The Titan [157]
can tell you that. I like your nerve sitting here presuming to question me after the way you have neglected me." She pushed back her plate, and made as if to get up.
"Wait a minute, Aileen," he said, simply, putting down his knife and fork and looking across the handsome table where Sevres, silver, fruit, and dainty dishes were spread, and where under silk-shaded lights they sat opposite each other. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way to me. You know that I am not a petty, fourth-rate fool. You know that, whatever you do, I am not going to quarrel with you. I know what the trouble is with you. I know why you are acting this way, and how you will feel afterward if you go on. It isn't anything I will do--" He paused, caught by a wave of feeling.
"Oh, isn't it?" she blazed, trying to overcome the emotion that was rising in herself. The calmness of him stirred up memories of the past. "Well, you keep your sympathy for yourself. I don't need it. I will get along. I wish you wouldn't talk to me."
She shoved her plate away with such force that she upset a glass in which was champagne, the wine making a frayed, yellowish splotch on the white linen, and, rising, hurried toward the door. She was choking with anger, pain, shame, regret.
"Aileen! Aileen!" he called, hurrying after her, regardless of the butler, who, hearing the sound of stirring chairs, had entered. These family woes were an old story to him. "It's love you want --not revenge. I know--I can tell. You want to be loved by some one completely. I'm sorry. You mustn't be too hard on me. I sha'n't be on you." He seized her by the arm and detained her as they entered the next room. By this time Aileen was too ablaze with emotion to talk sensibly or understand what he was doing.
"Let me go!" she exclaimed, angrily, hot tears in her eyes. "Let me go! I tell you I don't love you any more. I tell you I hate you!" She flung herself loose and stood erect before him. "I don't want you to talk to me! I don't want you to speak to me! You're the cause of all my troubles. You're the cause of whatever I do, when I do it, and don't you dare to deny it! You'll see! You'll see! I'll show you what I'll do!"
She twisted and turned, but he held her firmly until, in his strong grasp, as usual, she collapsed and began to cry. "Oh, I cry," she declared, even in her tears, "but it will be just the same. It's too late! too late!"
Chapter XXXVIII
An Hour of Defeat
The stoic Cowperwood, listening to the blare and excitement that went with the fall campaign, was much more pained to learn of Aileen's desertion than to know that he had arrayed a whole social element against himself in Chicago. He could not forget the wonder of those first days when Aileen was young, and love and hope had been the substance of her being. The thought ran through all his efforts and cogitations like a distantly orchestrated undertone. In the main, in spite of his activity, he was an introspective man, and art, drama, and the pathos of broken ideals were not beyond him. He harbored in no way any grudge against Aileen--only a kind of sorrow over the inevitable consequences of his own ungovernable disposition, the will to freedom within himself. Change! Change! the inevitable passing of things! Who parts with a perfect thing, even if no more than an unreasoning love, without a touch of self-pity?
But there followed swiftly the sixth of November, with its election, noisy and irrational, and the latter resulted in a resounding defeat. Out of the thirty-two Democratic aldermen nominated only ten were elected, giving the opposition a full two-thirds majority in council, Messrs. Tiernan and Kerrigan, of course, being safely in their places. With them came a Republican mayor and all his Republican associates on the ticket, who were now supposed to carry out the theories of the respectable and the virtuous. Cowperwood knew what it meant and prepared at once to make overtures to the enemy. From McKenty and others he learned by degrees the full story of Tiernan's
"Wait a minute, Aileen," he said, simply, putting down his knife and fork and looking across the handsome table where Sevres, silver, fruit, and dainty dishes were spread, and where under silk-shaded lights they sat opposite each other. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way to me. You know that I am not a petty, fourth-rate fool. You know that, whatever you do, I am not going to quarrel with you. I know what the trouble is with you. I know why you are acting this way, and how you will feel afterward if you go on. It isn't anything I will do--" He paused, caught by a wave of feeling.
"Oh, isn't it?" she blazed, trying to overcome the emotion that was rising in herself. The calmness of him stirred up memories of the past. "Well, you keep your sympathy for yourself. I don't need it. I will get along. I wish you wouldn't talk to me."
She shoved her plate away with such force that she upset a glass in which was champagne, the wine making a frayed, yellowish splotch on the white linen, and, rising, hurried toward the door. She was choking with anger, pain, shame, regret.
"Aileen! Aileen!" he called, hurrying after her, regardless of the butler, who, hearing the sound of stirring chairs, had entered. These family woes were an old story to him. "It's love you want --not revenge. I know--I can tell. You want to be loved by some one completely. I'm sorry. You mustn't be too hard on me. I sha'n't be on you." He seized her by the arm and detained her as they entered the next room. By this time Aileen was too ablaze with emotion to talk sensibly or understand what he was doing.
"Let me go!" she exclaimed, angrily, hot tears in her eyes. "Let me go! I tell you I don't love you any more. I tell you I hate you!" She flung herself loose and stood erect before him. "I don't want you to talk to me! I don't want you to speak to me! You're the cause of all my troubles. You're the cause of whatever I do, when I do it, and don't you dare to deny it! You'll see! You'll see! I'll show you what I'll do!"
She twisted and turned, but he held her firmly until, in his strong grasp, as usual, she collapsed and began to cry. "Oh, I cry," she declared, even in her tears, "but it will be just the same. It's too late! too late!"
Chapter XXXVIII
An Hour of Defeat
The stoic Cowperwood, listening to the blare and excitement that went with the fall campaign, was much more pained to learn of Aileen's desertion than to know that he had arrayed a whole social element against himself in Chicago. He could not forget the wonder of those first days when Aileen was young, and love and hope had been the substance of her being. The thought ran through all his efforts and cogitations like a distantly orchestrated undertone. In the main, in spite of his activity, he was an introspective man, and art, drama, and the pathos of broken ideals were not beyond him. He harbored in no way any grudge against Aileen--only a kind of sorrow over the inevitable consequences of his own ungovernable disposition, the will to freedom within himself. Change! Change! the inevitable passing of things! Who parts with a perfect thing, even if no more than an unreasoning love, without a touch of self-pity?
But there followed swiftly the sixth of November, with its election, noisy and irrational, and the latter resulted in a resounding defeat. Out of the thirty-two Democratic aldermen nominated only ten were elected, giving the opposition a full two-thirds majority in council, Messrs. Tiernan and Kerrigan, of course, being safely in their places. With them came a Republican mayor and all his Republican associates on the ticket, who were now supposed to carry out the theories of the respectable and the virtuous. Cowperwood knew what it meant and prepared at once to make overtures to the enemy. From McKenty and others he learned by degrees the full story of Tiernan's