Carter as his friend. The police, through a talkative deputy coroner, were made aware of all the facts. Pictures of Miss Trent, Mrs. Carter, Major Hagenback, his wife, and many curious details concerning Mrs. Carter's home were about to appear in the papers when Colonel Gillis and others who were powerful socially and politically interfered; the affair was hushed up, but Mrs. Carter was in distress. This was more than she had bargained for.
Her quondam friends were frightened away for the nonce. She herself had lost courage. When Cowperwood saw her she had been in the very human act of crying, and her eyes were red.
"Well, well," he commented, on seeing her--she was in moody gray in the bargain--"you don't mean to tell me you're worrying about anything, are you?"
"Oh, Mr. Cowperwood," she explained, pathetically, "I have had so much trouble since I saw you. You heard of Major Hagenback's death, didn't you?" Cowperwood, who had heard something of the story from Colonel Gillis, nodded. "Well, I have just been notified by the police that I will have to move, and the landlord has given me notice, too. If it just weren't for my two children--"
She dabbed at her eyes pathetically.
Cowperwood meditated interestedly.
"Haven't you any place you can go?" he asked.
"I have a summer place in Pennsylvania," she confessed; "but I can't go there very well in February. Besides, it's my living I'm worrying about. I have only this to depend on."
She waved her hand inclusively toward the various rooms. "Don't you own that place in Pennsylvania?" he inquired.
"Yes, but it isn't worth much, and I couldn't sell it. I've been trying to do that anyhow for some time, because Berenice is getting tired of it."
"And haven't you any money laid away?"
"It's taken all I have to run this place and keep the children in school. I've been trying to give Berenice and Rolfe a chance to do something for themselves."
At the repetition of Berenice's name Cowperwood consulted his own interest or mood in the matter. A little assistance for her would not bother him much. Besides, it would probably eventually bring about a meeting with the daughter.
"Why don't you clear out of this?" he observed, finally. "It's no business to be in, anyhow, if you have any regard for your children. They can't survive anything like this. You want to put your daughter back in society, don't you?"
"Oh yes," almost pleaded Mrs. Carter.
"Precisely," commented Cowperwood, who, when he was thinking, almost invariably dropped into a short, cold, curt, business manner.
Yet he was humanely inclined in this instance.
"Well, then, why not live in your Pennsylvania place for the present, or, if not that, go to New York? You can't stay here.
Ship or sell these things." He waved a hand toward the rooms.
"I would only too gladly," replied Mrs. Carter, "if I knew what to do."
"Take my advice and go to New York for the present. You will get rid of your expenses here, and I will help you with the rest--for the present, anyhow. You can get a start again. It is too bad about these children of yours. I will take care of the boy as soon as he is old enough. As for Berenice"--he used her name softly--"if she can stay in her school until she is nineteen or twenty the chances are that she will make social connections which will save her nicely. The thing for you to do is to avoid meeting any of this old crowd out here in the future if you can. It might be advisable to take her abroad for a time after she leaves school."
"Yes, if I just could," sighed Mrs. Carter, rather lamely.
"Well, do what I suggest now, and we will see," observed Cowperwood.
"It would be a pity if your two children were to have their lives ruined by such an accident as this."
Mrs. Carter, realizing that here, in the shape of Cowperwood, if he chose to be generous, was the open way out of a lowering dungeon of misery, was inclined to give vent to a bit of grateful emotion, but, finding him subtly remote, restrained herself. His manner, while warmly generous at times, was also easily distant, except when he wished it to be otherwise. Just now he was thinking of the high soul of Berenice Fleming and of its possible value to him.
