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THE TITAN
As he said this Cowperwood realized that for him he was making a very remarkable confession. He had come here primarily to
magnetize her and control her judgment. As a matter of fact, it was
almost the other way about. She was almost dominating him. Lithe,
slender, resourceful, histrionic, she was standing before him making
him explain himself, only he did not see her so much in that light
as in the way of a large, kindly, mothering intelligence which could
see, feel, and understand. She would know how it was, he felt sure.
He could make himself understood if he tried. Whatever he was or
had been, she would not take a petty view. She could not. Her answers thus far guaranteed as much.
«Yes», she replied, «we do have a pole-star, but you do not
seem able to fi nd it. Do you expect to fi nd your ideal in any living
woman?»
«I have found it», he answered, wondering at the ingenuity and
complexity of her mind — and of his own, for that matter — of all
mind indeed. Deep below deep it lay, staggering him at times by its
fathomless reaches. «I hope you will take seriously what I am going to say, for it will explain so much. When I began to be interested in your picture I was so because it coincided with the ideal
I had in mind — the thing that you think changes swiftly. That was
nearly seven years ago. Since then it has never changed. When I saw
you at your school on Riverside Drive I was fully convinced. Although I have said nothing, I have remained so. Perhaps you think
I had no right to any such feelings. Most people would agree with
you. I had them and do have them just the same, and it explains my
relation to your mother. When she came to me once in Louisville
and told me of her diffi culties I was glad to help her for your sake.
That has been my reason ever since, although she does not know
that. In some respects, Berenice, your mother is a little dull. All this
while I have been in love with you — intensely so. As you stand
there now you seem to me amazingly beautiful — the ideal I have
been telling you about. Don’t be disturbed; I sha’n’t press any attentions on you». (Berenice had moved very slightly. She was concerned
481
THEODORE DREISER
as much for him as for herself. His power was so wide, his power so
great. She could not help taking him seriously when he was so serious.) «I have done whatever I have done in connection with you
and your mother because I have been in love with you and because
I wanted you to become the splendid thing I thought you ought to
become. You have not known it, but you are the cause of my building the house on Fifth Avenue — the principal reason. I wanted to
build something worthy of you. A dream? Certainly. Everything we
do seems to have something of that quality. Its beauty, if there is any,
is due to you. I made it beautiful thinking of you».
He paused, and Berenice gave no sign. Her fi rst impulse had
been to object, but her vanity, her love of art, her love of power — all
were touched. At the same time she was curious now as to whether
he had merely expected to take her as his mistress or to wait until he
could honor her as his wife.
«I suppose you are wondering whether I ever expected to marry
you or not», he went on, getting the thought out of her mind. «I am
no different from many men in that respect, Berenice. I will be frank.
I wanted you in any way that I could get you. I was living in the hope
all along that you would fall in love with me — as I had with you.
I hated Braxmar here, not long ago, when he appeared on the scene,
but I could never have thought of interfering. I was quite prepared
to give you up. I have envied every man I have ever seen with you —
young and old. I have even envied your mother for being so close
to you when I could not be. At the same time I have wanted you
to have everything that would help you in any way. I did not want
to interfere with you in case you found some one whom you could
truly love if I knew that you could not love me. There is the whole
story outside of anything you may know. But it is not because of this
that I came to-day. Not to tell you this».
He paused, as if expecting her to say something, though she
made no comment beyond a questioning «Yes?»
«The thing that I have come to say is that I want you to go on as
you were before. Whatever you may think of me or of what I have
482
THE TITAN
just told you, I want you to believe that I am sincere and disinterested in what I am telling you now. My dream in connection with you is
not quite over. Chance might make me eligible if you should happen
to care. But I want you to go on and be happy, regardless of me. I have
dreamed, but I dare say it has been a mistake. Hold your head high —
you have a right to. Be a lady. Marry any one you really love. I will see
that you have a suitable marriage portion. I love you, Berenice, but
I will make it a fatherly affection from now on. When I die I will put
you in my will. But go on now in the spirit you were going before.
I really can’t be happy unless I think you are going to be».
He paused, still looking at her, believing for the time being what
he said. If he should die she would fi nd herself in his will. If she were
to go on and socialize and seek she might fi nd some one to love, but
also she might think of him more kindly before she did so. What
would be the cost of her as a ward compared to his satisfaction and
delight in having her at least friendly and sympathetic and being in
her good graces and confi dence?
Berenice, who had always been more or less interested in him,
temperamentally biased, indeed, in his direction because of his effi ciency, simplicity, directness, and force, was especially touched in
this instance by his utter frankness and generosity. She might question his temperamental control over his own sincerity in the future,
but she could scarcely question that at present he was sincere. Moreover, his long period of secret love and admiration, the thought of
so powerful a man dreaming of her in this fashion, was so fl attering. It soothed her troubled vanity and shame in what had gone
before. His straightforward confession had a kind of nobility which
was electric, moving. She looked at him as he stood there, a little
gray about the temples — the most appealing ornament of some
men to some women — and for the life of her she could not help
being moved by a kind of tenderness, sympathy, mothering affection. Obviously he did need the woman his attitude seemed to show
that he needed, some woman of culture, spirit, taste, amorousness;
or, at least, he was entitled to dream of her. As he stood before her
483
THEODORE DREISER
he seemed a kind of superman, and yet also a bad boy — handsome,
powerful, hopeful, not so very much older than herself now, impelled by some blazing internal force which harried him on and on.
How much did he really care for her? How much could he? How
much could he care for any one? Yet see all he had done to interest her. What did that mean? To say all this? To do all this? Outside
was his car brown and radiant in the snow. He was the great Frank
Algernon Cowperwood, of Chicago, and he was pleading with her,
a mere chit of a girl, to be kind to him, not to put him out of her life
entirely. It touched her intellect, her pride, her fancy.
Aloud she said: «I like you better now. I really believe in you.
I never did, quite, before. Not that I think I ought to let you spend
your money on me or mother — I don’t. But I admire you. You make
me. I understand how it is, I think. I know what your ambitions are.
I have always felt that I did, in part. But you mustn’t talk to me any
more now. I want to think. I want to think over what you have said.
I don’t know whether I can bring myself to it or not». (She noticed
that his eyes seemed to move somehow in their deepest depths
again.) «But we won’t talk about it any more at present».
«But, Berenice», he added, with a real plea in his voice, «I wonder if you do understand. I have been so lonely — I am —»
«Yes, I do», she replied, holding out her hand. «We are going to
be friends, whatever happens, from now on, because I really like you.
You mustn’t ask me to decide about the other, though, to-day. I can’t
do it. I don’t want to. I don’t care to».
«Not when I would so gladly give you everything — when I need
it so little?»
«Not until I think it out for myself. I don’t think so, though. No»,
she replied, with an air. «There, Mr. Guardian Father», she laughed,
pushing his hand away.
Cowperwood’s heart bounded. He would have given millions to
take her close in his arms. As it was he smiled appealingly.
484
THE TITAN
«Don’t you want to jump in and come to New York with
me? If your mother isn’t at the apartment you could stop at
the Netherland».
«No, not to-day. I expect to be in soon. I will let you know, or
mother will».
He bustled out and into the machine after a moment of parley,
waving to her over the purpling snow of the evening as his machine tore eastward, planning to make New York by dinner-time.
If he could just keep her in this friendly, sympathetic attitude. If he
only could!
CHAPTER LIV
WANTED — FIFTY-YEAR
FRANCHISES
Whatever his momentary satisfaction in her friendly acceptance of his confession, the uncertain attitude of Berenice left Cowperwood about where he was before. By a strange stroke of fate
Braxmar, his young rival, had been eliminated, and Berenice had
been made to see him, Cowperwood, in his true colors of love and of
service for her. Yet plainly she did not accept them at his own valuation. More than ever was he conscious of the fact that he had fallen in tow of an amazing individual, one who saw life from a distinct
and peculiar point of view and who was not to be bent to his will.
That fact more than anything else — for her grace and beauty merely emblazoned it — caused him to fall into a hopeless infatuation.
He said to himself over and over, «Well, I can live without her
if I must», but at this stage the mere thought was an actual stab in
his vitals. What, after all, was life, wealth, fame, if you couldn’t have
the woman you wanted — love, that indefi nable, unnamable coddling of the spirit which the strongest almost more than the weakest
crave? At last he saw clearly, as within a chalice-like nimbus, that
the ultimate end of fame, power, vigor was beauty, and that beauty
was a compound of the taste, the emotion, the innate culture, passion,
and dreams of a woman like Berenice Fleming. That was it: that was
IT. And beyond was nothing save crumbling age, darkness, silence.
In the mean time, owing to the preliminary activity and tact of
his agents and advisers, the Sunday newspapers were vying with
486
THE TITAN
one another in describing the wonders of his new house in New
York — its cost, the value of its ground, the wealthy citizens with
whom the Cowperwoods would now be neighbors. There were
double-column pictures of Aileen and Cowperwood, with articles
indicating them as prospective entertainers on a grand scale who
would unquestionably be received because of their tremendous
wealth. As a matter of fact, this was purely newspaper gossip and
speculation. While the general columns made news and capital of
his wealth, special society columns, which dealt with the ultra-fashionable, ignored him entirely. Already the machination of certain
Chicago social fi gures in distributing information as to his past was
discernible in the attitude of those clubs, organizations, and even
churches, membership in which constitutes a form of social passport
to better and higher earthly, if not spiritual, realms. His emissaries
were active enough, but soon found that their end was not to be
gained in a day. Many were waiting locally, anxious enough to get in,
and with social equipments which the Cowperwoods could scarcely
boast. After being blackballed by one or two exclusive clubs, seeing his application for a pew at St. Thomas’s quietly pigeon-holed
for the present, and his invitations declined by several multimillionaires whom he met in the course of commercial transactions, he
began to feel that his splendid home, aside from its fi nal purpose as
an art-museum, could be of little value.
At the same time Cowperwood’s fi nancial genius was constantly
being rewarded by many new phases of materiality chiefl y by an offensive and defensive alliance he was now able to engineer between
himself and the house of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. Seeing
the iron manner in which he had managed to wrest victory out of
defeat after the fi rst seriously contested election, these gentlemen
had experienced a change of heart and announced that they would
now gladly help fi nance any new enterprise which Cowperwood
might undertake. Among many other fi nanciers, they had heard of
his triumph in connection with the failure of American Match.
487
THEODORE DREISER
«Dot must be a right cleffer man, dot Cowperwood», Mr. Gotloeb told several of his partners, rubbing his hands and smiling.
«I shouldt like to meet him».
And so Cowperwood was manoeuvered into the giant banking
offi ce, where Mr. Gotloeb extended a genial hand.
«I hear much of Chicawkgo», he explained, in his semi-German,
semi-Hebraic dialect, «but almozd more uff you. Are you goink to
swallow up all de street-railwaiss unt elefated roats out dere?»
Cowperwood smiled his most ingenuous smile.
«Why? Would you like me to leave a few for you?»
«Not dot exzagly, but I might not mint sharink in some uff dem
wit you».
«You can join with me at any time, Mr. Gotloeb, as you must
know. The door is always very, very wide open for you».
«I musd look into dot some more. It loogs very promising to me.
I am gladt to meet you».
The great external element in Cowperwood’s fi nancial success —
and one which he himself had foreseen from the very beginning —
was the fact that Chicago was developing constantly. What had been
when he arrived a soggy, messy plain strewn with shanties, ragged
sidewalks, a higgledy-piggledy business heart, was now truly an astounding metropolis which had passed the million mark in population and which stretched proud and strong over the greater part of
Cook County. Where once had been a meager, makeshift fi nancial
section, with here and there only a splendid business building or
hotel or a public offi ce of some kind, there were now canon-like
streets lined with fi fteen and even eighteen story offi ce buildings,
from the upper stories of which, as from watch-towers, might be
surveyed the vast expanding regions of simple home life below. Farther out were districts of mansions, parks, pleasure resorts, great
worlds of train-yards and manufacturing areas. In the commercial
heart of this world Frank Algernon Cowperwood had truly become
a fi gure of giant signifi cance. How wonderful it is that men grow
until, like colossi, they bestride the world, or, like banyan-trees, they
488
THE TITAN
drop roots from every branch and are themselves a forest — a forest of intricate commercial life, of which a thousand material aspects
are the evidence. His street-railway properties were like a net — the
parasite Gold Thread — linked together as they were, and draining
two of the three important «sides» of the city.
In 1886, when he had fi rst secured a foothold, they had been
capitalized at between six and seven millions (every device for issuing a dollar on real property having been exhausted). To-day, under
his management, they were capitalized at between sixty and seventy
millions. The majority of the stock issued and sold was subject to a fi nancial device whereby twenty per cent. controlled eighty per cent.,
Cowperwood holding that twenty per cent. and borrowing money on
it as hypothecated collateral. In the case of the West Side corporation, a corporate issue of over thirty millions had been made, and
these stocks, owing to the tremendous carrying power of the roads
and the swelling traffi c night and morning of poor sheep who paid
their hard-earned nickels, had a market value which gave the road
an assured physical value of about three times the sum for which it
could have been built. The North Chicago company, which in 1886
had a physical value of little more than a million, could not now be
duplicated for less than seven millions, and was capitalized at nearly
fi fteen millions. The road was valued at over one hundred thousand
dollars more per mile than the sum for which it could actually have
been replaced. Pity the poor groveling hack at the bottom who has
not the brain-power either to understand or to control that which
his very presence and necessities create.
These tremendous holdings, paying from ten to twelve per
cent. on every hundred-dollar share, were in the control, if not in
the actual ownership, of Cowperwood. Millions in loans that did not
appear on the books of the companies he had converted into actual
cash, wherewith he had bought houses, lands, equipages, paintings,
government bonds of the purest gold value, thereby assuring himself to that extent of a fortune vaulted and locked, absolutely secure.
After much toiling and moiling on the part of his overworked le-
489
THEODORE DREISER
gal department he had secured a consolidation, under the title of
the Consolidated Traction Company of Illinois, of all outlying lines,
each having separate franchises and capitalized separately, yet operated by an amazing hocus-pocus of contracts and agreements in
single, harmonious union with all his other properties. The North
and West Chicago companies he now proposed to unite into a third
company to be called the Union Traction Company. By taking up
the ten and twelve per cent. issues of the old North and West companies and giving two for one of the new six-per-cent one-hundreddollar-share Union Traction stocks in their stead, he could satisfy
the current stockholders, who were apparently made somewhat
better off thereby, and still create and leave for himself a handsome margin of nearly eighty million dollars. With a renewal of
his franchises for twenty, fi fty, or one hundred years he would have
fastened on the city of Chicago the burden of yielding interest on
this somewhat fi ctitious value and would leave himself personally
worth in the neighborhood of one hundred millions.
This matter of extending his franchises was a most diffi cult and
intricate business, however. It involved overcoming or outwitting
a recent and very treacherous increase of local sentiment against
him. This had been occasioned by various details which related to
his elevated roads. To the two lines already built he now added
a third property, the Union Loop. This he prepared to connect
not only with his own, but with other outside elevated properties,
chief among which was Mr. Schryhart’s South Side «L». He would
then farm out to his enemies the privilege of running trains on
this new line. However unwillingly, they would be forced to avail
themselves of the proffered opportunity, because within the region covered by the new loop was the true congestion — here every
one desired to come either once or twice during the day or night.
By this means Cowperwood would secure to his property a paying
interest from the start.
This scheme aroused a really unprecedented antagonism in
the breasts of Cowperwood’s enemies. By the Arneel-Hand-Schry-
490
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