d after a time in a tolerant way--his foibles, defects,
weaknesses. She was not unsympathetic, he thought, just weary of a
state that was not properly balanced either in love, ability, or
insight. Cowperwood had suggested that she could take a larger studio
for herself and Harold--do away with the petty economies that had
hampered her and him--and explain it all on the grounds of a larger
generosity on the part of her family. At first she objected; but
Cowperwood was tactful and finally brought it about. He again
suggested a little while later that she should persuade Harold to go to
Europe. There would be the same ostensible reason--additional means
from her relatives. Mrs. Sohlberg, thus urged, petted, made over,
assured, came finally to accept his liberal rule--to bow to him; she
became as contented as a cat. With caution she accepted of his
largess, and made the cleverest use of it she could. For something
over a year neither Sohlberg nor Aileen was aware of the intimacy which
had sprung up. Sohlberg, easily bamboozled, went back to Denmark for a
visit, then to study in Germany. Mrs. Sohlberg followed Cowperwood to
Europe the following year. At Aix-les-Bains, Biarritz, Paris, even
London, Aileen never knew that there was an additional figure in the
background. Cowperwood was trained by Rita into a really finer point
of view. He came to know better music, books, even the facts. She
encouraged him in his idea of a representative collection of the old
masters, and begged him to be cautious in his selection of moderns. He
felt himself to be delightfully situated indeed.

The difficulty with this situation, as with all such where an
individual ventures thus bucaneeringly on the sea of sex, is the
possibility of those storms which result from misplaced confidence, and
from our built-up system of ethics relating to property in women. To
Cowperwood, however, who was a law unto himself, who knew no law except
such as might be imposed upon him by his lack of ability to think, this
possibility of entanglement, wrath, rage, pain, offered no particular
obstacle. It was not at all certain that any such thing would follow.
Where the average man might have found one such liaison difficult to
manage, Cowperwood, as we have seen, had previously entered on several
such affairs almost simultaneously; and now he had ventured on yet
another; in the last instance with much greater feeling and enthusiasm.
The previous affair