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THE TITAN
depends on your manner than on anything else. You’re much too
upset. That won’t do at all; you’ll tell the whole story that way».
At the same time he privately regarded this incident as a fi ne
windfall of chance — in all likelihood the one thing which would
serve to scare the Lieutenant away. Outwardly, however, he demanded effrontery, assumption; and Mrs. Carter was somewhat cheered,
but when she was alone she cried. Berenice, coming upon her accidentally and fi nding her eyes wet, exclaimed:
«Oh, mother, please don’t be foolish. How can you act this way?
We had better go up in the country and rest a little while if you are
so unstrung».
Mrs. Carter protested that it was merely nervous reaction, but to
Berenice it seemed that where there was so much smoke there must
be some fi re.
Her manner in the aftermath toward Braxmar was gracious, but
remote. He called the next day to say how sorry he was, and to ask
her to a new diversion. She was sweet, but distant. In so far as she
was concerned it was plain that the Beales Chadsey incident was
closed, but she did not accept his invitation.
«Mother and I are planning to go to the country for a few days»,
she observed, genially. «I can’t say just when we shall return, but if
you are still here we shall meet, no doubt. You must be sure and come
to see us». She turned to an east court-window, where the morning
sun was gleaming on some fl owers in a window-box, and began to
pinch off a dead leaf here and there.
Braxmar, full of the tradition of American romance, captivated by her vibrant charm, her poise and superiority under the circumstances, her obvious readiness to dismiss him, was overcome, as
the human mind frequently is, by a riddle of the spirit, a chemical
reaction as mysterious to its victim as to one who is its witness. Stepping forward with a motion that was at once gallant, reverent, eager,
unconscious, he exclaimed:
«Berenice! Miss Fleming! Please don’t send me away like this.
Don’t leave me. It isn’t anything I have done, is it? I am mad about
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THEODORE DREISER
you. I can’t bear to think that anything that has happened could
make any difference between you and me. I haven’t had the courage
to tell you before, but I want to tell you now. I have been in love with
you from the very fi rst night I saw you. You are such a wonderful
girl! I don’t feel that I deserve you, but I love you. I love you with all
the honor and force in me. I admire and respect you. Whatever may
or may not be true, it is all one and the same to me. Be my wife, will
you? Marry me, please! Oh, I’m not fi t to be the lacer of your shoes,
but I have position and I’ll make a name for myself, I hope. Oh, Berenice!» He extended his arms in a dramatic fashion, not outward,
but downward, stiff and straight, and declared: «I don’t know what
I shall do without you. Is there no hope for me at all?»
An artist in all the graces of sex — histrionic, plastic, many-faceted — Berenice debated for the fraction of a minute what she should
do and say. She did not love the Lieutenant as he loved her by any
means, and somehow this discovery concerning her mother shamed
her pride, suggesting an obligation to save herself in one form or another, which she resented bitterly. She was sorry for his tactless proposal at this time, although she knew well enough the innocence
and virtue of the emotion from which it sprung.
«Really, Mr. Braxmar», she replied, turning on him with solemn
eyes, «you mustn’t ask me to decide that now. I know how you feel.
I’m afraid, though, that I may have been a little misleading in my
manner. I didn’t mean to be. I’m quite sure you’d better forget your
interest in me for the present anyhow. I could only make up my
mind in one way if you should insist. I should have to ask you to
forget me entirely. I wonder if you can see how I feel — how it hurts
me to say this?»
She paused, perfectly poised, yet quite moved really, as charming
a fi gure as one would have wished to see — part Greek, part Oriental — contemplative, calculating.
In that moment, for the fi rst time, Braxmar realized that he was
talking to some one whom he could not comprehend really. She was
strangely self-contained, enigmatic, more beautiful perhaps because
472
THE TITAN
more remote than he had ever seen her before. In a strange fl ash this
young American saw the isles of Greece, Cytherea, the lost Atlantis,
Cyprus, and its Paphian shrine. His eyes burned with a strange, comprehending luster; his color, at fi rst high, went pale.
«I can’t believe you don’t care for me at all, Miss Berenice», he
went on, quite strainedly. «I felt you did care about me. But here», he
added, all at once, with a real, if summoned, military force, «I won’t
bother you. You do understand me. You know how I feel. I won’t
change. Can’t we be friends, anyhow?»
He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling now that she was
putting an end to what might have been an idyllic romance.
«Of course we can», she said. «I hope I shall see you again soon».
After he was gone she walked into the adjoining room and sat
down in a wicker chair, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in her hands. What a denouement to a thing so innocent, so charming! And now he was gone. She would not see him
any more, would not want to see him — not much, anyhow. Life had
sad, even ugly facts. Oh yes, yes, and she was beginning to perceive
them clearly.
Some two days later, when Berenice had brooded and brooded
until she could endure it no longer, she fi nally went to Mrs. Carter
and said: «Mother, why don’t you tell me all about this Louisville
matter so that I may really know? I can see something is worrying you. Can’t you trust me? I am no longer a child by any means,
and I am your daughter. It may help me to straighten things out, to
know what to do».
Mrs. Carter, who had always played a game of lofty though loving motherhood, was greatly taken aback by this courageous attitude. She fl ushed and chilled a little; then decided to lie.
«I tell you there was nothing at all», she declared, nervously and
pettishly. «It is all an awful mistake. I wish that dreadful man could
be punished severely for what he said to me. To be outraged and
insulted this way before my own child!»
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THEODORE DREISER
«Mother», questioned Berenice, fi xing her with those cool, blue
eyes, «why don’t you tell me all about Louisville? You and I shouldn’t
have things between us. Maybe I can help you».
All at once Mrs. Carter, realizing that her daughter was no
longer a child nor a mere social butterfl y, but a woman superior,
cool, sympathetic, with intuitions much deeper than her own, sank
into a heavily fl owered wing-chair behind her, and, seeking a small
pocket-handkerchief with one hand, placed the other over her eyes
and began to cry.
«I was so driven, Bevy, I didn’t know which way to turn. Colonel
Gillis suggested it. I wanted to keep you and Rolfe in school and
give you a chance. It isn’t true — anything that horrible man said.
It wasn’t anything like what he suggested. Colonel Gillis and several
others wanted me to rent them bachelor quarters, and that’s the way
it all came about. It wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t help myself, Bevy».
«And what about Mr. Cowperwood?» inquired Berenice curiously. She had begun of late to think a great deal about Cowperwood.
He was so cool, deep, dynamic, in a way resourceful, like herself.
«There’s nothing about him», replied Mrs. Carter, looking up defensively. Of all her men friends she best liked Cowperwood. He had
never advised her to evil ways or used her house as a convenience to
himself alone. «He never did anything but help me out. He advised
me to give up my house in Louisville and come East and devote myself to looking after you and Rolfe. He offered to help me until you
two should be able to help yourselves, and so I came. Oh, if I had
only not been so foolish — so afraid of life! But your father and Mr.
Carter just ran through everything».
She heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh.
«Then we really haven’t anything at all, have we, mother —
property or anything else?»
Mrs. Carter shook her head, meaning no.
«And the money we have been spending is Mr. Cowperwood’s?»
«Yes».
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THE TITAN
Berenice paused and looked out the window over the wide
stretch of park which it commanded. Framed in it like a picture were
a small lake, a hill of trees, with a Japanese pagoda effect in the foreground. Over the hill were the yellow towering walls of a great
hotel in Central Park West. In the street below could be heard
the jingle of street-cars. On a road in the park could be seen a moving line of pleasure vehicles — society taking an airing in the chill
November afternoon.
«Poverty, ostracism», she thought. And should she marry rich?
Of course, if she could. And whom should she marry? The Lieutenant? Never. He was really not masterful enough mentally, and he
had witnessed her discomfi ture. And who, then? Oh, the long line of
sillies, light-weights, rakes, ne’er-do-wells, who, combined with sober, prosperous, conventional, muddle-headed oofs, constituted society. Here and there, at far jumps, was a real man, but would he be
interested in her if he knew the whole truth about her?
«Have you broken with Mr. Braxmar?» asked her mother, curiously, nervously, hopefully, hopelessly.
«I haven’t seen him since», replied Berenice, lying conservatively. «I don’t know whether I shall or not. I want to think». She arose.
«But don’t you mind, mother. Only I wish we had some other way of
living besides being dependent on Mr. Cowperwood».
She walked into her boudoir, and before her mirror began to
dress for a dinner to which she had been invited. So it was Cowperwood’s money that had been sustaining them all during the last
few years; and she had been so liberal with his means — so proud,
vain, boastful, superior. And he had only fi xed her with those inquiring, examining eyes. Why? But she did not need to ask herself
why. She knew now. What a game he had been playing, and what
a silly she had been not to see it. Did her mother in any way suspect? She doubted it. This queer, paradoxical, impossible world!
The eyes of Cowperwood burned at her as she thought.
CHAPTER LIII
A DECLARATION OF LOVE
For the fi rst time in her life Berenice now pondered seriously
what she could do. She thought of marriage, but decided that instead of sending for Braxmar or taking up some sickening chase of
an individual even less satisfactory it might be advisable to announce in a simple social way to her friends that her mother had
lost her money, and that she herself was now compelled to take up
some form of employment — the teaching of dancing, perhaps, or
the practice of it professionally. She suggested this calmly to her
mother one day. Mrs. Carter, who had been long a parasite really,
without any constructive monetary notions of real import, was terrifi ed. To think that she and «Bevy», her wonderful daughter, and by
reaction her son, should come to anything so humdrum and prosaic as ordinary struggling life, and after all her dreams. She sighed
and cried in secret, writing Cowperwood a cautious explanation and
asking him to see her privately in New York when he returned.
«Don’t you think we had best go on a little while longer?» she
suggested to Berenice. «It just wrings my heart to think that you,
with your qualifi cations, should have to stoop to giving dancinglessons. We had better do almost anything for a while yet. You can
make a suitable marriage, and then everything will be all right for
you. It doesn’t matter about me. I can live. But you —» Mrs. Carter’s
strained eyes indicated the misery she felt. Berenice was moved by
this affection for her, which she knew to be genuine; but what a fool
her mother had been, what a weak reed, indeed, she was to lean upon!
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THE TITAN
Cowperwood, when he conferred with Mrs. Carter, insisted that Berenice was quixotic, nervously awry, to wish to modify her state, to
eschew society and invalidate her wondrous charm by any sort of
professional life. By prearrangement with Mrs. Carter he hurried to
Pocono at a time when he knew that Berenice was there alone. Ever
since the Beales Chadsey incident she had been evading him.
When he arrived, as he did about one in the afternoon of a crisp
January day, there was snow on the ground, and the surrounding
landscape was bathed in a crystalline light that gave back to the eye
endless facets of luster — jewel beams that cut space with a fl ash.
The automobile had been introduced by now, and he rode in a touring-car of eighty horse-power that gave back from its dark-brown,
varnished surface a lacquered light. In a great fur coat and cap of
round, black lamb’s-wool he arrived at the door.
«Well, Bevy», he exclaimed, pretending not to know of Mrs.
Carter’s absence, «how are you? How’s your mother? Is she in?»
Berenice fi xed him with her cool, steady-gazing eyes, as frank
and incisive as they were daring, and smiled him an equivocal welcome. She wore a blue denim painter’s apron, and a palette of many
colors glistened under her thumb. She was painting and thinking —
thinking being her special occupation these days, and her thoughts
had been of Braxmar, Cowperwood, Kilmer Duelma, a half-dozen
others, as well as of the stage, dancing, painting. Her life was in
a melting-pot, as it were, before her; again it was like a disarranged
puzzle, the pieces of which might be fi tted together into some interesting picture if she could but endure.
«Do come in», she said. «It’s cold, isn’t it? Well, there’s a nice fi re
here for you. No, mother isn’t here. She went down to New York.
I should think you might have found her at the apartment. Are
you in New York for long?»
She was gay, cheerful, genial, but remote. Cowperwood felt
the protective gap that lay between him and her. It had always
been there. He felt that, even though she might understand and
like him, yet there was something — convention, ambition, or some
477
THEODORE DREISER
defi ciency on his part — that was keeping her from him, keeping
her eternally distant.
He looked about the room, at the picture she was attempting
(a snow-scape, of a view down a slope), at the view itself which he
contemplated from the window, at some dancing sketches she had
recently executed and hung on the wall for the time being — lovely,
short tunic motives. He looked at her in her interesting and becoming painter’s apron. «Well, Berenice», he said, «always the artist fi rst. It is your world. You will never escape it. These things are
beautiful». He waved an ungloved hand in the direction of a choric
line. «It wasn’t your mother I came to see, anyhow. It is you. I had
such a curious letter from her. She tells me you want to give up society and take to teaching or something of that sort. I came because
I wanted to talk to you about that. Don’t you think you are acting
rather hastily?»
He spoke now as though there were some reason entirely disassociated from himself that was impelling him to this interest in her.
Berenice, brush in hand, standing by her picture, gave him
a look that was cool, curious, defi ant, equivocal.
«No, I don’t think so», she replied, quietly. «You know how
things have been, so I may speak quite frankly. I know that mother’s
intentions were always of the best».
Her mouth moved with the faintest touch of sadness. «Her heart,
I am afraid, is better than her head. As for your motives, I am satisfi ed to believe that they have been of the best also. I know that they
have been, in fact — it would be ungenerous of me to suggest anything else». (Cowperwood’s fi xed eyes, it seemed to her, had moved
somewhere in their deepest depths.) «Yet I don’t feel we can go on as
we have been doing. We have no money of our own. Why shouldn’t
I do something? What else can I really do?»
She paused, and Cowperwood gazed at her, quite still. In her
informal, bunchy painter’s apron, and with her blue eyes looking
out at him from beneath her loose red hair, it seemed to him she
was the most perfect thing he had ever known. Such a keen, fi xed,
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THE TITAN
enthroned mind. She was so capable, so splendid, and, like his own,
her eyes were unafraid. Her spiritual equipoise was undisturbed.
«Berenice», he said, quietly, «let me tell you something. You did
me the honor just now to speak of my motives ingiving your mother
money as of the best. They were — from my own point of view — the
best I have ever known. I will not say what I thought they were in
the beginning. I know what they were now. I am going to speak quite
frankly with you, if you will let me, as long as we are here together.
I don’t know whether you know this or not, but when I fi rst met
your mother I only knew by chance that she had a daughter, and
it was of no particular interest to me then. I went to her house as
the guest of a fi nancial friend of mine who admired her greatly.
From the fi rst I myself admired her, because I found her to be a lady
to the manner born — she was interesting. One day I happened to
see a photograph of you in her home, and before I could mention it
she put it away. Perhaps you recall the one. It is in profi le — taken
when you were about sixteen».
«Yes, I remember», replied Berenice, simply — as quietly as
though she were hearing a confession.
«Well, that picture interested me intensely. I inquired about
you, and learned all I could. After that I saw another picture of you,
enlarged, in a Louisville photographer’s window. I bought it. It is in
my offi ce now — my private offi ce — in Chicago. You are standing by a mantelpiece».
«I remember», replied Berenice, moved, but uncertain.
«Let me tell you a little something about my life, will you?
It won’t take long. I was born in Philadelphia. My family had always
belonged there. I have been in the banking and street-railway business all my life. My fi rst wife was a Presbyterian girl, religious, conventional. She was older than I by six or seven years. I was happy for
a while — fi ve or six years. We had two children — both still living.
Then I met my present wife. She was younger than myself — at least
ten years, and very good-looking. She was in some respects more
intelligent than my fi rst wife — at least less conventional, more
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THEODORE DREISER
generous, I thought. I fell in love with her, and when I eventually
left Philadelphia I got a divorce and married her. I was greatly in
love with her at the time. I thought she was an ideal mate for me,
and I still think she has many qualities which make her attractive.
But my own ideals in regard to women have all the time been slowly changing. I have come to see, through various experiments, that
she is not the ideal woman for me at all. She does not understand
me. I don’t pretend to understand myself, but it has occurred to me
that there might be a woman somewhere who would understand
me better than I understand myself, who would see the things that
I don’t see about myself, and would like me, anyhow. I might as well
tell you that I have been a lover of women always. There is just one
ideal thing in this world to me, and that is the woman that I would
like to have».
«I should think it would make it rather diffi cult for any one
woman to discover just which woman you would like to have?»
smiled Berenice, whimsically. Cowperwood was unabashed.
«It would, I presume, unless she should chance to be the very
one woman I am talking about», he replied, impressively.
«I should think she would have her work cut out for her under any circumstances», added Berenice, lightly, but with a touch of
sympathy in her voice.
«I am making a confession», replied Cowperwood, seriously and
a little heavily. «I am not apologizing for myself. The women I have
known would make ideal wives for some men, but not for me. Life
has taught me that much. It has changed me».
«And do you think the process has stopped by any means?» she
replied, quaintly, with that air of superior banter which puzzled,
fascinated, defi ed him.
«No, I will not say that. My ideal has become fi xed, though, apparently. I have had it for a number of years now. It spoils other
matters for me. There is such a thing as an ideal. We do have a polestar in physics».
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