Theodore Dreiser - The Titan

“Polk Lynde?” commented Cowperwood. “Is he interesting?”

“Yes, he is,” replied Aileen. “I never met a man with such perfect manners. He’s so fascinating. He’s just like a boy, and yet, Heaven knows, he seems to have had enough worldly experience.”

“So I’ve heard,” commented Cowperwood. “Wasn’t he the one that was mixed up in that Carmen Torriba case here a few years ago?” Cowperwood was referring to the matter of a Spanish dancer traveling in America with whom Lynde had been apparently desperately in love.

“Oh yes,” replied Aileen, maliciously; “but that oughtn’t to make any difference to you. He’s charming, anyhow. I like him.”

“I didn’t say it did, did I? You don’t object to my mentioning a mere incident?”

“Oh, I know about the incident,” replied Aileen, jestingly. “I know you.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, studying her face.

“Oh, I know you,” she replied, sweetly and yet defensively. “You think I’ll stay here and be content while you run about with other women—play the sweet and loving wife? Well, I won’t. I know why you say this about Lynde. It’s to keep me from being interested in him, possibly. Well, I will be if I want to. I told you I would be, and I will. You can do what you please about that. You don’t want me, so why should you be disturbed as to whether other men are interested in me or not?”

The truth was that Cowperwood was not clearly thinking of any probable relation between Lynde and Aileen any more than he was in connection with her and any other man, and yet in a remote way he was sensing some one. It was this that Aileen felt in him, and that brought forth her seemingly uncalled-for comment. Cowperwood, under the circumstances, attempted to be as suave as possible, having caught the implication clearly.

“Aileen,” he cooed, “how you talk! Why do you say that? You know I care for you. I can’t prevent anything you want to do, and I’m sure you know I don’t want to. It’s you that I want to see satisfied. You know that I care.”

“Yes, I know how you care,” replied Aileen, her mood changing for the moment. “Don’t start that old stuff, please. I’m sick of it. I know how you’re running around. I know about Mrs. Hand. Even the newspapers make that plain. You’ve been home just one evening in the last eight days, long enough for me to get more than a glimpse of you. Don’t talk to me. Don’t try to bill and coo. I’ve always known. Don’t think I don’t know who your latest flame is. But don’t begin to whine, and don’t quarrel with me if I go about and get interested in other men, as I certainly will. It will be all your fault if I do, and you know it. Don’t begin and complain. It won’t do you any good. I’m not going to sit here and be made a fool of. I’ve told you that over and over. You don’t believe it, but I’m not. I told you that I’d find some one one of these days, and I will. As a matter of fact, I have already.”

At this remark Cowperwood surveyed her coolly, critically, and yet not unsympathetically; but she swung out of the room with a defiant air before anything could be said, and went down to the music-room, from whence a few moments later there rolled up to him from the hall below the strains of the second Hungarian Rhapsodie, feelingly and for once movingly played. Into it Aileen put some of her own wild woe and misery. Cowperwood hated the thought for the moment that some one as smug as Lynde—so good-looking, so suave a society rake—should interest Aileen; but if it must be, it must be. He could have no honest reason for complaint. At the same time a breath of real sorrow for the days that had gone swept over him. He remembered her in Philadelphia in her red cape as a school-girl—in his father’s house—out horseback-riding, driving. What a splendid, loving girl she had been—such a sweet fool of love. Could she really have decided not to worry about him any more? Could it be possible that she might find some one else who would be interested in her, and in whom she would take a keen interest? It was an odd thought for him.

He watched her as she came into the dining-room later, arrayed in green silk of the shade of copper patina, her hair done in a high coil—and in spite of himself he could not help admiring her. She looked very young in her soul, and yet moody—loving (for some one), eager, and defiant. He reflected for a moment what terrible things passion and love are—how they make fools of us all. “All of us are in the grip of a great creative impulse,” he said to himself. He talked of other things for a while—the approaching election, a poster-wagon he had seen bearing the question, “Shall Cowperwood own the city?” “Pretty cheap politics, I call that,” he commented. And then he told of stopping in a so-called Republican wigwam at State and Sixteenth streets—a great, cheaply erected, unpainted wooden shack with seats, and of hearing himself bitterly denounced by the reigning orator. “I was tempted once to ask that donkey a few questions,” he added, “but I decided I wouldn’t.”

Aileen had to smile. In spite of all his faults he was such a wonderful man—to set a city thus by the ears. “Yet, what care I how fair he be, if he be not fair to me.”

“Did you meet any one else besides Lynde you liked?” he finally asked, archly, seeking to gather further data without stirring up too much feeling.

Aileen, who had been studying him, feeling sure the subject would come up again, replied: “No, I haven’t; but I don’t need to. One is enough.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, gently.

“Oh, just what I say. One will do.”

“You mean you are in love with Lynde?”

“I mean—oh!” She stopped and surveyed him defiantly. “What difference does it make to you what I mean? Yes, I am. But what do you care? Why do you sit there and question me? It doesn’t make any difference to you what I do. You don’t want me. Why should you sit there and try to find out, or watch? It hasn’t been any consideration for you that has restrained me so far. Suppose I am in love? What difference would it make to you?”

“Oh, I care. You know I care. Why do you say that?”

“Yes, you care,” she flared. “I know how you care. Well, I’ll just tell you one thing”—rage at his indifference was driving her on—“I am in love with Lynde, and what’s more, I’m his mistress. And I’ll continue to be. But what do you care? Pshaw!”

Her eyes blazed hotly, her color rose high and strong. She breathed heavily.

At this announcement, made in the heat of spite and rage generated by long indifference, Cowperwood sat up for a moment, and his eyes hardened with quite that implacable glare with which he sometimes confronted an enemy. He felt at once there were many things he could do to make her life miserable, and to take revenge on Lynde, but he decided after a moment he would not. It was not weakness, but a sense of superior power that was moving him. Why should he be jealous? Had he not been unkind enough? In a moment his mood changed to one of sorrow for Aileen, for himself, for life, indeed—its tangles of desire and necessity. He could not blame Aileen. Lynde was surely attractive. He had no desire to part with her or to quarrel with him—merely to temporarily cease all intimate relations with her and allow her mood to clear itself up. Perhaps she would want to leave him of her own accord. Perhaps, if he ever found the right woman, this might prove good grounds for his leaving her. The right woman—where was she? He had never found her yet.

“Aileen,” he said, quite softly, “I wish you wouldn’t feel so bitterly about this. Why should you? When did you do this? Will you tell me that?”

“No, I’ll not tell you that,” she replied, bitterly. “It’s none of your affair, and I’ll not tell you. Why should you ask? You don’t care.”