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this new condition brought to Frank, for, like all who accept the hymeneal yoke, he was
influenced to a certain extent by the things with which he surrounded himself. Primarily, from
certain traits of his character, one would have imagined him called to be a citizen of eminent
respectability and worth. He appeared to be an ideal home man. He delighted to return to his
wife in the evenings, leaving the crowded downtown section where traffic clamored and men
hurried. Here he could feel that he was well-stationed and physically happy in life. The thought
of the dinner-table with candles upon it (his idea); the thought of Lillian in a trailing gown of pale-
blue or green silk--he liked her in those colors; the thought of a large fireplace flaming with solid
lengths of cord-wood, and Lillian snuggling in his arms, gripped his immature imagination. As
has been said before, he cared nothing for books, but life, pictures, trees, physical
contact--these, in spite of his shrewd and already gripping financial calculations, held him. To
live richly, joyously, fully--his whole nature craved that.
And Mrs. Cowperwood, in spite of the difference in their years, appeared to be a fit mate for him
at this time. She was once awakened, and for the time being, clinging, responsive, dreamy. His
mood and hers was for a baby, and in a little while that happy expectation was whispered to him
by her. She had half fancied that her previous barrenness was due to herself, and was rather
surprised and delighted at the proof that it was not so. It opened new possibilities--a seemingly
glorious future of which she was not afraid. He liked it, the idea of self-duplication. It was almost
acquisitive, this thought. For days and weeks and months and years, at least the first four or
five, he took a keen satisfaction in coming home evenings, strolling about the yard, driving with
his wife, having friends in to dinner, talking over with her in an explanatory way the things he
intended to do. She did not understand his financial abstrusities, and he did not trouble to make
them clear.
But love, her pretty body, her lips, her quiet manner--the lure of all these combined, and his two
children, when they came--two in four years--held him. He would dandle Frank, Jr., who was the
first to arrive, on his knee, looking at his chubby feet, his kindling eyes, his almost formless yet
bud-like mouth, and wonder at the process by which children came into the world. There was so
much to think of in this connection--the spermatozoic beginning, the strange period of gestation
in women, the danger of disease and delivery. He had gone through a real period of strain when
Frank, Jr., was born, for Mrs. Cowperwood was frightened. He feared for the beauty of her
body--troubled over the danger of losing her; and he actually endured his first worry when he
stood outside the door the day the child came. Not much--he was too self-sufficient, too
resourceful; and yet he worried, conjuring up thoughts of death and the end of their present
state. Then word came, after certain piercing, harrowing cries, that all was well, and he was
permitted to look at the new arrival. The experience broadened his conception of things, made
him more solid in his judgment of life. That old conviction of tragedy underlying the surface of
things, like wood under its veneer, was emphasized. Little Frank, and later Lillian, blue-eyed and
golden-haired, touched his imagination for a while. There was a good deal to this home idea,
after all. That was the way life was organized, and properly so--its cornerstone was the home.
It would be impossible to indicate fully how subtle were the material changes which these years
involved--changes so gradual that they were, like the lap of soft waters, unnoticeable.
Considerable--a great deal, considering how little he had to begin with--wealth was added in the
next five years. He came, in his financial world, to know fairly intimately, as commercial
relationships go, some of the subtlest characters of the steadily enlarging financial world. In his
days at Tighe's and on the exchange, many curious figures had been pointed out to him--State
and city officials of one grade and another who were "making something out of politics," and
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