subway scheme in Paris—which doesn’t appeal to me very much—and...” here he paused and meditated, the while Aileen studied him, wondering if this were true... “or something in London; I think I’d like to look over the underground situation there.”

At these words, and for some reason which she could not have explained—telepathy, psychic osmosis—Aileen brightened and seemed to envision something interesting.

“Really! ” she said. “That sounds rather promising. But if you do go into something else, I hope you fix it this time so that there will be no possibility of trouble afterwards. You seem almost to create trouble wherever you go, or it creates itself for you.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking, ” went on Cowperwood, ignoring her last comments, “that if nothing else turned up, I might try to do something in London, although I hear that the English are very unfriendly to American enterprise in any form. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have a chance to break in there, particularly after my Chicago trouble.”

“Oh, Chicago! ” exclaimed Aileen, at once defensive and loyal. “I wouldn’t worry about Chicago. Everyone with any brains knows what a pack of jealous jackals they are! I think London would be a wonderful place for you to start in again. You certainly ought to know how to fix things so as to avoid all the franchise trouble you appear to be having in Chicago. I’ve always felt, Frank, ” she ventured here, and this on the strength of the years she had spent with him, and without any particular hope of ingratiating herself, “you’re too indifferent to the opinion of others. Other people—I don’t care who they are—just don’t seem to exist for you. That’s why you stir up all these fights, and you always will, unless you bother to be a little more considerate of other people. Of course, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m sure that if today you wanted to start out and be the least bit nice to people, why, with your ideas and your way of getting around people when you want to, there’d be no stopping you, that’s all, ” and with that she paused, waiting to see if he would make any comment.

“Thanks, ” he said, “you may be right, at that. I don’t know. At any rate, I’m thinking seriously of this London matter.”

Sensing the certainty of action in some direction on his part, she went on: “Of course, as for us, I know you don’t care for me any more, and never will. I can see that now. But at the same time, I feel that I’ve been an influence in your life, and if for nothing more than that—all I went through with you in Philadelphia and Chicago—I shouldn’t be kicked off like an old shoe. It isn’t right. And it can’t bring you any good in the long run. I’ve always felt, and still feel, that you might at least keep up a public pretense as far as I’m concerned; show me at least a little attention and not leave me to sit here alone week after week and month after month, without one word, one letter, anything...”

And here once more, as so many times in the past, he saw her throat tighten and her eyes mist with tears. And she turned away, as if unable to say more. At the same time, as he saw, here was exactly the compromise of which he had been thinking ever since Berenice had arrived in Chicago. Plainly, Aileen was ready for it, though to what extent he could not guess as yet.

“The thing I have to do, ” he said, “is to find something else and find the cash for it. In the meantime, I want to keep this residence here and make it appear that everything is going on as before. It will make a good impression. There was a time, you know, when I wanted a divorce, but if you can bring yourself to let bygones be bygones and go on with an outward relationship, without quarreling with me over my private life, why, I think we might work out something. In fact, I’m sure we can. I’m not as young as I used to be, and while I reserve the right to regulate my private life to suit my personal needs, I see no reason why we shouldn’t go on as we have been, and even make things look better than they do now. Do you agree with that or not? ”

And since Aileen had no other desire than to remain his wife, and also, despite his ill-treatment of her, wanted to see him succeed in anything he undertook, she now replied:

“Well, what else is there for me to do? You hold all the cards in your hands. What have I, really? Exactly what? ”

And here it was that Cowperwood suggested that in case he found it necessary to go away and Aileen felt it would look better if she accompanied him, he would have no objection to that, or even to press notices indicating a marital harmony between them, so long as she did not insist on any routine form of contact which might embarrass him in his personal life.

“Well, if you want it that way, ” she said as to this. “It is certainly no less than I have now, ” but at the same time thinking that there might be another woman behind all this—probably that girl, Berenice Fleming. If such were the case, there would be no compromise on her part. For as to Berenice, never, never, would she allow him to humiliate her with any public relations with that vain and selfish upstart! Never, never, never!

And so, interestingly enough, while Cowperwood was thinking that he had made considerable progress, rather quickly, in the direction of his present dreams, Aileen was thinking that she had made at least some little gain; and that the more public attention she caused Cowperwood to pay her, at whatever cost to her private feeling, the stronger would be the evidence of her holding him, and the greater her public if not private triumph.