It was during this latter period that Aileen came gradually, through the agency of these two men, to share in a form of mid-world life that was not utterly⁵ dull. In every large city there is a kind of social half world, where artists and the more adventurous⁶ of the socially unconventional and restless meet for an exchange of things which cannot be counted mere⁷ social form and civility. It is the age-old world of Bohemia. Hither resort those “accidentals” of fancy that make the stage, the drawing-room, and all the schools of artistic⁸ endeavor interesting or peculiar⁹. In a number of studios in Chicago such as those of Lane Cross and Rhees Crier, such little circles were to be found. Rhees Crier, for instance, a purely¹⁰ parlor¹¹ artist, with all the airs, conventions, and social adaptability¹² of the tribe, had quite a following. Here and to several other places by turns Taylor Lord and Kent McKibben conducted Aileen, both asking and obtaining permission to be civil to her when Cowperwood was away.

分享到：