He spoke now as though there were some reason entirely disassociated from himself that was impelling him to this interest in her.
Berenice, brush in hand, standing by her picture, gave him a look that was cool, curious, defiant, equivocal.
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied, quietly. “You know how things have been, so I may speak quite frankly. I know that mother’s intentions were always of the best.”
Her mouth moved with the faintest touch of sadness. “Her heart, I am afraid, is better than her head. As for your motives, I am satisfied to believe that they have been of the best also. I know that they have been, in fact—it would be ungenerous of me to suggest anything else.” (Cowperwood’s fixed eyes, it seemed to her, had moved somewhere in their deepest depths.) “Yet I don’t feel we can go on as we have been doing. We have no money of our own. Why shouldn’t I do something? What else can I really do?”
She paused, and Cowperwood gazed at her, quite still. In her informal, bunchy painter’s apron, and with her blue eyes looking out at him from beneath her loose red hair, it seemed to him she was the most perfect thing he had ever known. Such a keen, fixed, enthroned mind. She was so capable, so splendid, and, like his own, her eyes were unafraid. Her spiritual equipoise was undisturbed.
“Berenice,” he said, quietly, “let me tell you something. You did me the honor just now to speak of my motives in giving your mother money as of the best. They were—from my own point of view—the best I have ever known. I will not say what I thought they were in the beginning. I know what they were now. I am going to speak quite frankly with you, if you will let me, as long as we are here together. I don’t know whether you know this or not, but when I first met your mother I only knew by chance that she had a daughter, and it was of no particular interest to me then. I went to her house as the guest of a financial friend of mine who admired her greatly. From the first I myself admired her, because I found her to be a lady to the manner born—she was interesting. One day I happened to see a photograph of you in her home, and before I could mention it she put it away. Perhaps you recall the one. It is in profile—taken when you were about sixteen.”
“Yes, I remember,” replied Berenice, simply—as quietly as though she were hearing a confession.
“Well, that picture interested me intensely. I inquired about you, and learned all I could. After that I saw another picture of you, enlarged, in a Louisville photographer’s window. I bought it. It is in my office now—my private office—in Chicago. You are standing by a mantelpiece.”
“I remember,” replied Berenice, moved, but uncertain.
“Let me tell you a little something about my life, will you? It won’t take long. I was born in Philadelphia. My family had always belonged there. I have been in the banking and street-railway business all my life. My first wife was a Presbyterian girl, religious, conventional. She was older than I by six or seven years. I was happy for a while—five or six years. We had two children—both still living. Then I met my present wife. She was younger than myself—at least ten years, and very good-looking. She was in some respects more intelligent than my first wife—at least less conventional, more generous, I thought. I fell in love with her, and when I eventually left Philadelphia I got a divorce and married her. I was greatly in love with her at the time. I thought she was an ideal mate for me, and I still think she has many qualities which make her attractive. But my own ideals in regard to women have all the time been slowly changing. I have come to see, through various experiments, that she is not the ideal woman for me at all. She does not understand me. I don’t pretend to understand myself, but it has occurred to me that there might be a woman somewhere who would understand me better than I understand myself, who would see the things that I don’t see about myself, and would like me, anyhow. I might as well tell you that I have been a lover of women always. There is just one ideal thing in this world to me, and that is the woman that I would like to have.”
“I should think it would make it rather difficult for any one woman to discover just which woman you would like to have?” smiled Berenice, whimsically. Cowperwood was unabashed.
“It would, I presume, unless she should chance to be the very one woman I am talking about,” he replied, impressively.
“I should think she would have her work cut out for her under any circumstances,” added Berenice, lightly, but with a touch of sympathy in her voice.
“I am making a confession,” replied Cowperwood, seriously and a little heavily. “I am not apologizing for myself. The women I have known would make ideal wives for some men, but not for me. Life has taught me that much. It has changed me.”
“And do you think the process has stopped by any means?” she replied, quaintly, with that air of superior banter which puzzled, fascinated, defied him.
“No, I will not say that. My ideal has become fixed, though, apparently. I have had it for a number of years now. It spoils other matters for me. There is such a thing as an ideal. We do have a polestar
