Cowperwood, imagining that there was some editorial or local political development on foot which might be of interest to him, made an appointment for shortly after four. He drove to the publisher’s office in the Press Building, and was greeted by a grave and almost despondent10 man.
“Mr. Cowperwood,” began Haguenin, when the financier entered, smart and trig, his usual air of genial11 sufficiency written all over him, “I have known you now for something like fourteen years, and during this time I have shown you nothing but courtesy and good will. It is true that quite recently you have done me various financial favors, but that was more due, I thought, to the sincere friendship you bore me than to anything else. Quite accidentally I have learned of the relationship that exists between you and my daughter. I have recently spoken to her, and she admitted all that I need to know. Common decency12, it seems to me, might have suggested to you that you leave my child out of the list of women you have degraded. Since it has not, I merely wish to say to you”—and Mr. Haguenin’s face was very tense and white—“that the relationship between you and me is ended. The one hundred thousand dollars you have indorsed for me will be arranged for otherwise as soon as possible, and I hope you will return to me the stock of this paper that you hold as collateral14. Another type of man, Mr. Cowperwood, might attempt to make you suffer in another way. I presume that you have no children of your own, or that if you have you lack the parental15 instinct; otherwise you could not have injured me in this fashion. I believe that you will live to see that this policy does not pay in Chicago or anywhere else.”
Haguenin turned slowly on his heel toward his desk. Cowperwood, who had listened very patiently and very fixedly16, without a tremor17 of an eyelash, merely said: “There seems to be no common intellectual ground, Mr. Haguenin, upon which you and I can meet in this matter. You cannot understand my point of view. I could not possibly adopt yours. However, as you wish it, the stock will be returned to you upon receipt of my indorsements. I cannot say more than that.”
He turned and walked unconcernedly out, thinking that it was too bad to lose the support of so respectable a man, but also that he could do without it. It was silly the way parents insisted on their daughters being something that they did not wish to be.
Haguenin stood by his desk after Cowperwood had gone, wondering where he should get one hundred thousand dollars quickly, and also what he should do to make his daughter see the error of her ways. It was an astonishing blow he had received, he thought, in the house of a friend. It occurred to him that Walter Melville Hyssop, who was succeeding mightily18 with his two papers, might come to his rescue, and that later he could repay him when the Press was more prosperous. He went out to his house in a quandary19 concerning life and chance; while Cowperwood went to the Chicago Trust Company to confer with Videra, and later out to his own home to consider how he should equalize this loss. The state and fate of Cecily Haguenin was not of so much importance as many other things on his mind at this time.
Far more serious were his cogitations with regard to a liaison20 he had recently ventured to establish with Mrs. Hosmer Hand, wife of an eminent21 investor22 and financier. Hand was a solid, phlegmatic23, heavy-thinking person who had some years before lost his first wife, to whom he had been eminently24 faithful. After that, for a period of years he had been a lonely speculator, attending to his vast affairs; but finally because of his enormous wealth, his rather presentable appearance and social rank, he had been entrapped25 by much social attention on the part of a Mrs. Jessie Drew Barrett into marrying her daughter Caroline, a dashing skip of a girl who was clever, incisive26, calculating, and intensely gay. Since she was socially ambitious, and without much heart, the thought of Hand’s millions, and how advantageous27 would be her situation in case he should die, had enabled her to overlook quite easily his heavy, unyouthful appearance and to see him in the light of a lover. There was criticism, of course. Hand was considered a victim, and Caroline and her mother designing minxes and cats; but since the wealthy financier was truly ensnared it behooved28 friends and future satellites to be courteous29, and so they were. The wedding was very well attended. Mrs. Hand began to give house-parties, teas, musicales, and receptions on a lavish30 scale.
Cowperwood never met either her or her husband until he was well launched on his street-car programme. Needing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a hurry, and finding the Chicago Trust Company, the Lake City Bank, and other institutions heavily loaded with his securities, he turned in a moment of inspirational thought to Hand. Cowperwood was always a great borrower. His paper was out in large quantities. He introduced himself frequently to powerful men in this way, taking long or short loans at high or low rates of interest, as the case might be, and sometimes finding some one whom he could work with or use. In the case of Hand, though the latter was ostensibly of the enemies’ camp—the Schryhart-union-Gas-Douglas-Trust-Company crowd—nevertheless Cowperwood had no hesitation31 in going to him. He wished to overcome or forestall32 any unfavorable impression. Though Hand, a solemn man of shrewd but honest nature, had heard a number of unfavorable rumors, he was inclined to be fair and think the best. Perhaps Cowperwood was merely the victim of envious33 rivals.
When the latter first called on him at his office in the Rookery Building, he was most cordial. “Come in, Mr. Cowperwood,” he said. “I have heard a great deal about you from one person and another—mostly from the newspapers. What can I do for you?”
Cowperwood exhibited five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of West Chicago Street Railway stock. “I want to know if I can get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on those by to-morrow morning.”
Hand, a placid34 man, looked at the securities peacefully. “What’s the matter with your own bank?” He was referring to the Chicago Trust Company. “Can’t it take care of them for you?”
“Loaded up with other things just now,” smiled Cowperwood, ingratiatingly.
“Well, if I can believe all the papers say, you’re going to wreck35 these roads or Chicago or yourself; but I don’t live by the papers. How long would you want it for?”
“Six months, perhaps. A year, if you choose.”
Hand turned over the securities, eying their gold seals. “Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of six per cent. West Chicago preferred,” he commented. “Are you earning six per cent.?”
“We’re earning eight right now. You’ll live to see the day when these shares will sell at two hundred dollars and pay twelve per cent. at that.”
“And you’ve quadrupled the issue of the old company? Well, Chicago’s growing. Leave them here until to-morrow or bring them back. Send over or call me, and I’ll tell you.”
They talked for a little while on street-railway and corporation matters. Hand wanted to know something concerning West Chicago land—a region adjoining Ravenswood. Cowperwood gave him his best advice.
The next day he ’phoned, and the stocks, so Hand informed him, were available. He would send a check over. So thus a tentative friendship began, and it lasted until the relationship between Cowperwood and Mrs. Hand was consummated36 and discovered.
In Caroline Barrett, as she occasionally preferred to sign herself, Cowperwood encountered a woman who was as restless and fickle37 as himself, but not so shrewd. Socially ambitious, she was anything but socially conventional, and she did not care for Hand. Once married, she had planned to repay herself in part by a very gay existence. The affair between her and Cowperwood had begun at a dinner at the magnificent residence of Hand on the North Shore Drive overlooking the lake. Cowperwood had gone to talk over with her husband various Chicago matters. Mrs. Hand was excited by his risque reputation. A little woman in stature38, with intensely white teeth, red lips which she did not hesitate to rouge39 on occasion, brown hair, and small brown eyes which had a gay, searching, defiant40 twinkle in them, she did her best to be interesting, clever, witty41, and she was.
“I know Frank Cowperwood by reputation, anyhow,” she exclaimed, holding out a small, white, jeweled hand, the nails of which at their juncture42 with the flesh were tinged43 with henna, and the palms of which were slightly rouged44. Her eyes blazed, and her teeth gleamed. “One can scarcely read of anything else in the Chicago papers.”
Cowperwood returned his most winning beam. “I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs. Hand. I have read of you, too. But I hope you don’t believe all the papers say about me.”
“And if I did it wouldn’t hurt you in my estimation. To do is to be talked about in these days.”
Cowperwood, because of his desire to employ the services of Hand, was at his best. He kept the conversation within conventional lines; but all the while he was exchanging secret, unobserved smiles with Mrs. Hand, whom he realized at once had married Hand for his money, and was bent45, under a somewhat jealous espionage46, to have a good time anyhow. There is a kind of eagerness that goes with those who are watched and wish to escape that gives them a gay, electric awareness47 and sparkle in the presence of an opportunity for release. Mrs. Hand had this. Cowperwood, a past master in this matter of femininity, studied her hands, her hair, her eyes, her smile. After some contemplation he decided, other things being equal, that Mrs. Hand would do, and that he could be interested if she were very much interested in him. Her telling eyes and smiles, the heightened color of her cheeks indicated after a time that she was.
Meeting him on the street one day not long after they had first met, she told him that she was going for a visit to friends at Oconomowoc, in Wisconsin.
“I don’t suppose you ever get up that far north in summer, do you?” she asked, with an air, and smiled.
“I never have,” he replied; “but there’s no telling what I might do if I were bantered48. I suppose you ride and canoe?”
“Oh yes; and play tennis and golf, too.”
“Oh, there are several good hotels. There’s never any trouble about that. I suppose you ride yourself?”
“After a fashion,” replied Cowperwood, who was an expert.
Witness then the casual encounter on horseback, early one Sunday morning in the painted hills of Wisconsin, of Frank Algernon Cowperwood and Caroline Hand. A jaunty50, racing51 canter, side by side; idle talk concerning people, scenery, conveniences; his usual direct suggestions and love-making, and then, subsequently—
The day of reckoning, if such it might be called, came later.
Caroline Hand was, perhaps, unduly52 reckless. She admired Cowperwood greatly without really loving him. He found her interesting, principally because she was young, debonair53, sufficient—a new type. They met in Chicago after a time instead of in Wisconsin, then in Detroit (where she had friends), then in Rockford, where a sister had gone to live. It was easy for him with his time and means. Finally, Duane Kingsland, wholesale54 flour merchant, religious, moral, conventional, who knew Cowperwood and his repute, encountered Mrs. Hand and Cowperwood first near Oconomowoc one summer’s day, and later in Randolph Street, near Cowperwood’s bachelor rooms. Being the man that he was and knowing old Hand well, he thought it was his duty to ask the latter if his wife knew Cowperwood intimately. There was an explosion in the Hand home. Mrs. Hand, when confronted by her husband, denied, of course, that there was anything wrong between her and Cowperwood. Her elderly husband, from a certain telltale excitement and resentment55 in her manner, did not believe this. He thought once of confronting Cowperwood; but, being heavy and practical, he finally decided to sever49 all business relationships with him and fight him in other ways. Mrs. Hand was watched very closely, and a suborned maid discovered an old note she had written to Cowperwood. An attempt to persuade her to leave for Europe—as old Butler had once attempted to send Aileen years before—raised a storm of protest, but she went. Hand, from being neutral if not friendly, became quite the most dangerous and forceful of all Cowperwood’s Chicago enemies. He was a powerful man. His wrath56 was boundless57. He looked upon Cowperwood now as a dark and dangerous man—one of whom Chicago would be well rid.
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1
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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3
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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preclude
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| vt.阻止，排除，防止；妨碍 | |
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reprisal
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| n.报复，报仇，报复性劫掠 | |
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7
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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15
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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quandary
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| n.困惑，进迟两难之境 | |
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20
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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investor
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| n.投资者，投资人 | |
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phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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25
entrapped
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| v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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behooved
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| v.适宜( behoove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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30
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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31
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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32
forestall
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| vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止 | |
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envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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36
consummated
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| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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37
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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38
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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39
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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40
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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41
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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42
juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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43
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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46
espionage
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| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
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47
awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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48
bantered
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| v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的过去式和过去分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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49
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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50
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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51
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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52
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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53
debonair
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| adj.殷勤的，快乐的 | |
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54
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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55
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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56
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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57
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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