d, however, by her suspicious questioning, Cowperwood
was more mechanically attentive than ever. He did his best to conceal
his altered mood--his enthusiasms for Mrs. Sohlberg, his interest in
Antoinette Nowak--and this helped somewhat.

But finally there was a detectable change. Aileen noticed it first
after they had been back from Europe nearly a year. At this time she
was still interested in Sohlberg, but in a harmlessly flirtatious way.
She thought he might be interesting physically, but would he be as
delightful as Cowperwood? Never! When she felt that Cowperwood himself
might be changing she pulled herself up at once, and when Antoinette
appeared--the carriage incident--Sohlberg lost his, at best, unstable
charm. She began to meditate on what a terrible thing it would be to
lose Cowperwood, seeing that she had failed to establish herself
socially. Perhaps that had something to do with his defection. No
doubt it had. Yet she could not believe, after all his protestations
of affection in Philadelphia, after all her devotion to him in those
dark days of his degradation and punishment, that he would really turn
on her. No, he might stray momentarily, but if she protested enough,
made a scene, perhaps, he would not feel so free to injure her--he
would remember and be loving and devoted again. After seeing him, or
imagining she had seen him, in the carriage, she thought at first that
she would question him, but later decided that she would wait and watch
more closely. Perhaps he was beginning to run around with other women.
There was safety in numbers--that she knew. Her heart, her pride, was
hurt, but not broken.

Chapter XVIII

The Clash

The peculiar personality of Rita Sohlberg was such that by her very
action she ordinarily allayed suspicion, or rather distracted it.
Although a novice, she had a strange ease, courage, or balance of soul
which kept her whole and self-possessed under the most trying of
circumstances. She might have been overtaken in the most compromising
of positions, but her manner would always have indicated ease, a sense
of innocence, nothing unusual, for she had no sense of moral
degradation in this matter--no troublesome emotion as to what was to
flow from a relationship of this kind, no worry as to her own soul,
sin, social opinion, or the like. She was really interested in art and
life--a pagan, in fact. Some people are thus hardily equipped. It is
the most notable