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THE TITAN
But in the mean time Messrs. Stimson, Avery, McKibben, Van
Sickle, and others were on Cowperwood’s behalf acting separately
upon various unattached aldermen — those not temperamentally
and chronically allied with the reform idea — and making them understand that if they could fi nd it possible to refrain from supporting anti-Cowperwood measures for the next two years, a bonus in
the shape of an annual salary of two thousand dollars or a gift in
some other form — perhaps a troublesome note indorsed or a mortgage taken care of — would be forthcoming, together with a guarantee that the general public should never know. In no case was such
an offer made direct. Friends or neighbors, or suave unidentifi ed
strangers, brought mysterious messages. By this method some eleven aldermen — quite apart from the ten regular Democrats who,
because of McKenty and his infl uence, could be counted upon —
had been already suborned. Although Schryhart, Hand, and Arneel
did not know it, their plans — even as they planned — were being
thus undermined, and, try as they would, the coveted ordinance for
a blanket franchise persistently eluded them. They had to content
themselves for the time being with a franchise for a single ‘L’ road
line on the South Side in Schryhart’s own territory, and with a franchise to the General Electric covering only one unimportant line,
which it would be easy for Cowperwood, if he continued in power,
to take over at some later time.
CHAPTER XL
A TRIP TO LOUISVILLE
The most serious diffi culty confronting Cowperwood from
now on was really not so much political as fi nancial. In building up
and fi nancing his Chicago street-railway enterprises he had, in
those days when Addison was president of the Lake City National,
used that bank as his chief source of supply. Afterward, when Addison had been forced to retire from the Lake City to assume charge of
the Chicago Trust Company, Cowperwood had succeeded in having
the latter designated as a central reserve and in inducing a number of rural banks to keep their special deposits in its vaults. However, since the war on him and his interests had begun to strengthen
through the efforts of Hand and Arneel — men most infl uential in
the control of the other central-reserve banks of Chicago, and in
close touch with the money barons of New York — there were
signs not wanting that some of the country banks depositing with
the Chicago Trust Company had been induced to withdraw because of pressure from outside inimical forces, and that more were
to follow. It was some time before Cowperwood fully realized to
what an extent this fi nancial opposition might be directed against
himself. In its very beginning it necessitated speedy hurryings to
New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Boston — even London at times — on the chance that there would be loose and ready
cash in someone’s possession. It was on one of these peregrinations
that he encountered a curious personality which led to various com-
352
THE TITAN
plications in his life, sentimental and otherwise, which he had not
hitherto contemplated.
In various sections of the country Cowperwood had met many
men of wealth, some grave, some gay, with whom he did business,
and among these in Louisville, Kentucky, he encountered a certain
Col. Nathaniel Gillis, very wealthy, a horseman, inventor, roue,
from whom he occasionally extracted loans. The Colonel was an interesting fi gure in Kentucky society; and, taking a great liking to
Cowperwood, he found pleasure, during the brief periods in which
they were together, in piloting him about. On one occasion in Louisville he observed: «To-night, Frank, with your permission, I am going to introduce you to one of the most interesting women I know.
She isn’t good, but she’s entertaining. She has had a troubled history.
She is the ex-wife of two of my best friends, both dead, and the exmistress of another. I like her because I knew her father and mother,
and because she was a clever little girl and still is a nice woman,
even if she is getting along. She keeps a sort of house of convenience
here in Louisville for a few of her old friends. You haven’t anything
particular to do to-night, have you? Suppose we go around there?»
Cowperwood, who was always genially sportive when among
strong men — a sort of bounding collie — and who liked to humor
those who could be of use to him, agreed.
«It sounds interesting to me. Certainly I’ll go. Tell me more
about her. Is she good-looking?»
«Rather. But better yet, she is connected with a number of women who are». The Colonel, who had a small, gray goatee and sportive
dark eyes, winked the latter solemnly.
Cowperwood arose.
«Take me there», he said.
It was a rainy night. The business on which he was seeing the Colonel required another day to complete. There was little or nothing
to do. On the way the Colonel retailed more of the life history of
Nannie Hedden, as he familiarly called her, and explained that, although this was her maiden name, she had subsequently become
353
THEODORE DREISER
fi rst Mrs. John Alexander Fleming, then, after a divorce, Mrs. Ira
George Carter, and now, alas! was known among the exclusive set of
fast livers, to which he belonged, as plain Hattie Starr, the keeper of
a more or less secret house of ill repute. Cowperwood did not take so
much interest in all this until he saw her, and then only because of
two children the Colonel told him about, one a girl by her fi rst marriage, Berenice Fleming, who was away in a New York boardingschool, the other a boy, Rolfe Carter, who was in a military school
for boys somewhere in the West.
«That daughter of hers», observed the Colonel, «is a chip of
the old block, unless I miss my guess. I only saw her two or three
times a few years ago when I was down East at her mother’s summer
home; but she struck me as having great charm even for a girl of ten.
She’s a lady born, if ever there was one. How her mother is to keep
her straight, living as she does, is more than I know. How she keeps
her in that school is a mystery. There’s apt to be a scandal here at
any time. I’m very sure the girl doesn’t know anything about her
mother’s business. She never lets her come out here».
«Berenice Fleming», Cowperwood thought to himself. «What
a pleasing name, and what a peculiar handicap in life».
«How old is the daughter now?» he inquired.
«Oh, she must be about fi fteen — not more than that».
When they reached the house, which was located in a rather
somber, treeless street, Cowperwood was surprised to fi nd the interior spacious and tastefully furnished. Presently Mrs. Carter, as she
was generally known in society, or Hattie Starr, as she was known
to a less satisfying world, appeared. Cowperwood realized at once
that he was in the presence of a woman who, whatever her present occupation, was not without marked evidences of refi nement.
She was exceedingly intelligent, if not highly intellectual, trig, vivacious, anything but commonplace. A certain spirited undulation in
her walk, a seeming gay, frank indifference to her position in life,
an obvious accustomedness to polite surroundings took his fancy.
Her hair was built up in a loose Frenchy way, after the fashion of
354
THE TITAN
the empire, and her cheeks were slightly mottled with red veins. Her
color was too high, and yet it was not utterly unbecoming. She had
friendly gray-blue eyes, which went well with her light-brown hair;
along with a pink fl owered house-gown, which became her fulling
fi gure, she wore pearls.
«The widow of two husbands», thought Cowperwood; «the
mother of two children!» With the Colonel’s easy introduction began a light conversation. Mrs. Carter gracefully persisted that she
had known of Cowperwood for some time. His strenuous streetrailway operations were more or less familiar to her.
«It would be nice», she suggested, «since Mr. Cowperwood is
here, if we invited Grace Deming to call».
The latter was a favorite of the Colonel’s.
«I would be very glad if I could talk to Mrs. Carter», gallantly volunteered Cowperwood — he scarcely knew why. He was curious to
learn more of her history. On subsequent occasions, and in more extended conversation with the Colonel, it was retailed to him in full.
Nannie Hedden, or Mrs. John Alexander Fleming, or Mrs. Ira
George Carter, or Hattie Starr, was by birth a descendant of a long
line of Virginia and Kentucky Heddens and Colters, related in
a defi nite or vague way to half the aristocracy of four or fi ve of
the surrounding states. Now, although still a woman of brilliant
parts, she was the keeper of a select house of assignation in this
meager city of perhaps two hundred thousand population. How
had it happened? How could it possibly have come about? She had
been in her day a reigning beauty. She had been born to money and
had married money. Her fi rst husband, John Alexander Fleming,
who had inherited wealth, tastes, privileges, and vices from a long
line of slave-holding, tobacco-growing Flemings, was a charming
man of the Kentucky-Virginia society type. He had been trained in
the law with a view to entering the diplomatic service, but, being
an idler by nature, had never done so. Instead, horse-raising, horseracing, philandering, dancing, hunting, and the like, had taken up
his time. When their wedding took place the Kentucky-Virginia so-
355
THEODORE DREISER
ciety world considered it a great match. There was wealth on both
sides. Then came much more of that idle social whirl which had
produced the marriage. Even philanderings of a very vital character were not barred, though deception, in some degree at least,
would be necessary. As a natural result there followed the appearance in the mountains of North Carolina during a charming autumn outing of a gay young spark by the name of Tucker Tanner,
and the bestowal on him by the beautiful Nannie Fleming — as she
was then called — of her temporary affections. Kind friends were
quick to report what Fleming himself did not see, and Fleming, roue
that he was, encountering young Mr. Tanner on a high mountain
road one evening, said to him, «You get out of this party by night,
or I will let daylight through you in the morning». Tucker Tanner,
realizing that however senseless and unfair the exaggerated chivalry of the South might be, the end would be bullets just the same,
departed. Mrs. Fleming, disturbed but unrepentant, considered
herself greatly abused. There was much scandal. Then came quarrels, drinking on both sides, fi nally a divorce. Mr. Tucker Tanner
did not appear to claim his damaged love, but the aforementioned
Ira George Carter, a penniless never-do-well of the same generation
and social standing, offered himself and was accepted. By the fi rst
marriage there had been one child, a girl. By the second there was
another child, a boy. Ira George Carter, before the children were old
enough to impress Mrs. Carter with the importance of their needs
or her own affection for them, had squandered, in one ridiculous
venture after another, the bulk of the property willed to her by her
father, Major Wickham Hedden. Ultimately, after drunkenness and
dissipation on the husband’s side, and fi nally his death, came the approach of poverty. Mrs. Carter was not practical, and still passionate and inclined to dissipation. However, the aimless, fatuous going
to pieces of Ira George Carter, the looming pathos of the future of
the children, and a growing sense of affection and responsibility had
fi nally sobered her. The lure of love and life had not entirely disappeared, but her chance of sipping at those crystal founts had grown
356
THE TITAN
sadly slender. A woman of thirty-eight and still possessing some
beauty, she was not content to eat the husks provided for the unworthy. Her gorge rose at the thought of that neglected state into
which the pariahs of society fall and on which the inexperienced so
cheerfully comment. Neglected by her own set, shunned by the respectable, her fortune quite gone, she was nevertheless determined
that she would not be a back-street seamstress or a pensioner upon
the bounty of quondam friends. By insensible degrees came fi rst
unhallowed relationships through friendship and passing passion,
then a curious intermediate state between the high world of fashion
and the half world of harlotry, until, fi nally, in Louisville, she had
become, not openly, but actually, the mistress of a house of ill repute.
Men who knew how these things were done, and who were consulting their own convenience far more than her welfare, suggested
the advisability of it. Three or four friends like Colonel Gillis wished
rooms — convenient place in which to loaf, gamble, and bring their
women. Hattie Starr was her name now, and as such she had even
become known in a vague way to the police — but only vaguely — as
a woman whose home was suspiciously gay on occasions.
Cowperwood, with his appetite for the wonders of life, his appreciation of the dramas which produce either failure or success, could
not help being interested in this spoiled woman who was sailing so
vaguely the seas of chance. Colonel Gillis once said that with some
strong man to back her, Nannie Fleming could be put back into
society. She had a pleasant appeal — she and her two children, of
whom she never spoke. After a few visits to her home Cowperwood
spent hours talking with Mrs. Carter whenever he was in Louisville.
On one occasion, as they were entering her boudoir, she picked up
a photograph of her daughter from the dresser and dropped it into
a drawer. Cowperwood had never seen this picture before. It was
that of a girl of fi fteen or sixteen, of whom he obtained but the most
fl eeting glance. Yet, with that instinct for the essential and vital
which invariably possessed him, he gained a keen impression of it.
It was of a delicately haggard child with a marvelously agreeable
357
THEODORE DREISER
smile, a fi ne, high-poised head upon a thin neck, and an air of bored
superiority. Combined with this was a touch of weariness about
the eyelids which drooped in a lofty way. Cowperwood was fascinated. Because of the daughter he professed an interest in the mother,
which he really did not feel.
A little later Cowperwood was moved to defi nite action by
the discovery in a photographer’s window in Louisville of a second
picture of Berenice — a rather large affair which Mrs. Carter had
had enlarged from a print sent her by her daughter some time before. Berenice was standing rather indifferently posed at the corner of a colonial mantel, a soft straw outing-hat held negligently in
one hand, one hip sunk lower than the other, a faint, elusive smile
playing dimly around her mouth. The smile was really not a smile,
but only the wraith of one, and the eyes were wide, disingenuous,
mock-simple. The picture because of its simplicity, appealed to him.
He did not know that Mrs. Carter had never sanctioned its display. «A personage», was Cowperwood’s comment to himself, and
he walked into the photographer’s offi ce to see what could be done
about its removal and the destruction of the plates. A half-hundred
dollars, he found, would arrange it all — plates, prints, everything.
Since by this ruse he secured a picture for himself, he promptly had
it framed and hung in his Chicago rooms, where sometimes of an afternoon when he was hurrying to change his clothes he stopped to
look at it. With each succeeding examination his admiration and curiosity grew. Here was perhaps, he thought, the true society woman,
the high-born lady, the realization of that ideal which Mrs. Merrill
and many another grande dame had suggested.
It was not so long after this again that, chancing to be in Louisville, he discovered Mrs. Carter in a very troubled social condition.
Her affairs had received a severe setback. A certain Major Hagenback, a citizen of considerable prominence, had died in her home
under peculiar circumstances. He was a man of wealth, married,
and nominally living with his wife in Lexington. As a matter of
fact, he spent very little time there, and at the time of his death of
358
THE TITAN
heart failure was leading a pleasurable existence with a Miss Trent,
an actress, whom he had introduced to Mrs. Carter as his friend.
The police, through a talkative deputy coroner, were made aware of
all the facts. Pictures of Miss Trent, Mrs. Carter, Major Hagenback,
his wife, and many curious details concerning Mrs. Carter’s home
were about to appear in the papers when Colonel Gillis and others
who were powerful socially and politically interfered; the affair was
hushed up, but Mrs. Carter was in distress. This was more than she
had bargained for.
Her quondam friends were frightened away for the nonce.
She herself had lost courage. When Cowperwood saw her she had
been in the very human act of crying, and her eyes were red.
«Well, well», he commented, on seeing her — she was in moody
gray in the bargain —»you don’t mean to tell me you’re worrying
about anything, are you?»
«Oh, Mr. Cowperwood», she explained, pathetically, «I have had
so much trouble since I saw you. You heard of Major Hagenback’s
death, didn’t you?» Cowperwood, who had heard something of
the story from Colonel Gillis, nodded. «Well, I have just been notifi ed by the police that I will have to move, and the landlord has
given me notice, too. If it just weren’t for my two children —»
She dabbed at her eyes pathetically.
Cowperwood meditated interestedly.
«Haven’t you any place you can go?» he asked.
«I have a summer place in Pennsylvania», she confessed; «but
I can’t go there very well in February. Besides, it’s my living I’m worrying about. I have only this to depend on».
She waved her hand inclusively toward the various rooms.
«Don’t you own that place in Pennsylvania?» he inquired.
«Yes, but it isn’t worth much, and I couldn’t sell it. I’ve been
trying to do that anyhow for some time, because Berenice is getting
tired of it».
«And haven’t you any money laid away?»
359
THEODORE DREISER
«It’s taken all I have to run this place and keep the children in
school. I’ve been trying to give Berenice and Rolfe a chance to do
something for themselves».
At the repetition of Berenice’s name Cowperwood consulted his
own interest or mood in the matter. A little assistance for her would
not bother him much. Besides, it would probably eventually bring
about a meeting with the daughter.
«Why don’t you clear out of this?» he observed, fi nally. «It’s no
business to be in, anyhow, if you have any regard for your children.
They can’t survive anything like this. You want to put your daughter
back in society, don’t you?»
«Oh yes», almost pleaded Mrs. Carter.
«Precisely», commented Cowperwood, who, when he was thinking, almost invariably dropped into a short, cold, curt, business manner. Yet he was humanely inclined in this instance.
«Well, then, why not live in your Pennsylvania place for the present, or, if not that, go to New York? You can’t stay here. Ship or sell
these things». He waved a hand toward the rooms.
«I would only too gladly», replied Mrs. Carter, «if I knew
what to do».
«Take my advice and go to New York for the present. You will
get rid of your expenses here, and I will help you with the rest — for
the present, anyhow. You can get a start again. It is too bad about
these children of yours. I will take care of the boy as soon as he is
old enough. As for Berenice» — he used her name softly —»if she
can stay in her school until she is nineteen or twenty the chances
are that she will make social connections which will save her nicely.
The thing for you to do is to avoid meeting any of this old crowd out
here in the future if you can. It might be advisable to take her abroad
for a time after she leaves school».
«Yes, if I just could», sighed Mrs. Carter, rather lamely.
«Well, do what I suggest now, and we will see», observed Cowperwood. «It would be a pity if your two children were to have their
lives ruined by such an accident as this».
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