believe it. She must be lying, and yet he liked her so. The
very romantic, inconsequential way in which she narrated all this
staggered, amused, and even fascinated him.

"But, Stephanie," he argued, curiously, "there must been some aftermath
to all this. What happened? What did you do?"

"Nothing." She shook her head.

He had to smile.

"But oh, don't let's talk about it!" she pleaded. "I don't want to.
It hurts me. There was nothing more."

She sighed, and Cowperwood meditated. The evil was now done, and the
best that he could do, if he cared for her at all--and he did--was to
overlook it. He surveyed her oddly, wonderingly. What a charming soul
she was, anyhow! How naive--how brooding! She had art--lots of it. Did
he want to give her up?

As he might have known, it was dangerous to trifle with a type of this
kind, particularly once awakened to the significance of promiscuity,
and unless mastered by some absorbing passion. Stephanie had had too
much flattery and affection heaped upon her in the past two years to be
easily absorbed. Nevertheless, for the time being, anyhow, she was
fascinated by the significance of Cowperwood. It was wonderful to have
so fine, so powerful a man care for her. She conceived of him as a
very great artist in his realm rather than as a business man, and he
grasped this fact after a very little while and appreciated it. To his
delight, she was even more beautiful physically than he had
anticipated--a smoldering, passionate girl who met him with a fire
which, though somber, quite rivaled his own. She was different, too,
in her languorous acceptance of all that he bestowed from any one he
had ever known. She was as tactful as Rita Sohlberg--more so--but so
preternaturally silent at times.

"Stephanie," he would exclaim, "do talk. What are you thinking of? You
dream like an African native."

She merely sat and smiled in a dark way or sketched or modeled him.
She was constantly penciling something, until moved by the fever of her
blood, when she would sit and look at him or brood silently, eyes down.
Then, when he would reach for her with seeking hands, she would sigh,
"Oh yes, oh yes!"

Those were delightful days with Stephanie.

In the matter of young MacDonald's request for fifty thousand dollars
in securities, as well as the attitude of the other editors--Hyssop,
Braxton, Ricketts, and so on--who had proved subtly critical,
Cowperwood conferred with Addison and McK