Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
appropriate changes of costume which were allowed her for these. Her family could not
entertain in any distinguished way where they were, and so already, at eighteen, she was
beginning to feel the sting of a blighted ambition. She was eager for life. How was she to get it?
Her room was a study in the foibles of an eager and ambitious mind. It was full of clothes,
beautiful things for all occasions-- jewelry--which she had small opportunity to wear--shoes,
stockings, lingerie, laces. In a crude way she had made a study of perfumes and cosmetics,
though she needed the latter not at all, and these were present in abundance. She was not very
orderly, and she loved lavishness of display; and her curtains, hangings, table ornaments, and
pictures inclined to gorgeousness, which did not go well with the rest of the house.
Aileen always reminded Cowperwood of a high-stepping horse without a check-rein. He met her
at various times, shopping with her mother, out driving with her father, and he was always
interested and amused at the affected, bored tone she assumed before him--the "Oh, dear! Oh,
dear! Life is so tiresome, don't you know," when, as a matter of fact, every moment of it was of
thrilling interest to her. Cowperwood took her mental measurement exactly. A girl with a high
sense of life in her, romantic, full of the thought of love and its possibilities. As he looked at her
he had the sense of seeing the best that nature can do when she attempts to produce physical
perfection. The thought came to him that some lucky young dog would marry her pretty soon
and carry her away; but whoever secured her would have to hold her by affection and subtle
flattery and attention if he held her at all.
"The little snip"--she was not at all--"she thinks the sun rises and sets in her father's pocket,"
Lillian observed one day to her husband. "To hear her talk, you'd think they were descended
from Irish kings. Her pretended interest in art and music amuses me."
"Oh, don't be too hard on her," coaxed Cowperwood diplomatically. He already liked Aileen very
much. "She plays very well, and she has a good voice."
"Yes, I know; but she has no real refinement. How could she have? Look at her father and
mother."
"I don't see anything so very much the matter with her," insisted Cowperwood. "She's bright and
good-looking. Of course, she's only a girl, and a little vain, but she'll come out of that. She isn't
without sense and force, at that."
Aileen, as he knew, was most friendly to him. She liked him. She made a point of playing the
piano and singing for him in his home, and she sang only when he was there. There was
something about his steady, even gait, his stocky body and handsome head, which attracted
her. In spite of her vanity and egotism, she felt a little overawed before him at times--keyed up.
She seemed to grow gayer and more brilliant in his presence.
The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All
individuals are a bundle of contradictions--none more so than the most capable.
In the case of Aileen Butler it would be quite impossible to give an exact definition. Intelligence,
of a raw, crude order she had certainly--also a native force, tamed somewhat by the doctrines
and conventions of current society, still showed clear at times in an elemental and not entirely
unattractive way. At this time she was only eighteen years of age--decidedly attractive from the
56 / 312

---