The Titan [114]
clouded with angry though well-concealed suspicion and jealousy.
"Well, I'll tell you, Stephanie, I believe you now. I'm going to take your word. But if you do deceive me, and I should find it out, I will quit you the same day. I do not care to share you with any one else. What I can't understand, if you care for me, is how you can take so much interest in all these affairs? It certainly isn't devotion to your art that's impelling you, is it?"
"Oh, are you going to go on quarreling with me?" asked Stephanie, naively. "Won't you believe me when I say that I love you? Perhaps--" But here her histrionic ability came to her aid, and she sobbed violently.
Cowperwood took her in his arms. "Never mind," he soothed. "I do believe you. I do think you care for me. Only I wish you weren't such a butterfly temperament, Stephanie."
So this particular lesion for the time being was healed.
Chapter XXVIII
The Exposure of Stephanie
At the same time the thought of readjusting her relations so that they would avoid disloyalty to Cowperwood was never further from Stephanie's mind. Let no one quarrel with Stephanie Platow. She was an unstable chemical compound, artistic to her finger-tips, not understood or properly guarded by her family. Her interest in Cowperwood, his force and ability, was intense. So was her interest in Forbes Gurney--the atmosphere of poetry that enveloped him. She studied him curiously on the various occasions when they met, and, finding him bashful and recessive, set out to lure him. She felt that he was lonely and depressed and poor, and her womanly capacity for sympathy naturally bade her be tender.
Her end was easily achieved. One night, when they were all out in Bliss Bridge's single-sticker--a fast-sailing saucer--Stephanie and Forbes Gurney sat forward of the mast looking at the silver moon track which was directly ahead. The rest were in the cockpit "cutting up"--laughing and singing. It was very plain to all that Stephanie was becoming interested in Forbes Gurney; and since he was charming and she wilful, nothing was done to interfere with them, except to throw an occasional jest their way. Gurney, new to love and romance, scarcely knew how to take his good fortune, how to begin. He told Stephanie of his home life in the wheat-fields of the Northwest, how his family had moved from Ohio when he was three, and how difficult were the labors he had always undergone. He had stopped in his plowing many a day to stand under a tree and write a poem--such as it was--or to watch the birds or to wish he could go to college or to Chicago. She looked at him with dreamy eyes, her dark skin turned a copper bronze in the moonlight, her black hair irradiated with a strange, luminous grayish blue. Forbes Gurney, alive to beauty in all its forms, ventured finally to touch her hand--she of Knowles, Cross, and Cowperwood--and she thrilled from head to toe. This boy was so sweet. His curly brown hair gave him a kind of Greek innocence and aspect. She did not move, but waited, hoping he would do more.
"I wish I might talk to you as I feel," he finally said, hoarsely, a catch in his throat.
She laid one hand on his.
"You dear!" she said.
He realized now that he might. A great ecstasy fell upon him. He smoothed her hand, then slipped his arm about her waist, then ventured to kiss the dark cheek turned dreamily from him. Artfully her head sunk to his shoulder, and he murmured wild nothings--how divine she was, how artistic, how wonderful! With her view of things, it could only end one way. She manoeuvered him into calling on her at her home, into studying her books and plays on the top-floor sitting-room, into hearing her sing. Once fully in his arms, the rest was easy by suggestion. He learned she was no longer innocent, and then-- In the mean time Cowperwood mingled his speculations concerning large power-houses, immense reciprocating engines, the problem of a wage scale for his now two thousand employees, some of whom were threatening to strike, the problem of
"Well, I'll tell you, Stephanie, I believe you now. I'm going to take your word. But if you do deceive me, and I should find it out, I will quit you the same day. I do not care to share you with any one else. What I can't understand, if you care for me, is how you can take so much interest in all these affairs? It certainly isn't devotion to your art that's impelling you, is it?"
"Oh, are you going to go on quarreling with me?" asked Stephanie, naively. "Won't you believe me when I say that I love you? Perhaps--" But here her histrionic ability came to her aid, and she sobbed violently.
Cowperwood took her in his arms. "Never mind," he soothed. "I do believe you. I do think you care for me. Only I wish you weren't such a butterfly temperament, Stephanie."
So this particular lesion for the time being was healed.
Chapter XXVIII
The Exposure of Stephanie
At the same time the thought of readjusting her relations so that they would avoid disloyalty to Cowperwood was never further from Stephanie's mind. Let no one quarrel with Stephanie Platow. She was an unstable chemical compound, artistic to her finger-tips, not understood or properly guarded by her family. Her interest in Cowperwood, his force and ability, was intense. So was her interest in Forbes Gurney--the atmosphere of poetry that enveloped him. She studied him curiously on the various occasions when they met, and, finding him bashful and recessive, set out to lure him. She felt that he was lonely and depressed and poor, and her womanly capacity for sympathy naturally bade her be tender.
Her end was easily achieved. One night, when they were all out in Bliss Bridge's single-sticker--a fast-sailing saucer--Stephanie and Forbes Gurney sat forward of the mast looking at the silver moon track which was directly ahead. The rest were in the cockpit "cutting up"--laughing and singing. It was very plain to all that Stephanie was becoming interested in Forbes Gurney; and since he was charming and she wilful, nothing was done to interfere with them, except to throw an occasional jest their way. Gurney, new to love and romance, scarcely knew how to take his good fortune, how to begin. He told Stephanie of his home life in the wheat-fields of the Northwest, how his family had moved from Ohio when he was three, and how difficult were the labors he had always undergone. He had stopped in his plowing many a day to stand under a tree and write a poem--such as it was--or to watch the birds or to wish he could go to college or to Chicago. She looked at him with dreamy eyes, her dark skin turned a copper bronze in the moonlight, her black hair irradiated with a strange, luminous grayish blue. Forbes Gurney, alive to beauty in all its forms, ventured finally to touch her hand--she of Knowles, Cross, and Cowperwood--and she thrilled from head to toe. This boy was so sweet. His curly brown hair gave him a kind of Greek innocence and aspect. She did not move, but waited, hoping he would do more.
"I wish I might talk to you as I feel," he finally said, hoarsely, a catch in his throat.
She laid one hand on his.
"You dear!" she said.
He realized now that he might. A great ecstasy fell upon him. He smoothed her hand, then slipped his arm about her waist, then ventured to kiss the dark cheek turned dreamily from him. Artfully her head sunk to his shoulder, and he murmured wild nothings--how divine she was, how artistic, how wonderful! With her view of things, it could only end one way. She manoeuvered him into calling on her at her home, into studying her books and plays on the top-floor sitting-room, into hearing her sing. Once fully in his arms, the rest was easy by suggestion. He learned she was no longer innocent, and then-- In the mean time Cowperwood mingled his speculations concerning large power-houses, immense reciprocating engines, the problem of a wage scale for his now two thousand employees, some of whom were threatening to strike, the problem of