The Titan tod-2

by Theodore Dreiser

  In the organization of the Hyde Park company Cowperwood, because he never cared to put all his eggs in one basket, decided to secure a second lawyer and a second dummy president, although he proposed to keep De Soto Sippens as general practical adviser for all three or four companies. He was thinking this matter over when there appeared on the scene a very much younger man than the old General, one Kent Barrows McKibben, the only son of ex-Judge Marshall Scammon McKibben, of the State Supreme Court. Kent McKibben was thirty-three years old, tall, athletic, and, after a fashion, handsome. He was not at all vague intellectually—that is, in the matter of the conduct of his business—but dandified and at times remote. He had an office in one of the best blocks in Dearborn Street, which he reached in a reserved, speculative mood every morning at nine, unless something important called him down-town earlier. It so happened that he had drawn up the deeds and agreements for the real-estate company that sold Cowperwood his lots at Thirty-seventh Street and Michigan Avenue, and when they were ready he journeyed to the latter’s office to ask if there were any additional details which Cowperwood might want to have taken into consideration. When he was ushered in, Cowperwood turned to him his keen, analytical eyes and saw at once a personality he liked. McKibben was just remote and artistic enough to suit him. He liked his clothes, his agnostic unreadableness, his social air. McKibben, on his part, caught the significance of the superior financial atmosphere at once. He noted Cowperwood’s light-brown suit picked out with strands of red, his maroon tie, and small cameo cuff-links. His desk, glass-covered, looked clean and official. The woodwork of the rooms was all cherry, hand-rubbed and oiled, the pictures interesting steel-engravings of American life, appropriately framed. The typewriter—at that time just introduced—was in evidence, and the stock-ticker—also new—was ticking volubly the prices current. The secretary who waited on Cowperwood was a young Polish girl named Antoinette Nowak, reserved, seemingly astute, dark, and very attractive.

  “What sort of business is it you handle, Mr. McKibben?” asked Cowperwood, quite casually, in the course of the conversation. And after listening to McKibben’s explanation he added, idly: “You might come and see me some time next week. It is just possible that I may have something in your line.”

  In another man McKibben would have resented this remote suggestion of future aid. Now, instead, he was intensely pleased. The man before him gripped his imagination. His remote intellectuality relaxed. When he came again and Cowperwood indicated the nature of the work he might wish to have done McKibben rose to the bait like a fish to a fly.

  “I wish you would let me undertake that, Mr. Cowperwood,” he said, quite eagerly. “It’s something I’ve never done, but I’m satisfied I can do it. I live out in Hyde Park and know most of the councilmen. I can bring considerable influence to bear for you.”

  Cowperwood smiled pleasantly.

  So a second company, officered by dummies of McKibben’s selection, was organized. De Soto Sippens, without old General Van Sickle’s knowledge, was taken in as practical adviser. An application for a franchise was drawn up, and Kent Barrows McKibben began silent, polite work on the South Side, coming into the confidence, by degrees, of the various councilmen.

  There was still a third lawyer, Burton Stimson, the youngest but assuredly not the least able of the three, a pale, dark-haired Romeoish youth with burning eyes, whom Cowperwood had encountered doing some little work for Laughlin, and who was engaged to work on the West Side with old Laughlin as ostensible organizer and the sprightly De Soto Sippens as practical adviser. Stimson was no mooning Romeo, however, but an eager, incisive soul, born very poor, eager to advance himself. Cowperwood detected that pliability of intellect which, while it might spell disaster to some, spelled success for him. He wanted the intellectual servants. He was willing to pay them handsomely, to keep them busy, to treat them with almost princely courtesy, but he must have the utmost loyalty. Stimson, while maintaining his calm and reserve, could have kissed the arch-episcopal hand. Such is the subtlety of contact.

  Behold then at once on the North Side, the South Side, the West Side—dark goings to and fro and walkings up and down in the earth. In Lake View old General Van Sickle and De Soto Sippens, conferring with shrewd Councilman Duniway, druggist, and with Jacob Gerecht, ward boss and wholesale butcher, both of whom were agreeable but exacting, holding pleasant back-room and drug-store confabs with almost tabulated details of rewards and benefits. In Hyde Park, Mr. Kent Barrows McKibben, smug and well dressed, a Chesterfield among lawyers, and with him one J. J. Bergdoll, a noble hireling, long-haired and dusty, ostensibly president of the Hyde Park Gas and Fuel Company, conferring with Councilman Alfred B. Davis, manufacturer of willow and rattan ware, and Mr. Patrick Gilgan, saloon-keeper, arranging a prospective distribution of shares, offering certain cash consideration, lots, favors, and the like. Observe also in the village of Douglas and West Park on the West Side, just over the city line, the angular, humorous Peter Laughlin and Burton Stimson arranging a similar deal or deals.

  The enemy, the city gas companies, being divided into three factions, were in no way prepared for what was now coming. When the news finally leaked out that applications for franchises had been made to the several corporate village bodies each old company suspected the other of invasion, treachery, robbery. Pettifogging lawyers were sent, one by each company, to the village council in each particular territory involved, but no one of the companies had as yet the slightest idea who was back of it all or of the general plan of operations. Before any one of them could reasonably protest, before it could decide that it was willing to pay a very great deal to have the suburb adjacent to its particular territory left free, before it could organize a legal fight, councilmanic ordinances were introduced giving the applying company what it sought; and after a single reading in each case and one open hearing, as the law compelled, they were almost unanimously passed. There were loud cries of dismay from minor suburban papers which had almost been forgotten in the arrangement of rewards. The large city newspapers cared little at first, seeing these were outlying districts; they merely made the comment that the villages were beginning well, following in the steps of the city council in its distinguished career of crime.

  Cowperwood smiled as he saw in the morning papers the announcement of the passage of each ordinance granting him a franchise. He listened with comfort thereafter on many a day to accounts by Laughlin, Sippens, McKibben, and Van Sickle of overtures made to buy them out, or to take over their franchises. He worked on plans with Sippens looking to the actual introduction of gas-plants. There were bond issues now to float, stock to be marketed, contracts for supplies to be awarded, actual reservoirs and tanks to be built, and pipes to be laid. A pumped-up public opposition had to be smoothed over. In all this De Soto Sippens proved a trump. With Van Sickle, McKibben, and Stimson as his advisers in different sections of the city he would present tabloid propositions to Cowperwood, to which the latter had merely to bow his head in assent or say no. Then De Soto would buy, build, and excavate. Cowperwood was so pleased that he was determined to keep De Soto with him permanently. De Soto was pleased to think that he was being given a chance to pay up old scores and to do large things; he was really grateful.

  “We’re not through with those sharpers,” he declared to Cowperwood, triumphantly, one day. “They’ll fight us with suits. They may join hands later. They blew up my gas-plant. They may blow up ours.”

  “Let them blow,” said Cowperwood. “We can blow, too, and sue also. I like lawsuits. We’ll tie them up so that they’ll beg for quarter.” His eyes twinkled cheerfully.

  Chapter IX.

  In Search of Victory

  In the mean time the social affairs of Aileen had been prospering in a small way, for while it was plain that they were not to be taken up at once—that was not to be expected—it was also plain that they were not to be ignored entirely. One thing that helped in providing a nice harmonious working atmosphere was the obvious warm affection
of Cowperwood for his wife. While many might consider Aileen a little brash or crude, still in the hands of so strong and capable a man as Cowperwood she might prove available. So thought Mrs. Addison, for instance, and Mrs. Rambaud. McKibben and Lord felt the same way. If Cowperwood loved her, as he seemed to do, he would probably “put her through” successfully. And he really did love her, after his fashion. He could never forget how splendid she had been to him in those old days when, knowing full well the circumstances of his home, his wife, his children, the probable opposition of her own family, she had thrown over convention and sought his love. How freely she had given of hers! No petty, squeamish bickering and dickering here. He had been “her Frank” from the start, and he still felt keenly that longing in her to be with him, to be his, which had produced those first wonderful, almost terrible days. She might quarrel, fret, fuss, argue, suspect, and accuse him of flirtation with other women; but slight variations from the norm in his case did not trouble her—at least she argued that they wouldn’t. She had never had any evidence. She was ready to forgive him anything, she said, and she was, too, if only he would love her.

  “You devil,” she used to say to him, playfully. “I know you. I can see you looking around. That’s a nice stenographer you have in the office. I suppose it’s her.”

  “Don’t be silly, Aileen,” he would reply. “Don’t be coarse. You know I wouldn’t take up with a stenographer. An office isn’t the place for that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, isn’t it? Don’t silly me. I know you. Any old place is good enough for you.”

  He laughed, and so did she. She could not help it. She loved him so. There was no particular bitterness in her assaults. She loved him, and very often he would take her in his arms, kiss her tenderly, and coo: “Are you my fine big baby? Are you my red-headed doll? Do you really love me so much? Kiss me, then.” Frankly, pagan passion in these two ran high. So long as they were not alienated by extraneous things he could never hope for more delicious human contact. There was no reaction either, to speak of, no gloomy disgust. She was physically acceptable to him. He could always talk to her in a genial, teasing way, even tender, for she did not offend his intellectuality with prudish or conventional notions. Loving and foolish as she was in some ways, she would stand blunt reproof or correction. She could suggest in a nebulous, blundering way things that would be good for them to do. Most of all at present their thoughts centered upon Chicago society, the new house, which by now had been contracted for, and what it would do to facilitate their introduction and standing. Never did a woman’s life look more rosy, Aileen thought. It was almost too good to be true. Her Frank was so handsome, so loving, so generous. There was not a small idea about him. What if he did stray from her at times? He remained faithful to her spiritually, and she knew as yet of no single instance in which he had failed her. She little knew, as much as she knew, how blandly he could lie and protest in these matters. But he was fond of her just the same, and he really had not strayed to any extent.

  By now also, Cowperwood had invested about one hundred thousand dollars in his gas-company speculations, and he was jubilant over his prospects; the franchises were good for twenty years. By that time he would be nearly sixty, and he would probably have bought, combined with, or sold out to the older companies at a great profit. The future of Chicago was all in his favor. He decided to invest as much as thirty thousand dollars in pictures, if he could find the right ones, and to have Aileen’s portrait painted while she was still so beautiful. This matter of art was again beginning to interest him immensely. Addison had four or five good pictures—a Rousseau, a Greuze, a Wouverman, and one Lawrence—picked up Heaven knows where. A hotel-man by the name of Collard, a dry-goods and real-estate merchant, was said to have a very striking collection. Addison had told him of one Davis Trask, a hardware prince, who was now collecting. There were many homes, he knew where art was beginning to be assembled. He must begin, too.

  Cowperwood, once the franchises had been secured, had installed Sippens in his own office, giving him charge for the time being. Small rented offices and clerks were maintained in the region where practical plant-building was going on. All sorts of suits to enjoin, annul, and restrain had been begun by the various old companies, but McKibben, Stimson, and old General Van Sickle were fighting these with Trojan vigor and complacency. It was a pleasant scene. Still no one knew very much of Cowperwood’s entrance into Chicago as yet. He was a very minor figure. His name had not even appeared in connection with this work. Other men were being celebrated daily, a little to his envy. When would he begin to shine? Soon, now, surely. So off they went in June, comfortable, rich, gay, in the best of health and spirits, intent upon enjoying to the full their first holiday abroad.

  It was a wonderful trip. Addison was good enough to telegraph flowers to New York for Mrs. Cowperwood to be delivered on shipboard. McKibben sent books of travel. Cowperwood, uncertain whether anybody would send flowers, ordered them himself—two amazing baskets, which with Addison’s made three—and these, with attached cards, awaited them in the lobby of the main deck. Several at the captain’s table took pains to seek out the Cowperwoods. They were invited to join several card-parties and to attend informal concerts. It was a rough passage, however, and Aileen was sick. It was hard to make herself look just nice enough, and so she kept to her room. She was very haughty, distant to all but a few, and to these careful of her conversation. She felt herself coming to be a very important person.

  Before leaving she had almost exhausted the resources of the Donovan establishment in Chicago. Lingerie, boudoir costumes, walking-costumes, riding-costumes, evening-costumes she possessed in plenty. She had a jewel-bag hidden away about her person containing all of thirty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels. Her shoes, stockings, hats, and accessories in general were innumerable. Because of all this Cowperwood was rather proud of her. She had such a capacity for life. His first wife had been pale and rather anemic, while Aileen was fairly bursting with sheer physical vitality. She hummed and jested and primped and posed. There are some souls that just are, without previous revision or introspection. The earth with all its long past was a mere suggestion to Aileen, dimly visualized if at all. She may have heard that there were once dinosaurs and flying reptiles, but if so it made no deep impression on her. Somebody had said, or was saying, that we were descended from monkeys, which was quite absurd, though it might be true enough. On the sea the thrashing hills of green water suggested a kind of immensity and terror, but not the immensity of the poet’s heart. The ship was safe, the captain at table in brass buttons and blue uniform, eager to be nice to her—told her so. Her faith really, was in the captain. And there with her, always, was Cowperwood, looking at this whole, moving spectacle of life with a suspicious, not apprehensive, but wary eye, and saying nothing about it.

  In London letters given them by Addison brought several invitations to the opera, to dinner, to Goodwood for a weekend, and so on. Carriages, tallyhoes, cabs for riding were invoked. A week-end invitation to a houseboat on the Thames was secured. Their English hosts, looking on all this as a financial adventure, good financial wisdom, were courteous and civil, nothing more. Aileen was intensely curious. She noted servants, manners, forms. Immediately she began to think that America was not good enough, perhaps; it wanted so many things.

  “Now, Aileen, you and I have to live in Chicago for years and years,” commented Cowperwood. “Don’t get wild. These people don’t care for Americans, can’t you see that? They wouldn’t accept us if we were over here—not yet, anyhow. We’re merely passing strangers, being courteously entertained.” Cowperwood saw it all.

  Aileen was being spoiled in a way, but there was no help. She dressed and dressed. The Englishmen used to look at her in Hyde Park, where she rode and drove; at Claridges’ where they stayed; in Bond Street, where she shopped. The Englishwomen, the majority of them remote, ultra-conservative, simple in their tastes, lifted their eyes. Cowperwood sensed the situation, but sai
d nothing. He loved Aileen, and she was satisfactory to him, at least for the present, anyhow, beautiful. If he could adjust her station in Chicago, that would be sufficient for a beginning. After three weeks of very active life, during which Aileen patronized the ancient and honorable glories of England, they went on to Paris.

  Here she was quickened to a child-like enthusiasm. “You know,” she said to Cowperwood, quite solemnly, the second morning, “the English don’t know how to dress. I thought they did, but the smartest of them copy the French. Take those men we saw last night in the Cafe d’Anglais. There wasn’t an Englishman I saw that compared with them.”

  “My dear, your tastes are exotic,” replied Cowperwood, who was watching her with pleased interest while he adjusted his tie. “The French smart crowd are almost too smart, dandified. I think some of those young fellows had on corsets.”

  “What of it?” replied Aileen. “I like it. If you’re going to be smart, why not be very smart?”

  “I know that’s your theory, my dear,” he said, “but it can be overdone. There is such a thing as going too far. You have to compromise even if you don’t look as well as you might. You can’t be too very conspicuously different from your neighbors, even in the right direction.”