ehow makes up that geometric formula of beauty which rules the
world. She was charming in a dark way, beautiful, with eyes that
burned with an unsatisfied fire; and Cowperwood, although at first only
in the least moved by her, became by degrees interested in her,
wondering at the amazing, transforming power of the American atmosphere.

"Are your parents English, Antoinette?" he asked her, one morning, with
that easy familiarity which he assumed to all underlings and minor
intellects--an air that could not be resented in him, and which was
usually accepted as a compliment.

Antoinette, clean and fresh in a white shirtwaist, a black
walking-skirt, a ribbon of black velvet about her neck, and her long,
black hair laid in a heavy braid low over her forehead and held close
by a white celluloid comb, looked at him with pleased and grateful
eyes. She had been used to such different types of men--the earnest,
fiery, excitable, sometimes drunken and swearing men of her childhood,
always striking, marching, praying in the Catholic churches; and then
the men of the business world, crazy over money, and with no
understanding of anything save some few facts about Chicago and its
momentary possibilities. In Cowperwood's office, taking his letters
and hearing him talk in his quick, genial way with old Laughlin,
Sippens, and others, she had learned more of life than she had ever
dreamed existed. He was like a vast open window out of which she was
looking upon an almost illimitable landscape.

"No, sir," she replied, dropping her slim, firm, white hand, holding a
black lead-pencil restfully on her notebook. She smiled quite
innocently because she was pleased.

"I thought not," he said, "and yet you're American enough."

"I don't know how it is," she said, quite solemnly. "I have a brother
who is quite as American as I am. We don't either of us look like our
father or mother."

"What does your brother do?" he asked, indifferently.

"He's one of the weighers at Arneel & Co. He expects to be a manager
sometime." She smiled.

Cowperwood looked at her speculatively, and after a momentary return
glance she dropped her eyes. Slowly, in spite of herself, a telltale
flush rose and mantled her brown cheeks. It always did when he looked
at her.

"Take this letter to General Van Sickle," he began, on this occasion
quite helpfully, and in a few minutes she had recovered. She could not
be near Cowperwood for long at a time, how