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homely woman meant nothing to him. And the passionate woman meant much. He heard family
discussions of this and that sacrificial soul among women, as well as among men--women who
toiled and slaved for their husbands or children, or both, who gave way to relatives or friends in
crises or crucial moments, because it was right and kind to do so--but somehow these stories
did not appeal to him. He preferred to think of people--even women--as honestly, frankly self-
interested. He could not have told you why. People seemed foolish, or at the best very
unfortunate not to know what to do in all circumstances and how to protect themselves. There
was great talk concerning morality, much praise of virtue and decency, and much lifting of
hands in righteous horror at people who broke or were even rumored to have broken the
Seventh Commandment. He did not take this talk seriously. Already he had broken it secretly
many times. Other young men did. Yet again, he was a little sick of the women of the streets
and the bagnio. There were too many coarse, evil features in connection with such contacts.
For a little while, the false tinsel-glitter of the house of ill repute appealed to him, for there was a
certain force to its luxury--rich, as a rule, with red-plush furniture, showy red hangings, some
coarse but showily-framed pictures, and, above all, the strong-bodied or sensuously lymphatic
women who dwelt there, to (as his mother phrased it) prey on men. The strength of their bodies,
the lust of their souls, the fact that they could, with a show of affection or good-nature, receive
man after man, astonished and later disgusted him. After all, they were not smart. There was no
vivacity of thought there. All that they could do, in the main, he fancied, was this one thing. He
pictured to himself the dreariness of the mornings after, the stale dregs of things when only
sleep and thought of gain could aid in the least; and more than once, even at his age, he shook
his head. He wanted contact which was more intimate, subtle, individual, personal.
So came Lillian Semple, who was nothing more to him than the shadow of an ideal. Yet she
cleared up certain of his ideas in regard to women. She was not physically as vigorous or brutal
as those other women whom he had encountered in the lupanars, thus far--raw, unashamed
contraveners of accepted theories and notions--and for that very reason he liked her. And his
thoughts continued to dwell on her, notwithstanding the hectic days which now passed like
flashes of light in his new business venture. For this stock exchange world in which he now
found himself, primitive as it would seem to-day, was most fascinating to Cowperwood. The
room that he went to in Third Street, at Dock, where the brokers or their agents and clerks
gathered one hundred and fifty strong, was nothing to speak of artistically--a square chamber
sixty by sixty, reaching from the second floor to the roof of a four-story building; but it was
striking to him. The windows were high and narrow; a large-faced clock faced the west entrance
of the room where you came in from the stairs; a collection of telegraph instruments, with their
accompanying desks and chairs, occupied the northeast corner. On the floor, in the early days
of the exchange, were rows of chairs where the brokers sat while various lots of stocks were
offered to them. Later in the history of the exchange the chairs were removed and at different
points posts or floor-signs indicating where certain stocks were traded in were introduced.
Around these the men who were interested gathered to do their trading. From a hall on the third
floor a door gave entrance to a visitor's gallery, small and poorly furnished; and on the west wall
a large blackboard carried current quotations in stocks as telegraphed from New York and
Boston. A wicket-like fence in the center of the room surrounded the desk and chair of the
official recorder; and a very small gallery opening from the third floor on the west gave place for
the secretary of the board, when he had any special announcement to make. There was a room
off the southwest corner, where reports and annual compendiums of chairs were removed and
at different signs indicating where certain stocks of various kinds were kept and were available
for the use of members.
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