Aileen accepted the caress.

"Oh, it isn"t that," she replied, feelingly, running back in her mind over her long career with Cowperwood, his former love, his keen protestations. She had expected to make so much out of her life with him, and here she was sitting in a public restaurant flirting with and extracting sympathy from a comparative stranger. It cut her to the quick for the moment and sealed her lips. Hot, unbidden tears welled to her eyes.

Lynde saw them. He was really very sorry for her, though her beauty made him wish to take advantage of her distress. "Why should you cry, dearest?" he asked, softly, looking at her flushed cheeks and colorful eyes. "You have beauty; you are young; you"re lovely. He"s not the only man in the world. Why should you be faithful when he isn"t faithful to you? This Hand affair is all over town. When you meet some one that really would care for you, why shouldn"t you? If he doesn"t want you, there are others."

At the mention of the Hand affair Aileen straightened up. "The Hand affair?" she asked, curiously. "What is that?"

"Don"t you know?" he replied, a little surprised. "I thought you did, or I certainly wouldn"t have mentioned it."

"Oh, I know about what it is," replied Aileen, wisely, and with a touch of sardonic humor. "There have been so many or the same kind. I suppose it must be the case the Chicago Review was referring to--the wife of the prominent financier. Has he been trifling with Mrs. Hand?"

"Something like that," replied Lynde. "I"m sorry that I spoke, though?

really I am. I didn"t mean to be carrying tales."

"Soldiers in a common fight, eh?" taunted Aileen, gaily.

"Oh, not that, exactly. Please don"t be mean. I"m not so bad. It"s just a principle with me. We all have our little foibles."

"Yes, I know," replied Aileen; but her mind was running on Mrs. Hand.

So she was the latest. "Well, I admire his taste, anyway, in this case," she said, archly. "There have been so many, though. She is just one more."

Lynde smiled. He himself admired Cowperwood"s taste. Then he dropped the subject.

"But let"s forget that," he said. "Please don"t worry about him any more. You can"t change that. Pull yourself together." He squeezed her fingers. "Will you?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows in inquiry.

"Will I what?" replied Aileen, meditatively.

"Oh, you know. The necklace for one thing. Me, too." His eyes coaxed and laughed and pleaded.

Aileen smiled. "You"re a bad boy," she said, evasively. This revelation in regard to Mrs. Hand had made her singularly retaliatory in spirit. "Let me think. Don"t ask me to take the necklace to-day.

I couldn"t. I couldn"t wear it, anyhow. Let me see you another time."

She moved her plump hand in an uncertain way, and he smoothed her wrist.

"I wonder if you wouldn"t like to go around to the studio of a friend of mine here in the tower?" he asked, quite nonchalantly. "He has such a charming collection of landscapes. You"re interested in pictures, I know. Your husband has some of the finest."

Instantly Aileen understood what was meant--quite by instinct. The alleged studio must be private bachelor quarters.

"Not this afternoon," she replied, quite wrought up and disturbed. "Not to-day. Another time. And I must be going now. But I will see you."

"And this?" he asked, picking up the necklace.

"You keep it until I do come," she replied. "I may take it then."

She relaxed a little, pleased that she was getting safely away; but her mood was anything but antagonistic, and her spirits were as shredded as wind-whipped clouds. It was time she wanted--a little time--that was all.

Chapter x.x.xIV

Enter Hosmer Hand

It is needless to say that the solemn rage of Hand, to say nothing of the pathetic anger of Haguenin, coupled with the wrath of Redmond Purdy, who related to all his sad story, and of young MacDonald and his a.s.sociates of the Chicago General Company, const.i.tuted an atmosphere highly charged with possibilities and potent for dramatic results. The most serious element in this at present was Hosmer Hand, who, being exceedingly wealthy and a director in a number of the princ.i.p.al mercantile and financial inst.i.tutions of the city, was in a position to do Cowperwood some real financial harm. Hand had been extremely fond of his young wife. Being a man of but few experiences with women, it astonished and enraged him that a man like Cowperwood should dare to venture on his preserves in this reckless way, should take his dignity so lightly. He burned now with a hot, slow fire of revenge.

Those who know anything concerning the financial world and its great adventures know how precious is that reputation for probity, solidarity, and conservatism on which so many of the successful enterprises of the world are based. If men are not absolutely honest themselves they at least wish for and have faith in the honesty of others. No set of men know more about each other, garner more carefully all the straws of rumor which may affect the financial and social well being of an individual one way or another, keep a tighter mouth concerning their own affairs and a sharper eye on that of their neighbors. Cowperwood"s credit had hitherto been good because it was known that he had a "soft thing" in the Chicago street-railway field, that he paid his interest charges promptly, that he had organized the group of men who now, under him, controlled the Chicago Trust Company and the North and West Chicago Street Railways, and that the Lake City Bank, of which Addison was still president, considered his collateral sound. Nevertheless, even previous to this time there had been a protesting element in the shape of Schryhart, Simms, and others of considerable import in the Douglas Trust, who had lost no chance to say to one and all that Cowperwood was an interloper, and that his course was marked by political and social trickery and chicanery, if not by financial dishonesty. As a matter of fact, Schryhart, who had once been a director of the Lake City National along with Hand, Arneel, and others, had resigned and withdrawn all his deposits sometime before because he found, as he declared, that Addison was favoring Cowperwood and the Chicago Trust Company with loans, when there was no need of so doing--when it was not essentially advantageous for the bank so to do.

Both Arneel and Hand, having at this time no personal quarrel with Cowperwood on any score, had considered this protest as biased.

Addison had maintained that the loans were neither unduly large nor out of proportion to the general loans of the bank. The collateral offered was excellent. "I don"t want to quarrel with Schryhart," Addison had protested at the time; "but I am afraid his charge is unfair. He is trying to vent a private grudge through the Lake National. That is not the way nor this the place to do it."

Both Hand and Arneel, sober men both, agreed with this--admiring Addison--and so the case stood. Schryhart, however, frequently intimated to them both that Cowperwood was merely building up the Chicago Trust Company at the expense of the Lake City National, in order to make the former strong enough to do without any aid, at which time Addison would resign and the Lake City would be allowed to shift for itself. Hand had never acted on this suggestion but he had thought.

It was not until the incidents relating to Cowperwood and Mrs. Hand had come to light that things financial and otherwise began to darken up.

Hand, being greatly hurt in his pride, contemplated only severe reprisal. Meeting Schryhart at a directors" meeting one day not long after his difficulty had come upon him, he remarked:

"I thought a few years ago, Norman, when you talked to me about this man Cowperwood that you were merely jealous--a dissatisfied business rival. Recently a few things have come to my notice which cause me to think differently. It is very plain to me now that the man is thoroughly bad--from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

It"s a pity the city has to endure him."

"So you"re just beginning to find that out, are you, Hosmer?" answered Schryhart. "Well, I"ll not say I told you so. Perhaps you"ll agree with me now that the responsible people of Chicago ought to do something about it."

Hand, a very heavy, taciturn man, merely looked at him. "I"ll be ready enough to do," he said, "when I see how and what"s to be done."

A little later Schryhart, meeting Duane Kingsland, learned the true source of Hand"s feeling against Cowperwood, and was not slow in transferring this t.i.tbit to Merrill, Simms, and others. Merrill, who, though Cowperwood had refused to extend his La Salle Street tunnel loop about State Street and his store, had hitherto always liked him after a fashion--remotely admired his courage and daring--was now appropriately shocked.

"Why, Anson," observed Schryhart, "the man is no good. He has the heart of a hyena and the friendliness of a scorpion. You heard how he treated Hand, didn"t you?"

"No," replied Merrill, "I didn"t."

"Well, it"s this way, so I hear." And Schryhart leaned over and confidentially communicated considerable information into Mr. Merrill"s left ear.

The latter raised his eyebrows. "Indeed!" he said.

"And the way he came to meet her," added Schryhart, contemptuously, "was this. He went to Hand originally to borrow two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on West Chicago Street Railway. Angry? The word is no name for it."

"You don"t say so," commented Merrill, dryly, though privately interested and fascinated, for Mrs. Hand had always seemed very attractive to him. "I don"t wonder."

He recalled that his own wife had recently insisted on inviting Cowperwood once.

Similarly Hand, meeting Arneel not so long afterward, confided to him that Cowperwood was trying to repudiate a sacred agreement. Arneel was grieved and surprised. It was enough for him to know that Hand had been seriously injured. Between the two of them they now decided to indicate to Addison, as president of the Lake City Bank, that all relations with Cowperwood and the Chicago Trust Company must cease.

The result of this was, not long after, that Addison, very suave and gracious, agreed to give Cowperwood due warning that all his loans would have to be taken care of and then resigned--to become, seven months later, president of the Chicago Trust Company. This desertion created a great stir at the time, astonishing the very men who had suspected that it might come to pa.s.s. The papers were full of it.

"Well, let him go," observed Arneel to Hand, sourly, on the day that Addison notified the board of directors of the Lake City of his contemplated resignation. "If he wants to sever his connection with a bank like this to go with a man like that, it"s his own lookout. He may live to regret it."

It so happened that by now another election was pending Chicago, and Hand, along with Schryhart and Arneel--who joined their forces because of his friendship for Hand--decided to try to fight Cowperwood through this means.

Hosmer Hand, feeling that he had the burden of a great duty upon him, was not slow in acting. He was always, when aroused, a determined and able fighter. Needing an able lieutenant in the impending political conflict, he finally bethought himself of a man who had recently come to figure somewhat conspicuously in Chicago politics--one Patrick Gilgan, the same Patrick Gilgan of Cowperwood"s old Hyde Park gas-war days. Mr. Gilgan was now a comparatively well-to-do man. Owing to a genial capacity for mixing with people, a close mouth, and absolutely no understanding of, and consequently no conscience in matters of large public import (in so far as they related to the so-called rights of the ma.s.s), he was a fit individual to succeed politically. His saloon was the finest in all Wentworth Avenue. It fairly glittered with the newly introduced incandescent lamp reflected in a perfect world of beveled and faceted mirrors. His ward, or district, was full of low, rain-beaten cottages crowded together along half-made streets; but Patrick Gilgan was now a state senator, slated for Congress at the next Congressional election, and a possible successor of the Hon. John J.

McKenty as dictator of the city, if only the Republican party should come into power. (Hyde Park, before it had been annexed to the city, had always been Republican, and since then, although the larger city was normally Democratic, Gilgan could not conveniently change.) Hearing from the political discussion which preceded the election that Gilgan was by far the most powerful politician on the South Side, Hand sent for him. Personally, Hand had far less sympathy with the polite moralistic efforts of men like Haguenin, Hyssop, and others, who were content to preach morality and strive to win by the efforts of the unco good, than he had with the cold political logic of a man like Cowperwood himself. If Cowperwood could work through McKenty to such a powerful end, he, Hand, could find some one else who could be made as powerful as McKenty.

"Mr. Gilgan," said Hand, when the Irishman came in, medium tall, beefy, with shrewd, twinkling gray eyes and hairy hands, "you don"t know me--"