compromise that will eat into his profits, and
if that happens he can't sell his Union Traction stock. This
legislative scheme of his must have cost him all of three hundred
thousand dollars, and what has he to show for it? The new legislature,
unless I'm greatly mistaken, will be afraid to touch anything in
connection with him. It's hardly likely that any of the Springfield
politicians will want to draw the fire of the newspapers again."

Schryhart felt very powerful, imposing--sleek, indeed--now that his
theory of newspaper publicity as a cure was apparently beginning to
work. Hand, more saturnine, more responsive to the uncertainty of
things mundane--the shifty undercurrents that are perpetually sapping
and mining below--was agreeable, but not sure. Perhaps so.

In regard to his Eastern life during this interlude, Cowperwood had
been becoming more and more keenly alive to the futility of the attempt
to effect a social rescue for Aileen. "What was the use?" he often
asked himself, as he contemplated her movements, thoughts, plans, as
contrasted with the natural efficiency, taste, grace, and subtlety of a
woman like Berenice. He felt that the latter could, if she would,
smooth over in an adroit way all the silly social antagonisms which
were now afflicting him. It was a woman's game, he frequently told
himself, and would never be adjusted till he had the woman.

Simultaneously Aileen, looking at the situation from her own point of
view and nonplussed by the ineffectiveness of mere wealth when not
combined with a certain social something which she did not appear to
have, was, nevertheless, unwilling to surrender her dream. What was
it, she asked herself over and over, that made this great difference
between women and women? The question contained its own answer, but she
did not know that. She was still good-looking--very--and an adept in
self-ornamentation, after her manner and taste. So great had been the
newspaper palaver regarding the arrival of a new multimillionaire from
the West and the palace he was erecting that even tradesmen, clerks,
and hall-boys knew of her. Almost invariably, when called upon to
state her name in such quarters, she was greeted by a slight start of
recognition, a swift glance of examination, whispers, even open
comment. That was something. Yet how much more, and how different
were those rarefied reaches of social supremacy to which popular repute
bears scarcely any relationshi