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THE TITAN
Mrs. Carter, realizing that here, in the shape of Cowperwood, if
he chose to be generous, was the open way out of a lowering dungeon of misery, was inclined to give vent to a bit of grateful emotion, but, fi nding him subtly remote, restrained herself. His manner,
while warmly generous at times, was also easily distant, except when
he wished it to be otherwise. Just now he was thinking of the high
soul of Berenice Fleming and of its possible value to him.
CHAPTER XLI
THE DAUGHTER OF MRS.
FLEMING
Berenice Fleming, at the time Cowperwood fi rst encountered
her mother, was an inmate of the Misses Brewster’s School for Girls,
then on Riverside Drive, New York, and one of the most exclusive
establishments of its kind in America. The social prestige and connections of the Heddens, Flemings, and Carters were suffi cient to
gain her this introduction, though the social fortunes of her mother
were already at this time on the down grade. A tall girl, delicately
haggard, as he had imagined her, with reddish-bronze hair of a tinge
but distantly allied to that of Aileen’s, she was unlike any woman
Cowperwood had ever known. Even at seventeen she stood up and
out with an inexplicable superiority which brought her the feverish
and exotic attention of lesser personalities whose emotional animality found an outlet in swinging a censer at her shrine.
A strange maiden, decidedly! Even at this age, when she was, as
one might suppose, a mere slip of a girl, she was deeply conscious of
herself, her sex, her signifi cance, her possible social import. Armed
with a fair skin, a few freckles, an almost too high color at times,
strange, deep, night-blue, cat-like eyes, a long nose, a rather pleasant mouth, perfect teeth, and a really good chin, she moved always
with a feline grace that was careless, superior, sinuous, and yet
the acme of harmony and a rhythmic fl ow of lines. One of her messhall tricks, when unobserved by her instructors, was to walk with
six plates and a water-pitcher all gracefully poised on the top of her
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THE TITAN
head after the fashion of the Asiatic and the African, her hips moving, her shoulders, neck, and head still. Girls begged weeks on end
to have her repeat this «stunt», as they called it. Another was to put
her arms behind her and with a rush imitate the Winged Victory,
a copy of which graced the library hall.
«You know», one little rosy-cheeked satellite used to urge on
her, adoringly, «she must have been like you. Her head must have
been like yours. You are lovely when you do it».
For answer Berenice’s deep, almost black-blue eyes turned on
her admirer with solemn unfl attered consideration. She awed always by the something that she did not say.
The school, for all the noble dames who presided over it —
solemn, inexperienced owl-like conventionalists who insisted on
the last tittle and jot of order and procedure — was a joke to Berenice. She recognized the value of its social import, but even at
fi fteen and sixteen she was superior to it. She was superior to her
superiors and to the specimens of maidenhood — supposed to be
perfect socially — who gathered about to hear her talk, to hear her
sing, declaim, or imitate. She was deeply, dramatically, urgently conscious of the value of her personality in itself, not as connected with
any inherited social standing, but of its innate worth, and of the artistry and wonder of her body. One of her chief delights was to walk
alone in her room — sometimes at night, the lamp out, the moon
perhaps faintly illuminating her chamber — and to pose and survey her body, and dance in some naive, graceful, airy Greek way
a dance that was singularly free from sex consciousness — and yet
was it? She was conscious of her body — of every inch of it — under the ivory-white clothes which she frequently wore. Once she
wrote in a secret diary which she maintained — another art impulse
or an affectation, as you will: «My skin is so wonderful. It tingles so
with rich life. I love it and my strong muscles underneath. I love my
hands and my hair and my eyes. My hands are long and thin and
delicate; my eyes are a dark, deep blue; my hair is a brown, rusty red,
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THEODORE DREISER
thick and sleepy. My long, fi rm, untired limbs can dance all night.
Oh, I love life! I love life!»
You would not have called Berenice Fleming sensuous — though
she was — because she was self-controlled. Her eyes lied to you.
They lied to all the world. They looked you through and through
with a calm savoir faire, a mocking defi ance, which said with a faint
curl of the lips, barely suggested to help them out, «You cannot read
me, you cannot read me». She put her head to one side, smiled, lied
(by implication), assumed that there was nothing. And there was
nothing, as yet. Yet there was something, too — her inmost convictions, and these she took good care to conceal. The world — how
little it should ever, ever know! How little it ever could know truly!
The fi rst time Cowperwood encountered this Circe daughter of
so unfortunate a mother was on the occasion of a trip to New York,
the second spring following his introduction to Mrs. Carter in Louisville. Berenice was taking some part in the closing exercises of
the Brewster School, and Mrs. Carter, with Cowperwood for an escort, decided to go East. Cowperwood having located himself at
the Netherlands, and Mrs. Carter at the much humbler Grenoble,
they journeyed together to visit this paragon whose picture he had
had hanging in his rooms in Chicago for months past. When they
were introduced into the somewhat somber reception parlor of
the Brewster School, Berenice came slipping in after a few moments,
a noiseless fi gure of a girl, tall and slim, and deliciously sinuous.
Cowperwood saw at fi rst glance that she fulfi lled all the promise of her picture, and was delighted. She had, he thought, a strange,
shrewd, intelligent smile, which, however, was girlish and friendly.
Without so much as a glance in his direction she came forward, extending her arms and hands in an inimitable histrionic manner,
and exclaimed, with a practised and yet natural infl ection: «Mother,
dear! So here you are really! You know, I’ve been thinking of you all
morning. I wasn’t sure whether you would come to-day, you change
about so. I think I even dreamed of you last night».
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THE TITAN
Her skirts, still worn just below the shoe-tops, had the richness of scraping silk then fashionable. She was also guilty of using
a faint perfume of some kind.
Cowperwood could see that Mrs. Carter, despite a certain nervousness due to the girl’s superior individuality and his presence,
was very proud of her. Berenice, he also saw quickly, was measuring
him out of the tail of her eye — a single sweeping glance which she
vouchsafed from beneath her long lashes suffi cing; but she gathered quite accurately the totality of Cowperwood’s age, force, grace,
wealth, and worldly ability. Without hesitation she classed him as
a man of power in some fi eld, possibly fi nance, one of the numerous
able men whom her mother seemed to know. She always wondered
about her mother. His large gray eyes, that searched her with lightning accuracy, appealed to her as pleasant, able eyes. She knew on
the instant, young as she was, that he liked women, and that probably he would think her charming; but as for giving him additional
attention it was outside her code. She preferred to be interested in
her dear mother exclusively.
«Berenice», observed Mrs. Carter, airily, «let me introduce Mr.
Cowperwood».
Berenice turned, and for the fraction of a second leveled a frank
and yet condescending glance from wells of what Cowperwood considered to be indigo blue.
«Your mother has spoken of you from time to time», he said,
pleasantly.
She withdrew a cool, thin hand as limp and soft as wax, and
turned to her mother again without comment, and yet without
the least embarrassment. Cowperwood seemed in no way important to her.
«What would you say, dear», pursued Mrs. Carter, after a brief
exchange of commonplaces, «if I were to spend next winter in
New York?»
«It would be charming if I could live at home. I’m sick of this
silly boarding-school».
365
THEODORE DREISER
«Why, Berenice! I thought you liked it».
«I hate it, but only because it’s so dull. The girls here are so silly».
Mrs. Carter lifted her eyebrows as much as to say to her escort,
«Now what do you think?» Cowperwood stood solemnly by. It was
not for him to make a suggestion at present. He could see that for
some reason — probably because of her disordered life — Mrs.
Carter was playing a game of manners with her daughter; she maintained always a lofty, romantic air. With Berenice it was natural —
the expression of a vain, self-conscious, superior disposition.
«A rather charming garden here», he observed, lifting a curtain
and looking out into a blooming plot.
«Yes, the fl owers are nice», commented Berenice.
«Wait; I’ll get some for you. It’s against the rules, but they can’t
do more than send me away, and that’s what I want».
«Berenice! Come back here!»
It was Mrs. Carter calling.
The daughter was gone in a fl ing of graceful lines and fl ounces. «Now what do you make of her?» asked Mrs. Carter, turning to
her friend.
«Youth, individuality, energy — a hundred things. I see nothing
wrong with her».
«If I could only see to it that she had her opportunities unspoiled».
Already Berenice was returning, a subject for an artist in almost
studied lines. Her arms were full of sweet-peas and roses which she
had ruthlessly gathered.
«You wilful girl!» scolded her mother, indulgently. «I shall have
to go and explain to your superiors. Whatever shall I do with her,
Mr. Cowperwood?»
«Load her with daisy chains and transport her to Cytherea»,
commented Cowperwood, who had once visited this romantic isle,
and therefore knew its signifi cance.
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THE TITAN
Berenice paused. «What a pretty speech that is!» she exclaimed.
«I have a notion to give you a special fl ower for that. I will, too».
She presented him with a rose.
For a girl who had slipped in shy and still, Cowperwood commented, her mood had certainly changed. Still, this was the privilege of the born actress, to change. And as he viewed Berenice Fleming now he felt her to be such — a born actress, lissome, subtle, wise,
indifferent, superior, taking the world as she found it and expecting it to obey — to sit up like a pet dog and be told to beg. What
a charming character! What a pity it should not be allowed to bloom
undisturbed in its make-believe garden! What a pity, indeed!
CHAPTER XLII
F. A. COWPERWOOD,
GUARDIAN
It was some time after this fi rst encounter before Cowperwood
saw Berenice again, and then only for a few days in that region of
the Pocono Mountains where Mrs. Carter had her summer home.
It was an idyllic spot on a mountainside, some three miles from
Stroudsburg, among a peculiar juxtaposition of hills which, from
the comfortable recesses of a front veranda, had the appearance, as
Mrs. Carter was fond of explaining, of elephants and camels parading in the distance. The humps of the hills — some of them as high
as eighteen hundred feet — rose stately and green. Below, quite visible for a mile or more, moved the dusty, white road descending to
Stroudsburg. Out of her Louisville earnings Mrs. Carter had managed to employ, for the several summer seasons she had been here,
a gardener, who kept the sloping front lawn in seasonable fl owers.
There was a trig two-wheeled trap with a smart horse and harness,
and both Rolfe and Berenice were possessed of the latest novelty of
the day — low-wheeled bicycles, which had just then superseded
the old, high-wheel variety. For Berenice, also, was a music-rack
full of classic music and song collections, a piano, a shelf of favorite
books, painting-materials, various athletic implements, and several
types of Greek dancing-tunics which she had designed herself, including sandals and fi llet for her hair. She was an idle, refl ective,
erotic person dreaming strange dreams of a near and yet far-off social supremacy, at other times busying herself with such social op-
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THE TITAN
portunities as came to her. A more safely calculating and yet wilful
girl than Berenice Fleming would have been hard to fi nd. By some
trick of mental adjustment she had gained a clear prevision of how
necessary it was to select the right socially, and to conceal her true
motives and feelings; and yet she was by no means a snob, mentally, nor utterly calculating. Certain things in her own and in her
mother’s life troubled her — quarrels in her early days, from her
seventh to her eleventh year, between her mother and her stepfather, Mr. Carter; the latter’s drunkenness verging upon delirium
tremens at times; movings from one place to another — all sorts of
sordid and depressing happenings. Berenice had been an impressionable child. Some things had gripped her memory mightily —
once, for instance, when she had seen her stepfather, in the presence of her governess, kick a table over, and, seizing the toppling
lamp with demoniac skill, hurl it through a window. She, herself,
had been tossed by him in one of these tantrums, when, in answer
to the cries of terror of those about her, he had shouted: «Let her
fall! It won’t hurt the little devil to break a few bones». This was
her keenest memory of her stepfather, and it rather softened her
judgment of her mother, made her sympathetic with her when she
was inclined to be critical. Of her own father she only knew that he
had divorced her mother — why, she could not say. She liked her
mother on many counts, though she could not feel that she actually
loved her — Mrs. Carter was too fatuous at times, and at other times
too restrained. This house at Pocono, or Forest Edge, as Mrs. Carter
had named it, was conducted after a peculiar fashion. From June to
October only it was open, Mrs. Carter, in the past, having returned
to Louisville at that time, while Berenice and Rolfe went back to
their respective schools. Rolfe was a cheerful, pleasant-mannered
youth, well bred, genial, and courteous, but not very brilliant intellectually. Cowperwood’s judgment of him the fi rst time he saw
him was that under ordinary circumstances he would make a good
confi dential clerk, possibly in a bank. Berenice, on the other hand,
the child of the fi rst husband, was a creature of an exotic mind and
369
THEODORE DREISER
an opalescent heart. After his fi rst contact with her in the receptionroom of the Brewster School Cowperwood was deeply conscious of
the import of this budding character. He was by now so familiar
with types and kinds of women that an exceptional type — quite
like an exceptional horse to a judge of horse-fl esh — stood out in his
mind with singular vividness. Quite as in some great racing-stable
an ambitious horseman might imagine that he detected in some
likely fi lly the signs and lineaments of the future winner of a Derby,
so in Berenice Fleming, in the quiet precincts of the Brewster School,
Cowperwood previsioned the central fi gure of a Newport lawn fete
or a London drawing-room. Why? She had the air, the grace, the lineage, the blood — that was why; and on that score she appealed to
him intensely, quite as no other woman before had ever done.
It was on the lawn of Forest Edge that Cowperwood now saw
Berenice. The latter had had the gardener set up a tall pole, to
which was attached a tennis-ball by a cord, and she and Rolfe were
hard at work on a game of tether-ball. Cowperwood, after a telegram to Mrs. Carter, had been met at the station in Pocono by
her and rapidly driven out to the house. The green hills pleased
him, the up-winding, yellow road, the silver-gray cottage with
the brown-shingle roof in the distance. It was three in the afternoon, and bright for a sinking sun.
«There they are now», observed Mrs. Carter, cheerful and smiling, as they came out from under a low ledge that skirted the road
a little way from the cottage. Berenice, executing a tripping, running step to one side, was striking the tethered ball with her racquet.
«They are hard at it, as usual. Two such romps!»
She surveyed them with pleased motherly interest, which Cowperwood considered did her much credit. He was thinking that it
would be too bad if her hopes for her children should not be realized. Yet possibly they might not be. Life was very grim. How strange,
he thought, was this type of woman — at once a sympathetic, affectionate mother and a panderer to the vices of men. How strange that
she should have these children at all. Berenice had on a white skirt,
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