It is a sad commentary on all save the most chemic unions—those dark red flowers of romance that bloom most often only for a tragic¹ end—that they cannot endure the storms of disaster that are wont² to overtake them. A woman like Rita Sohlberg, with a seemingly urgent feeling for Cowperwood, was yet not so charmed by him but that this shock to her pride was a marked sedative³. The crushing weight of such an exposure as this, the Homeric laughter inherent, if not indicated in the faulty planning, the failure to take into account beforehand all the possibilities which might lead to such a disaster, was too much for her to endure. She was stung almost to desperation, maddened, at the thought of the gay, idle way in which she had walked into Mrs. Cowperwood’s clutches and been made into a spectacle and a laughing-stock by her. What a brute⁴ she was—what a demon⁵! Her own physical weakness under the circumstances was no grief to her—rather a salve to her superior disposition⁶; but just the same she had been badly beaten, her beauty turned into a ragamuffin show, and that was enough. This evening, in the Lake Shore Sanitarium, where she had been taken, she had but one thought—to get away when it should all be over and rest her wearied brain. She did not want to see Sohlberg any more; she did not want to see Cowperwood any more. Already Harold, suspicious and determined⁷ to get at the truth, was beginning to question her as to the strangeness of Aileen’s attack—her probable reason. When Cowperwood was announced, Sohlberg’s manner modified somewhat, for whatever his suspicions were, he was not prepared to quarrel with this singular man as yet.