arthly woes. "To
the devil with such a life! Why twelve years? Why not at the end of the
second or third?"

Again, it was so very evident, in so many ways, that force was the
answer--great mental and physical force. Why, these giants of commerce
and money could do as they pleased in this life, and did. He had already
had ample local evidence of it in more than one direction. Worse--the
little guardians of so-called law and morality, the newspapers, the
preachers, the police, and the public moralists generally, so loud in
their denunciation of evil in humble places, were cowards all when it
came to corruption in high ones. They did not dare to utter a feeble
squeak until some giant had accidentally fallen and they could do
so without danger to themselves. Then, O Heavens, the palaver!
What beatings of tom-toms! What mouthings of pharisaical
moralities--platitudes! Run now, good people, for you may see clearly
how evil is dealt with in high places! It made him smile. Such
hypocrisy! Such cant! Still, so the world was organized, and it was not
for him to set it right. Let it wag as it would. The thing for him to
do was to get rich and hold his own--to build up a seeming of virtue and
dignity which would pass muster for the genuine thing. Force would do
that. Quickness of wit. And he had these. "I satisfy myself," was his
motto; and it might well have been emblazoned upon any coat of arms
which he could have contrived to set forth his claim to intellectual and
social nobility.

But this matter of Aileen was up for consideration and solution at this
present moment, and because of his forceful, determined character he
was presently not at all disturbed by the problem it presented. It was
a problem, like some of those knotty financial complications which
presented themselves daily; but it was not insoluble. What did he want
to do? He couldn't leave his wife and fly with Aileen, that was certain.
He had too many connections. He had too many social, and thinking of his
children and parents, emotional as well as financial ties to bind him.
Besides, he was not at all sure that he wanted to. He did not intend to
leave his growing interests, and at the same time he did not intend to
give up Aileen immediately. The unheralded manifestation of interest
on her part was too attractive. Mrs. Cowperwood was no longer what
she should be physically and mentally, and that in itself to him was
sufficient to justify his present interest in t