But this victory in one direction brought with it corresponding reverses in another: the social future of Cowperwood and Aileen was now in great jeopardy. Schryhart, who was a force socially, having met with defeat at the hands of Cowperwood, was now bitterly opposed to him. Norrie Simms naturally sided with his old associates.
But the worst blow came through Mrs. Anson Merrill. Shortly after the housewarming, and when the gas argument and the conspiracy charges were rising to their heights, she had been to New York and had there chanced to encounter an old acquaintance of hers, Mrs.
Martyn Walker, of Philadelphia, one of the circle which Cowperwood once upon a time had been vainly ambitious to enter. Mrs. Merrill, aware of the interest the Cowperwoods had aroused in Mrs. Simms and others, welcomed the opportunity to find out something definite.
"By the way, did you ever chance to hear of a Frank Algernon Cowperwood or his wife in Philadelphia?" she inquired of Mrs.
Walker.
"Why, my dear Nellie," replied her friend, nonplussed that a woman so smart as Mrs. Merrill should even refer to them, "have those people established themselves in Chicago? His career in Philadelphia was, to say the least, spectacular. He was connected with a city treasurer there who stole five hundred thousand dollars, and they both went to the penitentiary. That wasn't the worst of it! He became intimate with some young girl--a Miss Butler, the sister of Owen Butler, by the way, who is now such a power down there, and--" She merely lifted her eyes. "While he was in the penitentiary her father died and the family broke up. I even heard it rumored that the old gentleman killed himself." (She was referring to Aileen's father, Edward Malia Butler.) "When he came out of the penitentiary Cowperwood disappeared, and I did hear some one say that he had gone West, and divorced his wife and married again.
His first wife is still living in Philadelphia somewhere with his two children."
Mrs. Merrill was properly astonished, but she did not show it.
"Quite an interesting story, isn't it?" she commented, distantly, thinking how easy it would be to adjust the Cowperwood situation, and how pleased she was that she had never shown any interest in them. "Did you ever see her--his new wife?"
"I think so, but I forget where. I believe she used to ride and drive a great deal in Philadelphia."
"Did she have red hair?"
"Oh yes. She was a very striking blonde."
"I fancy it must be the same person. They have been in the papers recently in Chicago. I wanted to be sure."
Mrs. Merrill was meditating some fine comments to be made in the future.
"I suppose now they're trying to get into Chicago society?" Mrs.
Walker smiled condescendingly and contemptuously--as much at Chicago society as at the Cowperwoods.
"It's possible that they might attempt something like that in the East and succeed--I'm sure I don't know," replied Mrs. Merrill, caustically, resenting the slur, "but attempting and achieving are quite different things in Chicago."
The answer was sufficient. It ended the discussion. When next Mrs. Simms was rash enough to mention the Cowperwoods, or, rather, the peculiar publicity in connection with him, her future viewpoint was definitely fixed for her.
"If you take my advice," commented Mrs. Merrill, finally, "the less you have to do with these friends of yours the better. I know all about them. You might have seen that from the first.
They can never be accepted."
Mrs. Merrill did not trouble to explain why, but Mrs. Simms through her husband soon learned the whole truth, and she was righteously indignant and even terrified. Who was to blame for this sort of thing, anyhow? she thought. Who had introduced them? The Addisons, of course. But the Addisons were socially unassailable, if not all-powerful, and so the best had to be made of that. But the Cowperwoods could be dropped from the lists of herself and her friends instantly, and that was now done. A sudden slump in their social significance began to manifest itself, though not so swiftly but what for the time being it was slightly deceptive.
The first evidence of change which Aileen observed was when the customary cards and invitations for receptions and the like, which had come to them quite freely of late, began to decline sharply in number, and when the guests to her own Wednesday afternoons, which rather prematurely she had ventured to establish, became a mere negligible handful. At first she could not understand this, not being willing to believe that, following so soon upon her apparent triumph as a hostess in her own home, there could be so marked a decline in her local importance. Of a possible seventy-five or fifty who might have called or left cards, within three weeks after the housewarming only twenty responded. A week later it had declined to ten, and within five weeks, all told, there was scarcely a caller. It is true that a very few of the unimportant--those who had looked to her for influence and the self-protecting Taylor Lord and Kent McKibben, who were commercially obligated to Cowperwood --were still faithful, but they were really worse than nothing.
Aileen was beside herself with disappointment, opposition, chagrin, shame. There are many natures, rhinoceros-bided and iron-souled, who can endure almost any rebuff in the hope of eventual victory, who are almost too thick-skinned to suffer, but hers was not one of these. Already, in spite of her original daring in regard to the opinion of society and the rights of the former Mrs. Cowperwood, she was sensitive on the score of her future and what her past might mean to her. Really her original actions could be attributed to her youthful passion and the powerful sex magnetism of Cowperwood.
Under more fortunate circumstances she would have married safely enough and without the scandal which followed. As it was now, her social future here needed to end satisfactorily in order to justify herself to herself, and, she thought, to him.
