Still he knew that it would make a difference.
Reassured as to Rita’s condition, he went back to Aileen’s room to plead with her again—to soothe her if he could. He found her up and dressing, a new thought and determination in her mind. Since she had thrown herself on the bed sobbing and groaning, her mood had gradually changed; she began to reason that if she could not dominate him, could not make him properly sorry, she had better leave. It was evident, she thought, that he did not love her any more, seeing that his anxiety to protect Rita had been so great; his brutality in restraining her so marked; and yet she did not want to believe that this was so. He had been so wonderful to her in times past. She had not given up all hope of winning a victory over him, and these other women—she loved him too much—but only a separation would do it. That might bring him to his senses. She would get up, dress, and go downtown to a hotel. He should not see her any more unless he followed her. She was satisfied that she had broken up the liaison with Rita Sohlberg, anyway for the present, and as for Antoinette Nowak, she would attend to her later. Her brain and her heart ached. She was so full of woe and rage, alternating, that she could not cry any more now. She stood before her mirror trying with trembling fingers to do over her toilet and adjust a street-costume. Cowperwood was disturbed, nonplussed at this unexpected sight.
“Aileen,” he said, finally, coming up behind her, “can’t you and I talk this thing over peacefully now? You don’t want to do anything that you’ll be sorry for. I don’t want you to. I’m sorry. You don’t really believe that I’ve ceased to love you, do you? I haven’t, you know. This thing isn’t as bad as it looks. I should think you would have a little more sympathy with me after all we have been through together. You haven’t any real evidence of wrongdoing on which to base any such outburst as this.”
“Oh, haven’t I?” she exclaimed, turning from the mirror, where, sorrowfully and bitterly, she was smoothing her red-gold hair. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes red. Just now she seemed as remarkable to him as she had seemed that first day, years ago, when in a red cape he had seen her, a girl of sixteen, running up the steps of her father’s house in Philadelphia. She was so wonderful then. It mellowed his mood toward her.
“That’s all you know about it, you liar!” she declared. “It’s little you know what I know. I haven’t had detectives on your trail for weeks for nothing. You sneak! You’d like to smooth around now and find out what I know. Well, I know enough, let me tell you that. You won’t fool me any longer with your Rita Sohlbergs and your Antoinette Nowaks and your apartments and your houses of assignation. I know what you are, you brute! And after all your protestations of love for me! Ugh!”
She turned fiercely to her task while Cowperwood stared at her, touched by her passion, moved by her force. It was fine to see what a dramatic animal she was—really worthy of him in many ways.
“Aileen,” he said, softly, hoping still to ingratiate himself by degrees, “please don’t be so bitter toward me. Haven’t you any understanding of how life works—any sympathy with it? I thought you were more generous, more tender. I’m not so bad.”
He eyed her thoughtfully, tenderly, hoping to move her through her love for him.
“Sympathy! Sympathy!” She turned on him blazing. “A lot you know about sympathy! I suppose I didn’t give you any sympathy when you were in the penitentiary in Philadelphia, did I? A lot of good it did me—didn’t it? Sympathy! Bah! To have you come out here to Chicago and take up with a lot of prostitutes—cheap stenographers and wives of musicians! You have given me a lot of sympathy, haven’t you?—with that woman lying in the next room to prove it!”
She smoothed her lithe waist and shook her shoulders preparatory to putting on a hat and adjusting her wrap. She proposed to go just as she was, and send Fadette back for all her belongings.
“Aileen,” he pleaded, determined to have his way, “I think you’re very foolish. Really I do. There is no occasion for all this—none in the world. Here you are talking at the top of your voice, scandalizing the whole neighborhood, fighting, leaving the house. It’s abominable. I don’t want you to do it. You love me yet, don’t you? You know you do. I know you don’t mean all you say. You can’t. You really don’t believe that I have ceased to love you, do you, Aileen?”
“Love!” fired Aileen. “A lot you know about love! A lot you have ever loved anybody, you brute! I know how you love. I thought you loved me once. Humph! I see how you loved me—just as you’ve loved fifty other women, as you love that snippy little Rita Sohlberg in the next room—the cat!—the dirty little beast!—the way you love Antoinette Nowak—a cheap stenographer! Bah! You don’t know what the word means.” And yet her voice trailed off into a kind of sob and her eyes filled with tears, hot, angry, aching. Cowperwood saw them and
