almost completely from her. He grew remote according as his
clandestine affairs were drifting or blazing, without, however, losing
his firm grip on his financial affairs, and Aileen noticed it. It
worried her. She was so vain that she could scarcely believe that
Cowperwood could long be indifferent, and for a while her sentimental
interest in Sohlberg's future and unhappiness of soul beclouded her
judgment; but she finally began to feel the drift of affairs. The
pathos of all this is that it so quickly descends into the realm of the
unsatisfactory, the banal, the pseudo intimate. Aileen noticed it at
once. She tried protestations. "You don't kiss me the way you did
once," and then a little later, "You haven't noticed me hardly for four
whole days. What's the matter?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Cowperwood, easily; "I guess I want you as
much as ever. I don't see that I am any different." He took her in his
arms and petted and caressed her; but Aileen was suspicious, nervous.

The psychology of the human animal, when confronted by these tangles,
these ripping tides of the heart, has little to do with so-called
reason or logic. It is amazing how in the face of passion and the
affections and the changing face of life all plans and theories by
which we guide ourselves fall to the ground. Here was Aileen talking
bravely at the time she invaded Mrs. Lillian Cowperwood's domain of the
necessity of "her Frank" finding a woman suitable to his needs, tastes,
abilities, but now that the possibility of another woman equally or
possibly better suited to him was looming in the offing--although she
had no idea who it might be--she could not reason in the same way. Her
ox, God wot, was the one that was being gored. What if he should find
some one whom he could want more than he did her? Dear heaven, how
terrible that would be! What would she do? she asked herself,
thoughtfully. She lapsed into the blues one afternoon--almost
cried--she could scarcely say why. Another time she thought of all the
terrible things she would do, how difficult she would make it for any
other woman who invaded her preserves. However, she was not sure.
Would she declare war if she discovered another? She knew she would
eventually; and yet she knew, too, that if she did, and Cowperwood were
set in his passion, thoroughly alienated, it would do no good. It
would be terrible, but what could she do to win him back? That was the
issue. Once warne