She little knew how much of a part Stephanie would play in Cowperwood’s life.
The Cowperwoods, having been put down at Goteborg, saw no more of the Platows until late October.
Then Aileen, being lonely, called to see Stephanie, and occasionally thereafter Stephanie came over to the South Side to see the Cowperwoods.
She liked to roam about their house, to dream meditatively in some nook of the rich interior, with a book for company.
She liked Cowperwood’s pictures, his jades, his missals, his ancient radiant glass.
From talking with Aileen she realized that the latter had no real love for these things, that her expressions of interest and pleasure were pure make-believe, based on their value as possessions.
For Stephanie herself certain of the illuminated books and bits of glass had a heavy, sensuous appeal, which only the truly artistic can understand.
They unlocked dark dream moods and pageants for her. She responded to them, lingered over them, experienced strange moods from them as from the orchestrated richness of music.
And in doing so she thought of Cowperwood often.
Did he really like these things, or was he just buying them to be buying them?
She had heard much of the pseudo artistic—the people who made a show of art.
She recalled Cowperwood as he walked the deck of the Centurion. She remembered his large, comprehensive, embracing blue-gray eyes that seemed to blaze with intelligence.
He seemed to her quite obviously a more forceful and significant man than her father, and yet she could not have said why.
He always seemed so trigly dressed, so well put together.
There was a friendly warmth about all that he said or did, though he said or did little.
She felt that his eyes were mocking, that back in his soul there was some kind of humor over something which she did not understand quite.
After Stephanie had been back in Chicago six months, during which time she saw very little of Cowperwood, who was busy with his street-railway programme, she was swept into the net of another interest which carried her away from him and Aileen for the time being.
On the West Side, among a circle of her mother’s friends, had been organized an Amateur Dramatic League, with no less object than to elevate the stage.
That world-old problem never fails to interest the new and the inexperienced.
It all began in the home of one of the new rich of the West Side—the Timberlakes.
They, in their large house on Ashland Avenue, had a stage, and Georgia Timberlake, a romantic-minded girl of twenty with flaxen hair, imagined she could act.
Mrs. Timberlake, a fat, indulgent mother, rather agreed with her.
The whole idea, after a few discursive performances of Milton’s “The Masque of Comus,”
“Pyramus and Thisbe,” and an improved Harlequin and Columbine, written by one of the members, was transferred to the realm of the studios, then quartered in the New Arts Building.
An artist by the name of Lane Cross, a portrait-painter, who was much less of an artist than he was a stage director, and not much of either, but who made his living by hornswaggling society into the belief that he could paint, was induced to take charge of these stage performances.
By degrees the “Garrick Players,” as they chose to call themselves, developed no little skill and craftsmanship in presenting one form and another of classic and semi-classic play. “Romeo and Juliet,” with few properties of any kind,
“The Learned Ladies” of Moliere, Sheridan’s
“The Rivals,” and the
“Elektra” of Sophocles were all given.
Considerable ability of one kind and another was developed, the group including two actresses of subsequent repute on the American stage, one of whom was Stephanie Platow.
There were some ten girls and women among the active members, and almost as many men—a variety of characters much too extended to discuss here.
There was a dramatic critic by the name of Gardner Knowles, a young man, very smug and handsome, who was connected with the Chicago Press.
Whipping his neatly trousered legs with his bright little cane, he used to appear at the rooms of the players at the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday teas which they inaugurated, and discuss the merits of the venture.
Thus the Garrick Players were gradually introduced into the newspapers.
Lane Cross, the smooth-faced, pasty-souled artist who had charge, was a rake at heart, a subtle seducer of women, who, however, escaped detection by a smooth, conventional bearing.
He was interested in such girls as Georgia Timberlake, Irma Ottley, a rosy, aggressive maiden who essayed comic roles, and Stephanie Platow.
These, with another girl, Ethel Tuckerman, very emotional and romantic, who could dance charmingly and sing, made up a group of friends which became very close.
Presently intimacies sprang up, only in this realm, instead of ending in marriage, they merely resulted in sex liberty.
Thus Ethel Tuckerman became the mistress of Lane Cross; an illicit attachment grew up between Irma Ottley and a young society idler by the name of Bliss Bridge; and Gardner Knowles, ardently admiring Stephanie Platow literally seized upon her one afternoon in her own home, when he went ostensibly to interview her, and overpersuaded her.
She was only reasonably fond of him, not in love; but, being generous, nebulous, passionate, emotional, inexperienced, voiceless, and vainly curious, without any sense of the meums and teums that govern society in such matters, she allowed this rather brutal thing to happen.
She was not a coward—was too nebulous and yet forceful to be such.
Her parents never knew.
And once so launched, another world—that of sex satisfaction—began to dawn on her.
Were these young people evil?
Let the social philosopher answer.
One thing is certain: They did not establish homes and raise children.
On the contrary, they led a gay, butterfly existence for nearly two years; then came a gift in the lute.
Quarrels developed over parts, respective degrees of ability, and leadership.
Ethel Tuckerman fell out with Lane Cross, because she discovered him making love to Irma Ottley.
Irma and Bliss Bridge released each other, the latter transferring his affections to Georgia Timberlake.