“Aileen,” he pleaded, “please don’t be so bitter. You shouldn’t be so hard on me. I’m not so bad. Aren’t you going to be reasonable?” He put out a smoothing hand, but she jumped away.
“Don’t you touch me, you brute!” she exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you lay a hand on me. I don’t want you to come near me. I’ll not live with you. I’ll not stay in the same house with you and your mistresses. Go and live with your dear, darling Rita on the North Side if you want to. I don’t care. I suppose you’ve been in the next room comforting her—the beast! I wish I had killed her—Oh, God!” She tore at her throat in a violent rage, trying to adjust a button.
Cowperwood was literally astonished. Never had he seen such an outburst as this. He had not believed Aileen to be capable of it. He could not help admiring her. Nevertheless he resented the brutality of her assault on Rita and on his own promiscuous tendency, and this feeling vented itself in one last unfortunate remark.
“I wouldn’t be so hard on mistresses if I were you, Aileen,” he ventured, pleadingly. “I should have thought your own experience would have—”
He paused, for he saw on the instant that he was making a grave mistake. This reference to her past as a mistress was crucial. On the instant she straightened up, and her eyes filled with a great pain. “So that’s the way you talk to me, is it?” she asked. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it would come!”
She turned to a tall chest of drawers as high as her breasts, laden with silverware, jewel-boxes, brushes and combs, and, putting her arms down, she laid her head upon them and began to cry. This was the last straw. He was throwing up her lawless girlhood love to her as an offense.
“Oh!” she sobbed, and shook in a hopeless, wretched paroxysm. Cowperwood came over quickly. He was distressed, pained. “I didn’t mean that, Aileen,” he explained. “I didn’t mean it in that way—not at all. You rather drew that out of me; but I didn’t mean it as a reproach. You were my mistress, but good Lord, I never loved you any the less for that—rather more. You know I did. I want you to believe that; it’s true. These other matters haven’t been so important to me—they really haven’t—”
He looked at her helplessly as she moved away to avoid him; he was distressed, nonplussed, immensely sorry. As he walked to the center of the room again she suddenly suffered a great revulsion of feeling, but only in the direction of more wrath. This was too much.
“So this is the way you talk to me,” she exclaimed, “after all I have done for you! You say that to me after I waited for you and cried over you when you were in prison for nearly two years? Your mistress! That’s my reward, is it? Oh!”
Suddenly she observed her jewel-case, and, resenting all the gifts he had given her in Philadelphia, in Paris, in Rome, here in Chicago, she suddenly threw open the lid and, grabbing the contents by handfuls, began to toss them toward him—to actually throw them in his face. Out they came, handfuls of gauds that he had given her in real affection: a jade necklace and bracelet of pale apple-green set in spun gold, with clasps of white ivory; a necklace of pearls, assorted as to size and matched in color, that shone with a tinted, pearly flame in the evening light; a handful of rings and brooches, diamonds, rubies, opals, amethysts; a dog-collar of emeralds, and a diamond hair-ornament. She flung them at him excitedly, strewing the floor, striking him on the neck, the face, the hands. “Take that! and that! and that! There they are! I don’t want anything more of yours. I don’t want anything more to do with you. I don’t want anything that belongs to you. Thank God, I have money enough of my own to live on! I hate you—I despise you—I never want to see you any more. Oh—” And, trying to think of something more, but failing, she dashed swiftly down the hall and down the stairs, while he stood for just one moment overwhelmed. Then he hurried after.
“Aileen!” he called. “Aileen, come back here! Don’t go, Aileen!” But she only hurried faster; she opened and closed the door, and actually ran out in the dark, her eyes wet, her heart bursting. So this was the end of that youthful dream that had begun so beautifully. She was no better than the others—just one of his mistresses. To have her past thrown up to her as a defense for the others! To be told that she was no better than they! This was the last straw. She choked and sobbed as she walked, vowing never to return, never to see him any more. But as she did so Cowperwood came running after, determined for once, as lawless as he was, that this should not be the end of it all. She had loved him, he reflected. She had laid every gift of passion and affection on the altar of her love. It wasn’t fair, really. She must be made to stay. He caught up at last, reaching her under the dark of the November trees.
“Aileen,” he said, laying hold of her and putting his arms around her waist. “Aileen, dearest, this is plain madness. It is insanity. You’re not in your right mind. Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I love you! Don’t you know I do? Can’t you really see that? Don’t run away like this, and don’t cry. I do love you, and you know it. I always shall. Come back now. Kiss me. I’ll do better. Really I will.
