The Stoic tod-3

by Theodore Dreiser

  “This is too bad,” he said, “and just when I was thinking that something might come out of it all for both of us.”

  Aileen stared at him, not a little puzzled. To be sure, this more or less anomalous relationship had been growing on her. In an unformulated way, she was attracted to him more than she had acknowledged to herself. Yet having observed him with Marigold and others, she was convinced, as she had said more than once, that a woman could not trust him from one end of the room to the other.

  “I don’t know whether you feel it or not,” he went on, calculatingly, “but there’s a lot more than just a social acquaintance between you and me. I’ll admit that when I first met you, I didn’t think there would be. I was interested by the fact that you were Mrs. Cowperwood, part of a life that I had heard a great deal about. But after we’d had a few talks together, I began to feel something else. I’ve seen a lot of trouble in my life. I’ve had my ups and downs, and I suppose I always will. But there was something about you those first few days on the boat that made me think maybe you had, too. That’s why I wanted to be with you, although, as you saw for yourself, there were lots of other women whose company I might have had.”

  He lied with the air of one who had never told anything but the truth. And this bit of acting impressed her. She had suspected him of fortune-hunting, and possibly that was true. Yet if he did not really like her, why all this effort on his part to improve her appearance and reorganize her onetime power to charm? She experienced a sudden emotional glow, perhaps half motherhood and half youth and desire. For one could not help liking this waster; he was so genial, cheering, and in a subtle way, affectionate.

  “But what difference does it make about my going back to New York?” she asked wonderingly. “Can’t we be friends just the same?”

  Tollifer considered. Having established this matter of his affection, now what? Always the thought of Cowperwood dominated him. What would he desire him to do?

  “Just think,” he said, “you’re running off in the ideal time over here, June and July. And just when we were getting into the swing of things!” He lit a cigarette and fixed himself a drink. Why hadn’t Cowperwood given him a sign as to whether he wanted him to keep Aileen in Paris or not? Perhaps he would yet, but if so, he’d better be quick about it.

  “Frank has asked me to go, and I can’t do anything else,” she said, calmly. “As for you, I don’t imagine you’ll be lonely.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “You’ve made a kind of center for me over here. I feel happier now and more contented than I have for years. And if you go back now, it may be broken up.”

  “Nonsense! Please don’t be foolish. I’d like to stay here, I admit. Only I don’t know how it could be managed. When I get back to New York and see how things are, I’ll let you know. But it’s my belief we’ll be coming back soon. If not, and you still feel this way, you can come home, and I’ll be seeing you just the same way in New York.”

  “Aileen!” exclaimed Tollifer, affectionately, seeing his opportunity. He crossed over and took her arm. “That’s wonderful! That’s what I’ve been wanting you to say. Is that how you feel?” he asked, looking coaxingly into her eyes, and, before she could prevent it, slipping his arms around her waist and kissing her, not passionately but with seemingly genuine affection. But Aileen, conscious of her dominant desire to retain him and yet give Cowperwood no real cause for complaint, definitely though good-naturedly resisted.

  “No, no, no,” she said, “remember what you were just saying. This is to be a real friendship, if you want it that way. But nothing more than that. Besides, why don’t we go out somewhere. I haven’t been out today, and I have a new gown I want to wear.”

  Satisfied to let the situation rest for the time being, he suggested a new place out near Fontainbleau, and they were off.

  Chapter 40

  New York, and Cowperwood and Aileen stepping off the liner Saxonia. The usual interviewers. The newspapers, aware of his expressed intention of invading the London underground field, now wanting to know, who were to be his directors, investors, managers, also whether the sudden reported heavy buying of both the common and preferred stock of the District and the Metropolitan was not really being done by his own men. This disclaimed by him in an adroit statement, which, when published, caused many Londoners, as well as Americans, to smile.

  Pictures of Aileen, her new clothes, and references to her appearance in what was hinted to be near-society on the Continent.

  And, simultaneously, sailing with Marigold for the North Cape, Bruce Tollifer. But no mention of this in any paper.

  And at Pryor’s Cove, Berenice was an outstanding local success. Since she so carefully concealed her shrewdness behind a veil of simplicity, innocence, and conventionality, everyone convinced that there would follow in due time, for her, a distinguished and correct marriage. For, obviously, she had the instinct for avoiding the dull, the commonplace, and the lecherous, regarding favorably only those who were conventionally minded, men as well as women. Even a more promising trait, as her new friends saw it, was her penchant for that type of unattractive woman—neglected wife, spinster, maiden aunt—who, socially wellborn, was still hard put to it for pleasurable attention of any kind. For, having no need to fear the younger and more attractive hostesses and matrons, she knew that if she won the more lonely women to her, she would be able to make her way into the most important functions.

  Just as fortunate was her tendency to admire the wholly innocuous and socially correct stripling or young master of title and social honor. In fact, the young curates and rectors for miles about Pryor’s Cove were already jubilant because of the spiritual discernment of this young newcomer. Her demure appearance of a Sabbath morn in any of the neighborhood chapels of the English High Church, invariably in company with her mother or one of the more conservative of the elder women, was sufficient to verify every good thing that was rumoured of her.

  Coincidentally, Cowperwood on flying visits to Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, in connection with his London plans, and within the innermost sanctums of those most religious of all American institutions, the banks and trust companies, conferring with such individuals as would be at once the most useful, the most influential, and the least difficult to manage. And the blandness of his expression as he explained the certainty of larger and more permanent profits than had ever as yet been taken from any underground project. And, despite the so recent denunciations of him, being listened to with awe and even genuine respect. True, in Chicago, there were mumblings of contempt and hatred, but at the same time, envy. For the man was a force, attracting, as always, a veritable glare of publicity.

  In so short a time as a month, he saw his primary problems solved. In many places, tentative agreements were made to purchase shares of his holding company which was presently to be organized in order to take over all the lines. For each share of the lines taken over, three shares in his own major company were to be paid. Indeed, except for some minor conferences on his Chicago holdings, he was really free to return to England, and would have done so had it not been for a new encounter of an old and familiar type. It had happened so often, in times past, when his name was being paraded before public eyes: he had been approached by ambitious and attractive women to whom his wealth, fame, and personal charm were irresistible. And now, because of a necessary visit to Baltimore, a vivid meeting of this sort.

  It occurred in the hotel where he was staying. And to his mind at the time it seemed in no way to shadow the affection he had for Berenice. Nonetheless, at midnight, just returned from the home of the president of the Maryland Trust Company, and while sitting at his desk making notes upon their recent conversation, there was a tap at his door. Answering, he was informed by a feminine voice that a relative wished to speak to him. He smiled, for in all his experience he did not recall exactly that form of approach. He opened the door and saw a girl who, at a glance, he decided was not to be ignored and concerning whom he w
as instantly curious. She was young, slender, of medium height, assured, forceful, and magnetic. Her features were beautiful, and her dress.

  “A relative?” he said, smiling and allowing her to enter.

  “Yes,” she replied with the utmost calm. “I am a relative of yours, although you may not believe it right away. I am the granddaughter of a brother of your father’s. Only my name is Maris. My mother’s name was Cowperwood.”

  He asked her to be seated and placed himself opposite her. Her eyes, which were large and round and of a silvery blue, contemplated him unwaveringly.

  “What part of the country do you come from?” he inquired.

  “Cincinnati,” she returned, “although my mother was born in North Carolina. It was her father who came from Pennsylvania, and not so far from where you were born, Mr. Cowperwood, Doylestown.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “My father did have a brother who once lived in Doylestown. Besides, I may add, you have the Cowperwood eye.”

  “Thanks,” she returned, and continued looking at him as fixedly as he looked at her. Then she added, unembarrassed by his gaze: “You may think it strange, my coming here at this hour, but I am stopping at this hotel, too, you see. I am a dancer, and the company I am with is playing here this week.”

  “Is it possible? We Quakers seem to wander into strange fields!”

  “Yes,” she replied, and smiled warmly, a smile reserved and yet rich, suggesting imagination, romance, mental strength, and sensuality. He felt its force as fully as he observed its character. “I’ve just come from the theater,” she went on. “But I’ve been reading about you, and seeing your picture in the papers here, and since I’ve always wanted to know you, I decided I’d better come now.”

  “Are you a good dancer?” he inquired.

  “I wish you’d come and see and judge for yourself.”

  “I was returning to New York in the morning, but if you will have breakfast with me, I think I might stay over.”

  “Oh, yes, of course I will,” she said. “But do you know, I’ve been imagining myself talking to you like this for years. Once, two years ago, when I was unable to get a job of any kind, I wrote you a letter, but then I tore it up. You see, we are the poor Cowperwoods.”

  “Too bad you didn’t send it,” he commented. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “Oh, how talented I was, and that I was your grand-niece. And if I were given a chance, how sure I was that I would be a great dancer. And now I’m glad I didn’t write you, because I’m here with you now and you can see me dance. By the way,” she went on, still fixing him with her magnetic blue eyes, “our company opens in New York for the summer, and I hope you’ll see me there, too.”

  “Well, if you are as lovely a dancer as you are to look at, you should be a sensation.”

  “I’ll let you tell me tomorrow night about that.” She stirred as if to move, but then hesitated.

  “What is your first name, did you say?” he finally asked.

  “Lorna.”

  “Lorna Maris,” he repeated. “Is that your stage name, too?”

  “Yes, I did think once of changing it to Cowperwood, so you might hear of me. But I decided that name wasn’t as good for a dancer as it was for a financier.”

  They continued to gaze at each other.

  “How old are you, Lorna?”

  “Twenty,” she said simply, “or I will be in November.”

  The silence that followed became full of meaning. Eyes said all that eyes could say. A few seconds more, and he merely signaled with his finger. She rose and went to him quickly, almost dancing as she did so, and threw herself into his arms.

  “Beautiful!” he said. “And to have you come just this way . . . charming . . .”

  Chapter 41

  It was with puzzled thoughts that Cowperwood parted with Lorna the next day at noon. Throughout this fever which had seized upon him, and, for the time being, commanded his every fiber and impulse, he was actually not unmindful of Berenice. One might as well say that a fire, unrestrained by outward forces, would not burn down a house. And there were no outward forces restraining, or even capable of restraining, either Cowperwood or Lorna under the circumstances. But when she left him to go to the theater his mind resumed its normal trend and occupied itself with the anomaly which Lorna and Berenice presented. Throughout all of eight years he had been swayed by the desirability as well as the unobtainability of Berenice, and more recently by her physical and aesthetic perfection. And yet he had allowed this coarser though still beautiful force to becloud and even temporarily efface all that.

  Alone in his room, he asked himself whether he was to blame. He had not sought out this latest temptation; it had come upon him, and suddenly. Besides, in his nature there was room, and even necessity, for many phases of experience, many sources and streams of nourishment. True, he had told Berenice in the fever of his zest for her, and almost continuously since, that she was the supreme aspect of his existence. And in the major sense this was still true. Nevertheless, here and now was this consuming and overwhelming force, as represented by Lorna, which might be differentiated as the mysterious, compelling charm of the new and unexplored, especially where youth and beauty and sex are involved.

  Its betraying power, he said to himself, could best be explained by the fact that it was more powerful than the individual or his intentions. It came, created its own fever, and worked its results. It had done so with Berenice and himself, and now again with Lorna Maris. But one thing he clearly recognized even now, and that was that it would never supersede his affection for Berenice. There was a difference; he could see it and feel it clearly. And this difference lay in the temperamental as well as mental objectives of the two girls. Although of the same age, Lorna, with a considerably more rugged and extended life experience, was still content with what could be achieved through the glorification of her own physical and purely sensual charm, the fame, rewards, and applause due an enticing and exciting dancer.

  Berenice’s temperamental response and her resulting program were entirely different: broader, richer, a product of social and aesthetic sense involving peoples and countries. She, like himself, had an abiding faith in the dominance of mind and taste. Hence the ease and grace with which she had blended herself into the atmosphere and social forms and precedents of England. Obviously and for all the vivid and exciting sensual power of Lorna, the deeper and more enduring power and charm lay within Berenice. In other words, her ambitions and reactions were in every way more significant. And when Lorna had gone, although he did not at the moment care to contemplate that thought, Berenice would still be present.

  Yet, how in the ultimate accounting, would he adjust all this? Would he be able to conceal this adventure, which he had no intention of immediately terminating? And if Berenice discovered it, how would he satisfy her? He could not solve that before a shaving mirror, or in any bath or dressing room.

  That night, after the performance, Cowperwood decided that Lorna Maris was not so much a great as a sensational dancer, one who would shine brilliantly for a few years and eventually perhaps marry a wealthy man. But now, as he saw her dance, he found her enticing, in her silken clown costume, with loose pantaloons and long-fingered gloves. To the accompaniment of lights which cast exaggerated shadows, and ghostly music, she sang and danced the bogey man who might catch you if you didn’t watch out! Another dance was corybantic. In a short sleeveless slip of white chiffon, her exquisite arms and legs bare, her hair a whirling mass of powdered gold, she suggested to the utmost the abandon of a bacchante. Still another dance presented her as a pursued and terrified innocent seeking to escape from the lurking figures of would-be ravishers. She was so often recalled that the management had to limit her encores, and later in New York, she colored, for that season, the entire summer love mood of the city.

  In fact, to Cowperwood’s surprise and gratification, Lorna was quite as much talked of as himself. Orchestras everywhere were playing her son
gs; in the popular vaudeville houses there were imitations of her. Merely to be seen with her was to inspire comment, and therein lay his greatest problem, for the very papers which regularly presented Lorna’s fame also presented his own. And this evoked in him the greatest caution, as well as a very real mental distress regarding Berenice. She might read or hear or be whispered to by someone if they were seen publicly together. At the same time, he and Lorna were infatuated and wished to be together as much as possible. In the case of Aileen, at least, he decided on a frank confession to her that in Baltimore he had met the granddaughter of his brother, a very gifted girl, who was in a theatrical production playing in New York. Would Aileen care to invite her to the house?

  Having already read notices of Lorna and seen pictures of her in the papers, Aileen was, of course, curious, and for that reason willing to extend the invitation. At the same time, the beauty, poise, and self-assurance of the girl, as well as the mere fact that she had met and introduced herself to Cowperwood, were sufficient to embitter Aileen against her and to renew her old suspicion as to Cowperwood’s real motives. Youth—the irrecoverable. Beauty—that wraith of perfection that came and went as a shadow. Yet were both fire and storm. It gave Aileen no real satisfaction to escort Lorna through the galleries and gardens of the Cowperwood palace. For, as she could see, with what Lorna had she did not need those things, and because of what Aileen lacked, they were of no avail to her. Life went with beauty and desire; where they were not was nothing . . . And Cowperwood desired beauty and achieved it for himself—life, color, fame, romance. Whereas, she . . .

  Now enmeshed in the necessity of pretending engagements and business which did not exist, in order to make secure his newest paradise, Cowperwood decided that it would be better if Tollifer were present, and arranged to have him recalled by the Central Trust Company. He might keep Aileen from thinking about Lorna.