It reminded her of an opal flashing all its soft fires.
She went into the general reception-room, where was a grand piano finished in pink and gold, upon which, with due thought to her one accomplishment—her playing—she had arranged the songs and instrumental pieces she did best. Aileen was really not a brilliant musician.
For the first time in her life she felt matronly—as if now she were not a girl any more, but a woman grown, with some serious responsibilities, and yet she was not really suited to the role.
As a matter of fact, her thoughts were always fixed on the artistic, social, and dramatic aspects of life, with unfortunately a kind of nebulosity of conception which permitted no condensation into anything definite or concrete.
She could only be wildly and feverishly interested.
Just then the door clicked to Frank’s key—it was nearing six—and in he came, smiling, confident, a perfect atmosphere of assurance.
“Well!” he observed, surveying her in the soft glow of the reception-room lighted by wall candles judiciously arranged.
“Who’s the vision floating around here?
I’m almost afraid to touch you.
Much powder on those arms?”
He drew her into his arms, and she put up her mouth with a sense of relief.
Obviously, he must think that she looked charming.
“I am chalky, I guess. You’ll just have to stand it, though.
You’re going to dress, anyhow.” She put her smooth, plump arms about his neck, and he felt pleased. This was the kind of a woman to have—a beauty.
Her neck was resplendent with a string of turquoise, her fingers too heavily jeweled, but still beautiful.
She was faintly redolent of hyacinth or lavender.
Her hair appealed to him, and, above all, the rich yellow silk of her dress, flashing fulgurously through the closely netted green.
“Charming, girlie.
You’ve outdone yourself.
I haven’t seen this dress before.
Where did you get it?”
“Here in Chicago.”
He lifted her warm fingers, surveying her train, and turned her about.
“You don’t need any advice.
You ought to start a school.”
“Am I all right?” she queried, smartly, but with a sense of self-distrust for the moment, and all because of him.
“You’re perfect.
Couldn’t be nicer.
Splendid!”
She took heart.
“I wish your friends would think so.
You’d better hurry.”
He went up-stairs, and she followed, looking first into the dining-room again.
At least that was right. Surely Frank was a master.
At seven the plop of the feet of carriage-horses was heard, and a moment later Louis, the butler, was opening the door.
Aileen went down, a little nervous, a little frigid, trying to think of many pleasant things, and wondering whether she would really succeed in being entertaining.
Cowperwood accompanied her, a very different person in so far as mood and self-poise were concerned.
To himself his own future was always secure, and that of Aileen’s if he wished to make it so.
The arduous, upward-ascending rungs of the social ladder that were troubling her had no such significance to him.
The dinner, as such simple things go, was a success from what might be called a managerial and pictorial point of view.
Cowperwood, because of his varied tastes and interests, could discuss railroading with Mr. Rambaud in a very definite and illuminating way; could talk architecture with Mr. Lord as a student, for instance, of rare promise would talk with a master; and with a woman like Mrs. Addison or Mrs. Rambaud he could suggest or follow appropriate leads.
Aileen, unfortunately, was not so much at home, for her natural state and mood were remote not so much from a serious as from an accurate conception of life.
So many things, except in a very nebulous and suggestive way, were sealed books to Aileen—merely faint, distant tinklings.
She knew nothing of literature except certain authors who to the truly cultured might seem banal.
As for art, it was merely a jingle of names gathered from Cowperwood’s private comments.
Her one redeeming feature was that she was truly beautiful herself—a radiant, vibrating objet d’art.
A man like Rambaud, remote, conservative, constructive, saw the place of a woman like Aileen in the life of a man like Cowperwood on the instant.
She was such a woman as he would have prized himself in a certain capacity.
Sex interest in all strong men usually endures unto the end, governed sometimes by a stoic resignation.
The experiment of such attraction can, as they well know, be made over and over, but to what end?