The Titan 17 страница

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insouciance which Aileen had never known, his temperament ached,

for he must have something like that. Truth to say, he must always

have youth, the illusion of beauty, vanity in womanhood, the novelty

of a new, untested temperament, quite as he must have pictures,

old porcelain, music, a mansion, illuminated missals, power, the

applause of the great, unthinking world.

As has been said, this promiscuous attitude on Cowperwood's part

was the natural flowering out of a temperament that was chronically

promiscuous, intellectually uncertain, and philosophically

anarchistic. From one point of view it might have been said of

him that he was seeking the realization of an ideal, yet to one's

amazement our very ideals change at times and leave us floundering

in the dark. What is an ideal, anyhow? A wraith, a mist, a perfume

in the wind, a dream of fair water. The soul-yearning of a girl

like Antoinette Nowak was a little too strained for him. It was

too ardent, too clinging, and he had gradually extricated himself,

not without difficulty, from that particular entanglement. Since

then he had been intimate with other women for brief periods, but

to no great satisfaction--Dorothy Ormsby, Jessie Belle Hinsdale,

Toma Lewis, Hilda Jewell; but they shall be names merely. One was

an actress, one a stenographer, one the daughter of one of his

stock patrons, one a church-worker, a solicitor for charity coming

to him to seek help for an orphan's home. It was a pathetic mess

at times, but so are all defiant variations from the accustomed

drift of things. In the hardy language of Napoleon, one cannot

make an omelette without cracking a number of eggs.

The coming of Stephanie Platow, Russian Jewess on one side of her

family, Southwestern American on the other, was an event in

Cowperwood's life. She was tall, graceful, brilliant, young, with

much of the optimism of Rita Sohlberg, and yet endowed with a

strange fatalism which, once he knew her better, touched and moved

him. He met her on shipboard on the way to Goteborg. Her father,

Isadore Platow, was a wealthy furrier of Chicago. He was a large,

meaty, oily type of man--a kind of ambling, gelatinous formula of

the male, with the usual sound commercial instincts of the Jew,

but with an errant philosophy which led him to believe first one

thing and then another so long as neither interfered definitely

with his business. He was an admirer of Henry George and of so

altruistic a programme as that of Robert Owen, and, also, in his

way, a social snob. And yet he had married Susetta Osborn, a Texas

girl who was once his bookkeeper. Mrs. Platow was lithe, amiable,

subtle, with an eye always to the main social chance--in other

words, a climber. She was shrewd enough to realize that a knowledge

of books and art and current events was essential, and so she " went

in" for these things.

It is curious how the temperaments of parents blend and revivify

in their children. As Stephanie grew up she had repeated in her

very differing body some of her father's and mother's characteristics

--an interesting variability of soul. She was tall, dark, sallow,

lithe, with a strange moodiness of heart and a recessive, fulgurous

gleam in her chestnut-brown, almost brownish-black eyes. She had

a full, sensuous, Cupid's mouth, a dreamy and even languishing

expression, a graceful neck, and a heavy, dark, and yet pleasingly

modeled face. From both her father and mother she had inherited

a penchant for art, literature, philosophy, and music. Already

at eighteen she was dreaming of painting, singing, writing poetry,

writing books, acting--anything and everything. Serene in her own

judgment of what was worth while, she was like to lay stress on

any silly mood or fad, thinking it exquisite--the last word.

Finally, she was a rank voluptuary, dreaming dreams of passionate

union with first one and then another type of artist, poet,

musician--the whole gamut of the artistic and emotional world.

Cowperwood first saw her on board the Centurion one June morning,

as the ship lay at dock in New York. He and Aileen were en route

for Norway, she and her father and mother for Denmark and Switzerland.

She was hanging over the starboard rail looking at a flock of

wide-winged gulls which were besieging the port of the cook's

galley. She was musing soulfully--conscious (fully) that she was

musing soulfully. He paid very little attention to her, except

to note that she was tall, rhythmic, and that a dark-gray plaid

dress, and an immense veil of gray silk wound about her shoulders

and waist and over one arm, after the manner of a Hindu shawl,

appeared to become her much. Her face seemed very sallow, and her

eyes ringed as if indicating dyspepsia. Her black hair under a

chic hat did not escape his critical eye. Later she and her father

appeared at the captain's table, to which the Cowperwoods had also

been invited.

Cowperwood and Aileen did not know how to take this girl, though

she interested them both. They little suspected the chameleon

character of her soul. She was an artist, and as formless and

unstable as water. It was a mere passing gloom that possessed

her. Cowperwood liked the semi-Jewish cast of her face, a certain

fullness of the neck, her dark, sleepy eyes. But she was much too

young and nebulous, he thought, and he let her pass. On this trip,

which endured for ten days, he saw much of her, in different moods,

walking with a young Jew in whom she seemed greatly interested,

playing at shuffleboard, reading solemnly in a corner out of the

reach of the wind or spray, and usually looking naive, preternaturally

innocent, remote, dreamy. At other times she seemed possessed of

a wild animation, her eyes alight, her expression vigorous, an

intense glow in her soul. Once he saw her bent over a small wood

block, cutting a book-plate with a thin steel graving tool.

Because of Stephanie's youth and seeming unimportance, her lack

of what might be called compelling rosy charm, Aileen had become

reasonably friendly with the girl. Far subtler, even at her years,

than Aileen, Stephanie gathered a very good impression of the

former, of her mental girth, and how to take her. She made friends

with her, made a book-plate for her, made a sketch of her. She

confided to Aileen that in her own mind she was destined for the

stage, if her parents would permit; and Aileen invited her to see

her husband's pictures on their return. She little knew how much

of a part Stephanie would play in Cowperwood's life.

The Cowperwoods, having been put down at Goteborg, saw no more of

the Platows until late October. Then Aileen, being lonely, called

to see Stephanie, and occasionally thereafter Stephanie came over

to the South Side to see the Cowperwoods. She liked to roam about

their house, to dream meditatively in some nook of the rich interior,

with a book for company. She liked Cowperwood's pictures, his

jades, his missals, his ancient radiant glass. From talking with

Aileen she realized that the latter had no real love for these

things, that her expressions of interest and pleasure were pure

make-believe, based on their value as possessions. For Stephanie

herself certain of the illuminated books and bits of glass had a

heavy, sensuous appeal, which only the truly artistic can understand.

They unlocked dark dream moods and pageants for her. She responded

to them, lingered over them, experienced strange moods from them

as from the orchestrated richness of music.

And in doing so she thought of Cowperwood often. Did he really

like these things, or was he just buying them to be buying them?

She had heard much of the pseudo artistic--the people who made a

show of art. She recalled Cowperwood as he walked the deck of the

Centurion. She remembered his large, comprehensive, embracing

blue-gray eyes that seemed to blaze with intelligence. He seemed

to her quite obviously a more forceful and significant man than

her father, and yet she could not have said why. He always seemed

so trigly dressed, so well put together. There was a friendly

warmth about all that he said or did, though he said or did little.

She felt that his eyes were mocking, that back in his soul there

was some kind of humor over something which she did not understand

quite.

After Stephanie had been back in Chicago six months, during which

time she saw very little of Cowperwood, who was busy with his

street-railway programme, she was swept into the net of another

interest which carried her away from him and Aileen for the time

being. On the West Side, among a circle of her mother's friends,

had been organized an Amateur Dramatic League, with no less object

than to elevate the stage. That world-old problem never fails to

interest the new and the inexperienced. It all began in the home

of one of the new rich of the West Side--the Timberlakes. They,

in their large house on Ashland Avenue, had a stage, and Georgia

Timberlake, a romantic-minded girl of twenty with flaxen hair,

imagined she could act. Mrs. Timberlake, a fat, indulgent mother,

rather agreed with her. The whole idea, after a few discursive

performances of Milton's " The Masque of Comus, " " Pyramus and

Thisbe, " and an improved Harlequin and Columbine, written by one

of the members, was transferred to the realm of the studios, then

quartered in the New Arts Building. An artist by the name of Lane

Cross, a portrait-painter, who was much less of an artist than he

was a stage director, and not much of either, but who made his

living by hornswaggling society into the belief that he could

paint, was induced to take charge of these stage performances.

By degrees the " Garrick Players, " as they chose to call themselves,

developed no little skill and craftsmanship in presenting one form

and another of classic and semi-classic play. " Romeo and Juliet, "

with few properties of any kind, " The Learned Ladies" of Moliere,

Sheridan's " The Rivals, " and the " Elektra" of Sophocles were all

given. Considerable ability of one kind and another was developed,

the group including two actresses of subsequent repute on the

American stage, one of whom was Stephanie Platow. There were some

ten girls and women among the active members, and almost as many

men--a variety of characters much too extended to discuss here.

There was a dramatic critic by the name of Gardner Knowles, a young

man, very smug and handsome, who was connected with the Chicago

Press. Whipping his neatly trousered legs with his bright little

cane, he used to appear at the rooms of the players at the Tuesday,

Thursday, and Saturday teas which they inaugurated, and discuss

the merits of the venture. Thus the Garrick Players were gradually

introduced into the newspapers. Lane Cross, the smooth-faced,

pasty-souled artist who had charge, was a rake at heart, a subtle

seducer of women, who, however, escaped detection by a smooth,

conventional bearing. He was interested in such girls as Georgia

Timberlake, Irma Ottley, a rosy, aggressive maiden who essayed

comic roles, and Stephanie Platow. These, with another girl, Ethel

Tuckerman, very emotional and romantic, who could dance charmingly

and sing, made up a group of friends which became very close.

Presently intimacies sprang up, only in this realm, instead of

ending in marriage, they merely resulted in sex liberty. Thus

Ethel Tuckerman became the mistress of Lane Cross; an illicit

attachment grew up between Irma Ottley and a young society idler

by the name of Bliss Bridge; and Gardner Knowles, ardently admiring

Stephanie Platow literally seized upon her one afternoon in her

own home, when he went ostensibly to interview her, and overpersuaded

her. She was only reasonably fond of him, not in love; but, being

generous, nebulous, passionate, emotional, inexperienced, voiceless,

and vainly curious, without any sense of the meums and teums that

govern society in such matters, she allowed this rather brutal

thing to happen. She was not a coward--was too nebulous and yet

forceful to be such. Her parents never knew. And once so launched,

another world--that of sex satisfaction--began to dawn on her.

Were these young people evil? Let the social philosopher answer.

One thing is certain: They did not establish homes and raise

children. On the contrary, they led a gay, butterfly existence

for nearly two years; then came a gift in the lute. Quarrels

developed over parts, respective degrees of ability, and leadership.

Ethel Tuckerman fell out with Lane Cross, because she discovered

him making love to Irma Ottley. Irma and Bliss Bridge released

each other, the latter transferring his affections to Georgia

Timberlake. Stephanie Platow, by far the most individual of them

all, developed a strange inconsequence as to her deeds. It was

when she was drawing near the age of twenty that the affair with

Gardner Knowles began. After a time Lane Cross, with his somewhat

earnest attempt at artistic interpretation and his superiority in

the matter of years--he was forty, and young Knowles only twenty-four

--seemed more interesting to Stephanie, and he was quick to respond.

There followed an idle, passionate union with this man, which seemed

important, but was not so at all. And then it was that Stephanie

began dimly to perceive that it was on and on that the blessings

lie, that somewhere there might be some man much more remarkable

than either of these; but this was only a dream. She thought of

Cowperwood at times; but he seemed to her to be too wrapped up in

grim tremendous things, far apart from this romantic world of

amateur dramatics in which she was involved.

Chapter XXV

Airs from the Orient

Cowperwood gained his first real impression of Stephanie at the

Garrick Players, where he went with Aileen once to witness a

performance of " Elektra. " He liked Stephanie particularly in this

part, and thought her beautiful. One evening not long afterward

he noticed her in his own home looking at his jades, particularly

a row of bracelets and ear-rings. He liked the rhythmic outline

of her body, which reminded him of a letter S in motion. Quite

suddenly it came over him that she was a remarkable girl--very

--destined, perhaps, to some significant future. At the same time

Stephanie was thinking of him.

" Do you find them interesting? " he asked, stopping beside her.

" I think they're wonderful. Those dark-greens, and that pale,

fatty white! I can see how beautiful they would be in a Chinese

setting. I have always wished we could find a Chinese or Japanese

play to produce sometime. "

" Yes, with your black hair those ear-rings would look well, " said

Cowperwood.

He had never deigned to comment on a feature of hers before. She

turned her dark, brown-black eyes on him--velvety eyes with a kind

of black glow in them--and now he noticed how truly fine they were,

and how nice were her hands--brown almost as a Malay's.

He said nothing more; but the next day an unlabeled box was delivered

to Stephanie at her home containing a pair of jade ear-rings, a

bracelet, and a brooch with Chinese characters intagliated.

Stephanie was beside herself with delight. She gathered them up

in her hands and kissed them, fastening the ear-rings in her ears

and adjusting the bracelet and ring. Despite her experience with

her friends and relatives, her stage associates, and her paramours,

she was still a little unschooled in the world. Her heart was

essentially poetic and innocent. No one had ever given her much

of anything--not even her parents. Her allowance thus far in life

had been a pitiful six dollars a week outside of her clothing. As

she surveyed these pretty things in the privacy of her room she

wondered oddly whether Cowperwood was growing to like her. Would

such a strong, hard business man be interested in her? She had

heard her father say he was becoming very rich. Was she a great

actress, as some said she was, and would strong, able types of men

like Cowperwood take to her--eventually? She had heard of Rachel,

of Nell Gwynne, of the divine Sarah and her loves. She took the

precious gifts and locked them in a black-iron box which was sacred

to her trinkets and her secrets.

The mere acceptance of these things in silence was sufficient

indication to Cowperwood that she was of a friendly turn of mind.

He waited patiently until one day a letter came to his office--not

his house--addressed, " Frank Algernon Cowperwood, Personal. " It

was written in a small, neat, careful hand, almost printed.

I don't know how to thank you for your wonderful present. I didn't

mean you should give them to me, and I know you sent them. I shall

keep them with pleasure and wear them with delight. It was so

nice of you to do this.

STEPHANIE PLATOW.

Cowperwood studied the handwriting, the paper, the phraseology.

For a girl of only a little over twenty this was wise and reserved

and tactful. She might have written to him at his residence. He

gave her the benefit of a week's time, and then found her in his

own home one Sunday afternoon. Aileen had gone calling, and

Stephanie was pretending to await her return.

" It's nice to see you there in that window, " he said. " You fit

your background perfectly. "

" Do I? " The black-brown eyes burned soulfully. The panneling back

of her was of dark oak, burnished by the rays of an afternoon

winter sun.

Stephanie Platow had dressed for this opportunity. Her full,

rich, short black hair was caught by a childish band of blood-red

ribbon, holding it low over her temples and ears. Her lithe body,

so harmonious in its graven roundness, was clad in an apple-green

bodice, and a black skirt with gussets of red about the hem; her

smooth arms, from the elbows down, were bare. On one wrist was

the jade bracelet he had given her. Her stockings were apple-green

silk, and, despite the chill of the day, her feet were shod in

enticingly low slippers with brass buckles.

Cowperwood retired to the hall to hang up his overcoat and came

back smiling.

" Isn't Mrs. Cowperwood about? "

" The butler says she's out calling, but I thought I'd wait a little

while, anyhow. She may come back. "

She turned up a dark, smiling face to him, with languishing,

inscrutable eyes, and he recognized the artist at last, full and

clear.

" I see you like my bracelet, don't you? "

" It's beautiful, " she replied, looking down and surveying it

dreamily. " I don't always wear it. I carry it in my muff. I've

just put it on for a little while. I carry them all with me always.

I love them so. I like to feel them. "

She opened a small chamois bag beside her--lying with her handkerchief

and a sketch-book which she always carried--and took out the ear-rings

and brooch.

Cowperwood glowed with a strange feeling of approval and enthusiasm

at this manifestation of real interest. He liked jade himself

very much, but more than that the feeling that prompted this

expression in another. Roughly speaking, it might have been said

of him that youth and hope in women--particularly youth when combined

with beauty and ambition in a girl--touched him. He responded

keenly to her impulse to do or be something in this world, whatever

it might be, and he looked on the smart, egoistic vanity of so

many with a kindly, tolerant, almost parental eye. Poor little

organisms growing on the tree of life--they would burn out and

fade soon enough. He did not know the ballad of the roses of

yesteryear, but if he had it would have appealed to him. He did

not care to rifle them, willy-nilly; but should their temperaments

or tastes incline them in his direction, they would not suffer

vastly in their lives because of him. The fact was, the man was

essentially generous where women were concerned.

" How nice of you! " he commented, smiling. " I like that. " And then,

seeing a note-book and pencil beside her, he asked, " What are you

doing? "

" Just sketching. "

" Let me see? "

" It's nothing much, " she replied, deprecatingly. " I don't draw

very well. "

" Gifted girl! " he replied, picking it up. " Paints, draws, carves

on wood, plays, sings, acts. "

" All rather badly, " she sighed, turning her head languidly and

looking away. In her sketch-book she had put all of her best

drawings; there were sketches of nude women, dancers, torsos, bits

of running figures, sad, heavy, sensuous heads and necks of sleeping

girls, chins up, eyelids down, studies of her brothers and sister,

and of her father and mother.

" Delightful! " exclaimed Cowperwood, keenly alive to a new treasure.

Good heavens, where had been his eyes all this while? Here was a

jewel lying at his doorstep--innocent, untarnished--a real jewel.

These drawings suggested a fire of perception, smoldering and

somber, which thrilled him.

" These are beautiful to me, Stephanie, " he said, simply, a strange,

uncertain feeling of real affection creeping over him. The man's

greatest love was for art. It was hypnotic to him. " Did you ever

study art? " he asked.

" No. "

" And you never studied acting? "

" No. "

She shook her head in a slow, sad, enticing way. The black hair

concealing her ears moved him strangely.

" I know the art of your stage work is real, and you have a natural

art which I just seem to see. What has been the matter with me,

anyhow? "

" Oh no, " she sighed. " It seems to me that I merely play at

everything. I could cry sometimes when I think how I go on. "

" At twenty? "

" That is old enough, " she smiled, archly.

" Stephanie, " he asked, cautiously, " how old are you, exactly? "

" I will be twenty-one in April, " she answered.

" Have your parents been very strict with you? "

She shook her head dreamily. " No; what makes you ask? They haven't

paid very much attention to me. They've always liked Lucille and

Gilbert and Ormond best. " Her voice had a plaintive, neglected

ring. It was the voice she used in her best scenes on the stage.

" Don't they realize that you are very talented? "

" I think perhaps my mother feels that I may have some ability.

My father doesn't, I'm sure. Why? "

She lifted those languorous, plaintive eyes.

" Why, Stephanie, if you want to know, I think you're wonderful.

I thought so the other night when you were looking at those jades.

It all came over me. You are an artist, truly, and I have been

so busy I have scarcely seen it. Tell me one thing. "

" Yes. "

She drew in a soft breath, filling her chest and expanding her

bosom, while she looked at him from under her black hair. Her

hands were crossed idly in her lap. Then she looked demurely down.

" Look, Stephanie! Look up! I want to ask you something. You have

known something of me for over a year. Do you like me? "

" I think you're very wonderful, " she murmured.

" Is that all? "

" Isn't that much? " she smiled, shooting a dull, black-opal look

in his direction.

" You wore my bracelet to-day. Were you very glad to get it? "

" Oh yes, " she sighed, with aspirated breath, pretending a kind of

suffocation.

" How beautiful you really are! " he said, rising and looking down

at her.

She shook her head.

" No. "

" Yes! "

" No. "

" Come, Stephanie! Stand by me and look at me. You are so tall and

slender and graceful. You are like something out of Asia. "

She sighed, turning in a sinuous way, as he slipped his arm her.

" I don't think we should, should we? " she asked, naively, after a

moment, pulling away from him.

" Stephanie! "

" I think I'd better go, now, please. "

Chapter XXVI

Love and War

It was during the earlier phases of his connection with Chicago

street-railways that Cowperwood, ardently interesting himself in

Stephanie Platow, developed as serious a sex affair as any that

had yet held him. At once, after a few secret interviews with

her, he adopted his favorite ruse in such matters and established

bachelor quarters in the down-town section as a convenient

meeting-ground. Several conversations with Stephanie were not

quite as illuminating as they might have been, for, wonderful as

she was--a kind of artistic godsend in this dull Western atmosphere

--she was also enigmatic and elusive, very. He learned speedily,

in talking with her on several days when they met for lunch, of

her dramatic ambitions, and of the seeming spiritual and artistic

support she required from some one who would have faith in her and

inspire her by his or her confidence. He learned all about the

Garrick Players, her home intimacies and friends, the growing

quarrels in the dramatic organization. He asked her, as they sat

in a favorite and inconspicuous resort of his finding, during one

of those moments when blood and not intellect was ruling between

them, whether she had ever--

" Once, " she naively admitted.

It was a great shock to Cowperwood. He had fancied her refreshingly

innocent. But she explained it was all so accidental, so unintentional

on her part, very. She described it all so gravely, soulfully,

pathetically, with such a brooding, contemplative backward searching

of the mind, that he was astonished and in a way touched. What a

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