Berenice, by no means ready to look upon Cowperwood as an accepted lover, was nevertheless gratified that his erring devotion was the tribute of one able apparently to command thought from the whole world. Moreover, because the New York papers had taken fire from his great struggle in the Middle West and were charging him with bribery, perjury, and intent to thwart the will of the people, Cowperwood now came forward with an attempt to explain his exact position to Berenice and to justify himself in her eyes. During visits to the Carter house or in entr’actes at the opera or the theater, he recounted to her bit by bit his entire history. He described the characters of Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and the motives of jealousy and revenge which had led to their attack upon him in Chicago. “No human being could get anything through the Chicago City Council without paying for it,” he declared. “It’s simply a question of who’s putting up the money.” He told how Truman Leslie MacDonald had once tried to “shake him down” for fifty thousand dollars, and how the newspapers had since found it possible to make money, to increase their circulation, by attacking him. He frankly admitted the fact of his social ostracism, attributing it partially to Aileen’s deficiencies and partially to his own attitude of Promethean defiance, which had never yet brooked defeat.
“And I will defeat them now,” he said, solemnly, to Berenice one day over a luncheon-table at the Plaza when the room was nearly empty. His gray eyes were a study in colossal enigmatic spirit. “The governor hasn’t signed my fifty-year franchise bill” (this was before the closing events at Springfield), “but he will sign it. Then I have one more fight ahead of me. I’m going to combine all the traffic lines out there under one general system. I am the logical person to provide it. Later on, if public ownership ever arrives, the city can buy it.”
“And then—” asked Berenice sweetly, flattered by his confidences.
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’ll live abroad. You don’t seem to be very much interested in me. I’ll finish my picture collection—”
“But supposing you should lose?”
“I don’t contemplate losing,” he remarked, coolly. “Whatever happens, I’ll have enough to live on. I’m a little tired of contest.”
He smiled, but Berenice saw that the thought of defeat was a gray one. With victory was his heart, and only there. Owing to the national publicity being given to Cowperwood’s affairs at this time the effect upon Berenice of these conversations with him was considerable. At the same time another and somewhat sinister influence was working in his favor. By slow degrees she and her mother were coming to learn that the ultraconservatives of society were no longer willing to accept them. Berenice had become at last too individual a figure to be overlooked. At an important luncheon given by the Harris Haggertys, some five months after the Beales Chadsey affair, she had been pointed out to Mrs. Haggerty by a visiting guest from Cincinnati as someone with whom rumor was concerning itself. Mrs. Haggerty wrote to friends in Louisville for information, and received it. Shortly after, at the coming-out party of a certain Geraldine Borga, Berenice, who had been her sister’s schoolmate, was curiously omitted. She took sharp note of that. Subsequently the Haggertys failed to include her, as they had always done before, in their generous summer invitations. This was true also of the Lanman Zeiglers and the Lucas Demmigs. No direct affront was offered; she was simply no longer invited. Also one morning she read in the Tribune that Mrs. Corscaden Batjer had sailed for Italy. No word of this had been sent to Berenice. Yet Mrs. Batjer was supposedly one of her best friends. A hint to some is of more avail than an open statement to others. Berenice knew quite well in which direction the tide was setting.
True, there were a number—the ultra-smart of the smart world—who protested. Mrs. Patrick Gilbennin, for instance: “No! You don’t tell me? What a shame! Well, I like Bevy and shall always like her. She’s clever, and she can come here just as long as she chooses. It isn’t her fault. She’s a lady at heart and always will be. Life is so cruel.” Mrs. Augustus Tabreez: “Is that really true? I can’t believe it. Just the same, she’s too charming to be dropped. I for one propose to ignore these rumors just as long as I dare. She can come here if she can’t go anywhere else.” Mrs. Pennington Drury: “That of Bevy Fleming! Who says so? I don’t believe it. I like her anyhow. The idea of the Haggertys cutting her—dull fools! Well, she can be my guest, the dear thing, as long as she pleases. As though her mother’s career really affected her!”
Nevertheless, in the world of the dull rich—those who hold their own by might of possession, conformity, owl-eyed sobriety, and ignorance—Bevy Fleming had become persona non grata. How did she take all this? With that air of superior consciousness which knows that no shift of outer material ill-fortune can detract one jot from an inward mental superiority. The truly individual know themselves from the beginning and rarely, if ever, doubt. Life may play fast and loose about them, running like a racing, destructive tide in and out, but they themselves are like a rock, still, serene, unmoved. Bevy Fleming felt herself to be so immensely superior to anything of which she was a part that she could afford to hold her head high even now Just the same, in order to remedy the situation she now looked about her with an eye single to a possible satisfactory marriage. Braxmar had gone for good. He was somewhere in the East—in China,
