Always the erosive process at work!
She was getting older, older, older.
And she could do nothing except bleed at the heart, for well she knew how much he disliked signs of age in a woman, although he never mentioned it and appeared even to ignore it.
He felt not a little sorry for her, and therefore inclined to be amiable.
In fact, looking at her and thinking of Berenice’s broad-minded view in regard to her, he saw no reason why this seeming reconciliation between them should not be stretched to include a trip abroad for Aileen.
It need not necessarily be in his immediate company, but rather around the same time, in order to give the impression that all was well in regard to his married life.
She might even go on the same boat, if it could be arranged for this Tollifer, or someone else, to take her off his hands.
For it would be well that the person chosen to interest himself in her should pursue her abroad as well as here, since she must be kept out of the path of Berenice and himself.
“Doing anything tonight?” he asked, ingratiatingly.
“No, nothing special,” she replied, coldly, since his look, friendly as it was, seemed to imply that he wanted something of her, though what it was she could not guess.
“Are you expecting to stay here for a while?”
“Yes, for some little time.
At least, I shall be in and out of here.
I have some plans which may take me abroad for a few weeks, and I want to talk to you about that.”
He paused here, a little uncertain as to how to proceed.
It was all very difficult, very complicated.
“And I’d like you to do a little entertaining for me while I’m here.
Do you mind?”
“No,” she said, briefly, sensing his aloofness.
She felt that his thoughts were not with her, even now after their long separation.
All at once she was too tired and too discouraged to argue with him.
“You wouldn’t care to go to the opera tonight, would you?” he then asked her.
“Why, yes, if you really want to go.” After all, it was a comfort to have him, even for a little while.
“Certainly, I do,” he replied, “and I want you to go with me.
After all, you’re my wife, and mistress here, and regardless of how you feel about me, it’s necessary for us to keep up a favorable public appearance.
It can’t do either of us any harm, and it may help us both.
The fact is, Aileen,” he continued, confidentially, “now that I’ve had all this trouble in Chicago, I find it necessary to do one of two things: either drop all business activities in this country and retire—and I don’t feel much in the mood for that—or find something different to tackle somewhere else.
I don’t want to die of dry rot, exactly,” he concluded.
“Oh, you! ‘Dry rot’!” interpolated Aileen, looking at him amusedly.
“As though dry rot would ever overtake you!
More likely you would overtake dry rot and chase it out!”
This caused Cowperwood to smile.
“At any rate,” he went on, “the only two things I’ve heard of so far that might interest me are a proposed subway scheme in Paris—which doesn’t appeal to me very much—and . . .” here he paused and meditated, the while Aileen studied him, wondering if this were true . . . “or something in London; I think I’d like to look over the underground situation there.”
At these words, and for some reason which she could not have explained—telepathy, psychic osmosis—Aileen brightened and seemed to envision something interesting.
“Really!” she said.
“That sounds rather promising.
But if you do go into something else, I hope you fix it this time so that there will be no possibility of trouble afterwards.
You seem almost to create trouble wherever you go, or it creates itself for you.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking,” went on Cowperwood, ignoring her last comments, “that if nothing else turned up, I might try to do something in London, although I hear that the English are very unfriendly to American enterprise in any form.
If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have a chance to break in there, particularly after my Chicago trouble.”
“Oh, Chicago!” exclaimed Aileen, at once defensive and loyal.
“I wouldn’t worry about Chicago.
Everyone with any brains knows what a pack of jealous jackals they are!
I think London would be a wonderful place for you to start in again.
You certainly ought to know how to fix things so as to avoid all the franchise trouble you appear to be having in Chicago.
I’ve always felt, Frank,” she ventured here, and this on the strength of the years she had spent with him, and without any particular hope of ingratiating herself, “you’re too indifferent to the opinion of others.
Other people—I don’t care who they are—just don’t seem to exist for you.
That’s why you stir up all these fights, and you always will, unless you bother to be a little more considerate of other people.
Of course, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m sure that if today you wanted to start out and be the least bit nice to people, why, with your ideas and your way of getting around people when you want to, there’d be no stopping you, that’s all,” and with that she paused, waiting to see if he would make any comment.
“Thanks,” he said, “you may be right, at that.