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She stood still, staring at this letter, for she could scarcely countenance her own thought. She
had observed often, in spite of all their caution, how friendly Aileen had been to him and he to
her. He liked her; he never lost a chance to defend her. Lillian had thought of them at times as
being curiously suited to each other temperamentally. He liked young people. But, of course, he
was married, and Aileen was infinitely beneath him socially, and he had two children and
herself. And his social and financial position was so fixed and stable that he did not dare trifle
with it. Still she paused; for forty years and two children, and some slight wrinkles, and the
suspicion that we may be no longer loved as we once were, is apt to make any woman pause,
even in the face of the most significant financial position. Where would she go if she left him?
What would people think? What about the children? Could she prove this liaison? Could she
entrap him in a compromising situation? Did she want to?
She saw now that she did not love him as some women love their husbands. She was not wild
about him. In a way she had been taking him for granted all these years, had thought that he
loved her enough not to be unfaithful to her; at least fancied that he was so engrossed with the
more serious things of life that no petty liaison such as this letter indicated would trouble him or
interrupt his great career. Apparently this was not true. What should she do? What say? How
act? Her none too brilliant mind was not of much service in this crisis. She did not know very
well how either to plan or to fight.
The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery. It is oyster-like in its functioning, or,
perhaps better, clam-like. It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the
mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate
contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed. Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived. No least
inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident. When some crude,
suggestive fact, such as this letter proved to be, suddenly manifests itself in the placid flow of
events, there is great agony or disturbance and clogging of the so-called normal processes. The
siphon does not work right. It sucks in fear and distress. There is great grinding of maladjusted
parts--not unlike sand in a machine--and life, as is so often the case, ceases or goes lamely
ever after.
Mrs. Cowperwood was possessed of a conventional mind. She really knew nothing about life.
And life could not teach her. Reaction in her from salty thought-processes was not possible.
She was not alive in the sense that Aileen Butler was, and yet she thought that she was very
much alive. All illusion. She wasn't. She was charming if you loved placidity. If you did not, she
was not. She was not engaging, brilliant, or forceful. Frank Cowperwood might well have asked
himself in the beginning why he married her. He did not do so now because he did not believe it
was wise to question the past as to one's failures and errors. It was, according to him, most
unwise to regret. He kept his face and thoughts to the future.
But Mrs. Cowperwood was truly distressed in her way, and she went about the house thinking,
feeling wretchedly. She decided, since the letter asked her to see for herself, to wait. She must
think how she would watch this house, if at all. Frank must not know. If it were Aileen Butler by
any chance--but surely not--she thought she would expose her to her parents. Still, that meant
exposing herself. She determined to conceal her mood as best she could at dinner-time--but
Cowperwood was not able to be there. He was so rushed, so closeted with individuals, so
closely in conference with his father and others, that she scarcely saw him this Monday night,
nor the next day, nor for many days.
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