The Stoic tod-3 Page 6

  “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.

  Chapter 13

  The matter of interesting Cole in having Greaves and Henshaw reapproach him was accomplished by Cowperwood in but a few moments out of an evening of dining and drinking. Indeed, Cole expressed the thought that in London Cowperwood might find a better field for his powers than Chicago had ever offered him, in which case he would be glad to hear further in regard to any investment plans which might be devised.

  Equally satisfactory was the talk with Edward Bingham, from whom Cowperwood drew out some interesting information regarding Bruce Tollifer. According to Bingham, Tollifer, at present, was in a sorry state. Although at one time a person of excellent social connections, and having some money, today he was without either. Still handsome, he looked dissipated
, shabby. Until recently he had been associating with gamblers and other persons of questionable reputation; most of those who had formerly known and liked him had apparently stricken him from their lists.

  On the other hand, as Bingham felt called upon to admit, within the past month Tollifer had been exhibiting attempts at rehabilitation. For he was now living alone at a modest so-called bachelor’s club, the Alcove, in Fifty-third Street, and was seen occasionally dining in the best restaurants. He believed that Tollifer was seeking to do one of two things: either to ingratiate himself with a wealthy woman who would be glad to pay him for such services as he could perform for her, or get himself a job in a brokerage firm where his one-time social connections might be considered worth a salary. This critical conclusion on the part of Bingham caused Cowperwood to smile, since it was exactly in this state that he had hoped to find Tollifer.

  He thanked Bingham, and after he left telephoned Tollifer at the Alcove. That gentleman, at the moment, was lying down, half-dressed, rather dismally awaiting the arrival of five o’clock, at which time he intended to venture forth on one of his “cruises,” as he called them—those searchings in clubs, restaurants, theaters, bars, in order to exchange such casual greetings as might reopen old or create new friendships. It was three o’clock now, and a windy February day, when he came down into the main corridor to answer Cowperwood’s call, a half-smoked cigarette in his fingers, his hair ruffled, and his lounging slippers a little the worse for wear.

  At the announcement: “This is Frank A. Cowperwood speaking,” Tollifer stiffened and pulled himself together, for that name had been a front page headline for months.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Cowperwood, what can I do for you?” and Tollifer’s voice was a blend of extreme awareness, civility, and willingness to accommodate himself to whatever might be asked of him.

  “I have in mind a certain matter which I think might interest you, Mr. Tollifer. If you care to call at my office in the Netherlands at ten-thirty tomorrow morning, I’ll be glad to see you. May I expect you at that time?”

  The voice, as Tollifer did not fail to note, was not exactly that of a superior addressing an inferior, yet it was authoritative and commanding. Tollifer, for all his social estimate of himself, was intensely curious and not a little thrilled.

  “Certainly, Mr. Cowperwood, I’ll be there,” he replied immediately.

  What could it mean? It might be a stock- or bond-selling proposition. If so, he would be delighted to take on such a job. Sitting in his room meditating on this unexpected call, he began to recall things he had read in regard to the Cowperwoods. There was that business of their trying to break into New York society, and the rumors of certain discomfitures and snubs in connection therewith. But then he returned to the idea of a job, and what that might mean in the way of social contacts, and he felt strangely cheered. He began to examine his face and figure, as well as the clothes in his closet. He must get a shave and a shampoo, and have his clothes well brushed and pressed. He would not go out this night, but rest and so refresh himself for the morrow.

  And on the following morning he was at Cowperwood’s office, more repressed and pliable than he had been for a long time. For this, somehow, seemed to bode a new start in life. At least, so he hoped as he entered and saw the great man sitting behind a large rosewood desk which occupied the center of the room. But at once he felt reduced and a little uncertain of himself, for the man before him, although far from lacking in courtesy and a certain atmosphere of cordial understanding, was still so aloof and remote. Certainly, he decided, he might be described as handsome, forceful, and dominant. Those large, magnetic, and wholly unrevealing blue eyes, and those strong, graceful hands resting so lightly on the desk before him, the little finger of the right hand wearing a plain gold ring.

  This ring, years before, Aileen had given him in his prison cell in Philadelphia, when he was at the lowest dip of his ever since ascending arc, as a token of her undying love, and he had never removed it. And here he was now, about to arrange with a somewhat déclassé social dandy to undertake a form of diversion which would preoccupy her in order that he might enjoy himself blissfully and peacefully with another woman. Really nothing short of a form of moral degradation! He fully realized that. But what else was he to do? What he was now planning must be as it was because it sprang out of conditions which life itself, operating through him and others, had created and shaped, and in any event not to be changed now. It was too late. He must work out matters bravely, defiantly, ruthlessly, so as to overawe people into accepting his methods and needs as inevitable. And so now, looking at Tollifer calmly and rather coldly, and motioning him to a chair, he began:

  “Mr. Tollifer, do sit down. I telephoned you yesterday because there is something I want to have done which requires a man of considerable tact and social experience. I will explain it more fully a little later. I may say that I did not call you before having made some investigation of your personal history and affairs, but without intending you any harm, I assure you. In fact, quite the contrary. I may be of some service to you, if you can be so to me.” And here he smiled a bright smile, to which Tollifer responded in a somewhat dubious but still genial fashion.

  “I hope you didn’t find so much against me as to make this conversation useless,” he said, ruefully. “I haven’t been living a strictly conventional life, I will admit. I wasn’t born for that type of thing, I’m afraid.”

  “Very likely not,” said Cowperwood, quite pleasantly and consolingly. “But before we discuss that, I want you to be quite frank and tell me all about yourself. The matter I have in mind requires that I know all about you.”

  He gazed encouragingly at Tollifer, and he, in turn, noting this, told in abbreviated form, and yet quite honestly, the entire story of his life, from his boyhood up. Whereupon Cowperwood, not a little entertained by this, decided that the fellow was a better sort than he had hoped for, less calculating—frank and random and pleasure-loving rather than sly and self-seeking. And, in consequence, he decided that he might speak to him more clearly and fully than at first he had intended.

  “Financially, you are on the rocks, then?”

  “Well, more or less so,” returned Tollifer, with a wry smile. “I think I’ve never been off the rocks, really.”

  “Well, they’re usually crowded, I believe. But tell me, aren’t you, just at this time, trying to pull yourself together, and, if possible, reconnect yourself with the set to which you used to belong?”

  He noticed an unmistakable shadow of distaste flicker cloudlike across Tollifer’s face as he answered: “Well, yes, I am,” and again that ironic, almost hopeless, yet intriguing, smile.

  “And how do you find the fight going?”

  “Situated as I am just now, not so good. My experience has been in a world that requires considerably more money than I have. I’ve been hoping to connect myself with some bank or brokerage house that has a pull with the sort of people I know here in New York, because then I might make some money for myself, as well as the bank, and also get in touch again with people who could really be of use to me . . .”

  “I see,” said Cowperwood. “But the fact that you have allowed your social connections to lapse makes it, I take it, a little difficult. Do you really think that with such a job as you speak of you can win back to what you want?”

  “I can’t say because I don’t know,” Tollifer replied. “I hope so.”

  A slightly disconcerting note of disbelief, or at least doubt, in Cowperwood’s tone just then had caused Tollifer to feel much less hopeful than only a moment before he had felt. At any rate, he went on bravely enough:

  “I’m not so old, and certainly not any more dissipated than a lot of fellows who have been out and gotten back. The only trouble with me is that I don’t have enough money. If I’d ever had that, I’d never have drifted out. It was lack of money, and nothing else. But I don’t feel that I’m wholly through by any means, even now. I haven’t stopped trying, and there�
�s always another day.”

  “I like that spirit,” commented Cowperwood, “and I hope you’re right. At any rate, it should not prove difficult to get you a place in a brokerage house.”

  Tollifer stirred eagerly and hopefully. “I wish I thought so,” he said, earnestly, and almost sadly. “It certainly would be a start toward something for me.”

  Cowperwood smiled.

  “Well, then,” he went on, “I think it might be arranged for you without any trouble. But only on one condition, and that is that you keep yourself free from any entanglements of any kind for the present. I say that because there is a social matter in which I am interested and which I may want you to undertake for me. It involves no compromise of your present bachelor’s freedom, but it may mean that for a time at least you will have to show particular attention to just one person, doing about the same sort of thing you were telling me of a while ago: paying attention to a rather charming woman a little older than yourself.”

  As Cowperwood said this, Tollifer felt that there must be, perhaps, a wealthy, elderly woman of Cowperwood’s acquaintance on whom he had financial designs and that he was to be the cat’s-paw.

  “Certainly,” he said, “if it is anything I feel I can do for you, Mr. Cowperwood.”

  At this point Cowperwood leaned back easily in his chair, and, putting the fingers of his hands together, regarded Tollifer with a cold and calculating gaze.

  “The woman I refer to is my wife, Mr. Tollifer,” he announced sharply and brazenly. “For years now, Mrs. Cowperwood and I have been—I will not say on bad terms, for that is not true—but more or less estranged.”