ide street. The cold weather and the gray walls under a gray sky gave
her a sense of defeat, but she had worked very hard to look nice in
order to cheer her lover up. She knew how readily he responded to the
influence of her beauty when properly displayed.

Cowperwood, in view of her coming, had made his cell as acceptable as
possible. It was clean, because he had swept it himself and made his own
bed; and besides he had shaved and combed his hair, and otherwise put
himself to rights. The caned chairs on which he was working had been put
in the corner at the end of the bed. His few dishes were washed and
hung up, and his clogs brushed with a brush which he now kept for the
purpose. Never before, he thought to himself, with a peculiar feeling
of artistic degradation, had Aileen seen him like this. She had always
admired his good taste in clothes, and the way he carried himself in
them; and now she was to see him in garments which no dignity of body
could make presentable. Only a stoic sense of his own soul-dignity aided
him here. After all, as he now thought, he was Frank A. Cowperwood,
and that was something, whatever he wore. And Aileen knew it. Again,
he might be free and rich some day, and he knew that she believed that.
Best of all, his looks under these or any other circumstances, as he
knew, would make no difference to Aileen. She would only love him the
more. It was her ardent sympathy that he was afraid of. He was so glad
that Bonhag had suggested that she might enter the cell, for it would be
a grim procedure talking to her through a barred door.

When Aileen arrived she asked for Mr. Bonhag, and was permitted to go to
the central rotunda, where he was sent for. When he came she murmured:
"I wish to see Mr. Cowperwood, if you please"; and he exclaimed, "Oh,
yes, just come with me." As he came across the rotunda floor from his
corridor he was struck by the evident youth of Aileen, even though he
could not see her face. This now was something in accordance with
what he had expected of Cowperwood. A man who could steal five hundred
thousand dollars and set a whole city by the ears must have wonderful
adventures of all kinds, and Aileen looked like a true adventure. He led
her to the little room where he kept his desk and detained visitors, and
then bustled down to Cowperwood's cell, where the financier was working
on one of his chairs and scratching on the door with his key, called:
"There's a young lady here to s