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CHAPTER XXVII
A FINANCIER BEWITCHED
It was interesting to note how, able though he was, and bound up
with this vast street-railway enterprise which was beginning to affect
several thousand men, his mind could fi nd intense relief and satisfaction in the presence and actions of Stephanie Platow. It is not too
much to say that in her, perhaps, he found revivifi ed the spirit and
personality of Rita Sohlberg. Rita, however, had not contemplated
disloyalty — it had never occurred to her to be faithless to Cowperwood so long as he was fond of her any more than for a long time
it had been possible for her, even after all his philanderings, to be
faithless to Sohlberg. Stephanie, on the other hand, had the strange
feeling that affection was not necessarily identifi ed with physical
loyalty, and that she could be fond of Cowperwood and still deceive
him — a fact which was based on her lack as yet of a true enthusiasm
for him. She loved him and she didn’t. Her attitude was not necessarily identifi ed with her heavy, lizardish animality, though that had
something to do with it; but rather with a vague, kindly generosity
which permitted her to feel that it was hard to break with Gardner
Knowles and Lane Cross after they had been so nice to her. Gardner
Knowles had sung her praises here, there, and everywhere, and was
attempting to spread her fame among the legitimate theatrical enterprises which came to the city in order that she might be taken up
and made into a signifi cant fi gure. Lane Cross was wildly fond of
her in an inadequate way which made it hard to break with him,
and yet certain that she would eventually. There was still another
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THEODORE DREISER
man — a young playwright and poet by the name of Forbes Gurney — tall, fair, passionate — who had newly arrived on the scene
and was courting her, or, rather, being courted by her at odd moments, for her time was her own. In her artistically errant way she
had refused to go to school like her sister, and was idling about,
developing, as she phrased it, her artistic possibilities.
Cowperwood, as was natural, heard much of her stage life. At fi rst
he took all this palaver with a grain of salt, the babbling of an ardent nature interested in the fl ighty romance of the studio world.
By degrees, however, he became curious as to the freedom of her
actions, the ease with which she drifted from place to place — Lane
Cross’s studio; Bliss Bridge’s bachelor rooms, where he appeared always to be receiving his theatrical friends of the Garrick Players;
Mr. Gardner Knowles’s home on the near North Side, where he was
frequently entertaining a party after the theater. It seemed to Cowperwood, to say the least, that Stephanie was leading a rather free
and inconsequential existence, and yet it refl ected her exactly — the
color of her soul. But he began to doubt and wonder.
«Where were you, Stephanie, yesterday?» he would ask, when
they met for lunch, or in the evenings early, or when she called at
his new offi ces on the North Side, as she sometimes did to walk or
drive with him.
«Oh, yesterday morning I was at Lane Cross’s studio trying on
some of his Indian shawls and veils. He has such a lot of those
things — some of the loveliest oranges and blues. You just ought to
see me in them. I wish you might».
«Alone?»
«For a while. I thought Ethel Tuckerman and Bliss Bridge would
be there, but they didn’t come until later. Lane Cross is such a dear.
He’s sort of silly at times, but I like him. His portraits are so bizarre».
She went off into a description of his pretentious but
insignifi cant art.
Cowperwood marveled, not at Lane Cross’s art nor his shawls,
but at this world in which Stephanie moved. He could not quite
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THE TITAN
make her out. He had never been able to make her explain satisfactorily that fi rst single relationship with Gardner Knowles, which
she declared had ended so abruptly. Since then he had doubted, as
was his nature; but this girl was so sweet, childish, irreconcilable
with herself, like a wandering breath of air, or a pale-colored fl ower,
that he scarcely knew what to think. The artistically inclined are not
prone to quarrel with an enticing sheaf of fl owers. She was heavenly
to him, coming in, as she did at times when he was alone, with bland
eyes and yielding herself in a kind of summery ecstasy. She had always something artistic to tell of storms, winds, dust, clouds, smoke
forms, the outline of buildings, the lake, the stage. She would cuddle in his arms and quote long sections from «Romeo and Juliet»,
«Paolo and Francesca», «The Ring and the Book», Keats’s «Eve of St.
Agnes». He hated to quarrel with her, because she was like a wild
rose or some art form in nature. Her sketch-book was always full of
new things. Her muff, or the light silk shawl she wore in summer,
sometimes concealed a modeled fi gure of some kind which she
would produce with a look like that of a doubting child, and if he
wanted it, if he liked it, he could have it. Cowperwood meditated
deeply. He scarcely knew what to think.
The constant atmosphere of suspicion and doubt in which he
was compelled to remain, came by degrees to distress and anger him.
While she was with him she was clinging enough, but when she
was away she was ardently cheerful and happy. Unlike the station
he had occupied in so many previous affairs, he found himself, after
the fi rst little while, asking her whether she loved him instead of
submitting to the same question from her.
He thought that with his means, his position, his future possibilities he had the power to bind almost any woman once drawn
to his personality; but Stephanie was too young and too poetic to
be greatly impaired by wealth and fame, and she was not yet suffi ciently gripped by the lure of him. She loved him in her strange way;
but she was interested also by the latest arrival, Forbes Gurney. This
tall, melancholy youth, with brown eyes and pale-brown hair, was
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THEODORE DREISER
very poor. He hailed from southern Minnesota, and what between
a penchant for journalism, verse-writing, and some dramatic work,
was somewhat undecided as to his future. His present occupation
was that of an instalment collector for a furniture company, which
set him free, as a rule, at three o’clock in the afternoon. He was trying, in a mooning way, to identify himself with the Chicago newspaper world, and was a discovery of Gardner Knowles.
Stephanie had seen him about the rooms of the Garrick Players.
She had looked at his longish face with its aureole of soft, crinkly
hair, his fi ne wide mouth, deep-set eyes, and good nose, and had
been touched by an atmosphere of wistfulness, or, let us say, lifehunger. Gardner Knowles brought a poem of his once, which he had
borrowed from him, and read it to the company, Stephanie, Ethel
Tuckerman, Lane Cross, and Irma Ottley assembled.
«Listen to this», Knowles had suddenly exclaimed, taking it
out of his pocket.
It concerned a garden of the moon with the fragrance of pale
blossoms, a mystic pool, some ancient fi gures of joy, a quavered
Lucidian tune.
«With eerie fl ute and rhythmic thrum Of muted strings and
beaten drum».
Stephanie Platow had sat silent, caught by a quality that was
akin to her own. She asked to see it, and read it in silence.
«I think it’s charming», she said.
Thereafter she hovered in the vicinity of Forbes Gurney. Why,
she could scarcely say. It was not coquetry. She just drew near, talked
to him of stage work and her plays and her ambitions. She sketched
him as she had Cowperwood and others, and one day Cowperwood
found three studies of Forbes Gurney in her note-book idyllicly
done, a note of romantic feeling about them.
«Who is this?» he asked.
«Oh, he’s a young poet who comes up to the Players — Forbes
Gurney. He’s so charming; he’s so pale and dreamy».
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THE TITAN
Cowperwood contemplated the sketches curiously.
His eyes clouded.
«Another one of Stephanie’s adherents», he commented, teasingly. «It’s a long procession I’ve joined. Gardner Knowles, Lane
Cross, Bliss Bridge, Forbes Gurney».
Stephanie merely pouted moodily.
«How you talk! Bliss Bridge, Gardner Knowles! I admit I like
them all, but that’s all I do do. They’re just sweet and dear. You’d
like Lane Cross yourself; he’s such a foolish old Polly. As for Forbes
Gurney, he just drifts up there once in a while as one of the crowd.
I scarcely know him».
«Exactly», said Cowperwood, dolefully; «but you sketch him».
For some reason Cowperwood did not believe this. Back in his brain
he did not believe Stephanie at all, he did not trust her. Yet he was
intensely fond of her — the more so, perhaps, because of this.
«Tell me truly, Stephanie», he said to her one day, urgently, and
yet very diplomatically. «I don’t care at all, so far as your past is concerned. You and I are close enough to reach a perfect understanding. But you didn’t tell me the whole truth about you and Knowles,
did you? Tell me truly now. I sha’n’t mind. I can understand well
enough how it could have happened. It doesn’t make the least bit of
difference to me, really».
Stephanie was off her guard for once, in no truly fencing mood.
She was troubled at times about her various relations, anxious to put
herself straight with Cowperwood or with any one whom she truly
liked. Compared to Cowperwood and his affairs, Cross and Knowles
were trivial, and yet Knowles was interesting to her. Compared to
Cowperwood, Forbes Gurney was a stripling beggar, and yet Gurney
had what Cowperwood did not have — a sad, poetic lure. He awakened her sympathies. He was such a lonely boy. Cowperwood was so
strong, brilliant, magnetic.
Perhaps it was with some idea of clearing up her moral status
generally that she fi nally said: «Well, I didn’t tell you the exact truth
about it, either. I was a little ashamed to».
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THEODORE DREISER
At the close of her confession, which involved only Knowles,
and was incomplete at that, Cowperwood burned with a kind of
angry resentment. Why trifl e with a lying prostitute? That she was
an inconsequential free lover at twenty-one was quite plain. And yet
there was something so strangely large about the girl, so magnetic,
and she was so beautiful after her kind, that he could not think of
giving her up. She reminded him of himself.
«Well, Stephanie», he said, trampling under foot an impulse to
insult or rebuke and dismiss her, «you are strange. Why didn’t you
tell me this before? I have asked and asked. Do you really mean to
say that you care for me at all?»
«How can you ask that?» she demanded, reproachfully, feeling
that she had been rather foolish in confessing. Perhaps she would
lose him now, and she did not want to do that. Because his eyes
blazed with a jealous hardness she burst into tears. «Oh, I wish I had
never told you! There is nothing to tell, anyhow. I never wanted to».
Cowperwood was nonplussed. He knew human nature pretty
well, and woman nature; his common sense told him that this girl
was not to be trusted, and yet he was drawn to her. Perhaps she was
not lying, and these tears were real.
«And you positively assure me that this was all — that there
wasn’t any one else before, and no one since?»
Stephanie dried her eyes. They were in his private rooms in
Randolph Street, the bachelor rooms he had fi tted for himself as
a changing place for various affairs.
«I don’t believe you care for me at all», she observed, dolefully, reproachfully. «I don’t believe you understand me. I don’t think you believe me. When I tell you how things are you don’t understand. I don’t
lie. I can’t. If you are so doubting now, perhaps you had better not see
me any more. I want to be frank with you, but if you won’t let me —»
She paused heavily, gloomily, very sorrowfully, and Cowperwood surveyed her with a kind of yearning. What an unreasoning pull she had for him! He did not believe her, and yet he could
not let her go.
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THE TITAN
«Oh, I don’t know what to think», he commented, morosely.
«I certainly don’t want to quarrel with you, Stephanie, for telling me
the truth. Please don’t deceive me. You are a remarkable girl. I can
do so much for you if you will let me. You ought to see that».
«But I’m not deceiving you», she repeated, wearily. «I should
think you could see».
«I believe you», he went on, trying to deceive himself against
his better judgment. «But you lead such a free, unconventional life».
«Ah», thought Stephanie, «perhaps I talk too much».
«I am very fond of you. You appeal to me so much. I love you,
really. Don’t deceive me. Don’t run with all these silly simpletons.
They are really not worthy of you. I shall be able to get a divorce
one of these days, and then I would be glad to marry you».
«But I’m not running with them in the sense that you think.
They’re not anything to me beyond mere entertainment. Oh, I like
them, of course. Lane Cross is a dear in his way, and so is Gardner
Knowles. They have all been nice to me».
Cowperwood’s gorge rose at her calling Lane Cross dear. It incensed him, and yet he held his peace.
«Do give me your word that there will never be anything between you and any of these men so long as you are friendly with
me?» he almost pleaded — a strange role for him. «I don’t care to
share you with any one else. I won’t. I don’t mind what you have
done in the past, but I don’t want you to be unfaithful in the future».
«What a question! Of course I won’t. But if you don’t believe
me — oh, dear —»
Stephanie sighed painfully, and Cowperwood’s face clouded
with angry though well-concealed suspicion and jealousy.
«Well, I’ll tell you, Stephanie, I believe you now. I’m going to
take your word. But if you do deceive me, and I should fi nd it out,
I will quit you the same day. I do not care to share you with any one
else. What I can’t understand, if you care for me, is how you can take
so much interest in all these affairs? It certainly isn’t devotion to
your art that’s impelling you, is it?»
237
THEODORE DREISER
«Oh, are you going to go on quarreling with me?» asked Stephanie, naively. «Won’t you believe me when I say that I love you?
Perhaps —» But here her histrionic ability came to her aid, and she
sobbed violently.
Cowperwood took her in his arms. «Never mind», he soothed.
«I do believe you. I do think you care for me. Only I wish you weren’t
such a butterfl y temperament, Stephanie».
So this particular lesion for the time being was healed.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE EXPOSURE OF STEPHANIE
At the same time the thought of readjusting her relations so
that they would avoid disloyalty to Cowperwood was never further
from Stephanie’s mind. Let no one quarrel with Stephanie Platow.
She was an unstable chemical compound, artistic to her fi nger-tips,
not understood or properly guarded by her family. Her interest in
Cowperwood, his force and ability, was intense. So was her interest in Forbes Gurney — the atmosphere of poetry that enveloped
him. She studied him curiously on the various occasions when they
met, and, fi nding him bashful and recessive, set out to lure him.
She felt that he was lonely and depressed and poor, and her womanly capacity for sympathy naturally bade her be tender.
Her end was easily achieved. One night, when they were all
out in Bliss Bridge’s single-sticker — a fast-sailing saucer — Stephanie and Forbes Gurney sat forward of the mast looking at the silver
moon track which was directly ahead. The rest were in the cockpit
«cutting up» — laughing and singing. It was very plain to all that
Stephanie was becoming interested in Forbes Gurney; and since he
was charming and she wilful, nothing was done to interfere with
them, except to throw an occasional jest their way. Gurney, new to
love and romance, scarcely knew how to take his good fortune, how
to begin. He told Stephanie of his home life in the wheat-fi elds of
the Northwest, how his family had moved from Ohio when he was
three, and how diffi cult were the labors he had always undergone.
He had stopped in his plowing many a day to stand under a tree and
239
THEODORE DREISER
write a poem — such as it was — or to watch the birds or to wish he
could go to college or to Chicago. She looked at him with dreamy
eyes, her dark skin turned a copper bronze in the moonlight, her
black hair irradiated with a strange, luminous grayish blue. Forbes
Gurney, alive to beauty in all its forms, ventured fi nally to touch her
hand — she of Knowles, Cross, and Cowperwood — and she thrilled
from head to toe. This boy was so sweet. His curly brown hair gave
him a kind of Greek innocence and aspect. She did not move, but
waited, hoping he would do more.
«I wish I might talk to you as I feel», he fi nally said, hoarsely,
a catch in his throat.
She laid one hand on his.
«You dear!» she said.
He realized now that he might. A great ecstasy fell upon him.
He smoothed her hand, then slipped his arm about her waist, then
ventured to kiss the dark cheek turned dreamily from him. Artfully her head sunk to his shoulder, and he murmured wild nothings — how divine she was, how artistic, how wonderful! With
her view of things, it could only end one way. She manoeuvered
him into calling on her at her home, into studying her books and
plays on the top-fl oor sitting-room, into hearing her sing. Once
fully in his arms, the rest was easy by suggestion. He learned she
was no longer innocent, and then — In the mean time Cowperwood mingled his speculations concerning large power-houses, immense reciprocating engines, the problem of a wage scale for his
now two thousand employees, some of whom were threatening to
strike, the problem of securing, bonding, and equipping the La Salle
Street tunnel and a down-town loop in La Salle, Munroe, Dearborn,
and Randolph streets, with mental inquiries and pictures as to what
possibly Stephanie Platow might be doing. He could only make
appointments with her from time to time. He did not fail to note
that, after he began to make use of information she let drop as to
her whereabouts from day to day and her free companionship, he
heard less of Gardner Knowles, Lane Cross, and Forbes Gurney, and
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