as more prosperous. He went out to
his house in a quandary concerning life and chance; while Cowperwood
went to the Chicago Trust Company to confer with Videra, and later out
to his own home to consider how he should equalize this loss. The
state and fate of Cecily Haguenin was not of so much importance as many
other things on his mind at this time.

Far more serious were his cogitations with regard to a liaison he had
recently ventured to establish with Mrs. Hosmer Hand, wife of an
eminent investor and financier. Hand was a solid, phlegmatic,
heavy-thinking person who had some years before lost his first wife, to
whom he had been eminently faithful. After that, for a period of years
he had been a lonely speculator, attending to his vast affairs; but
finally because of his enormous wealth, his rather presentable
appearance and social rank, he had been entrapped by much social
attention on the part of a Mrs. Jessie Drew Barrett into marrying her
daughter Caroline, a dashing skip of a girl who was clever, incisive,
calculating, and intensely gay. Since she was socially ambitious, and
without much heart, the thought of Hand's millions, and how
advantageous would be her situation in case he should die, had enabled
her to overlook quite easily his heavy, unyouthful appearance and to
see him in the light of a lover. There was criticism, of course. Hand
was considered a victim, and Caroline and her mother designing minxes
and cats; but since the wealthy financier was truly ensnared it
behooved friends and future satellites to be courteous, and so they
were. The wedding was very well attended. Mrs. Hand began to give
house-parties, teas, musicales, and receptions on a lavish scale.

Cowperwood never met either her or her husband until he was well
launched on his street-car programme. Needing two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in a hurry, and finding the Chicago Trust Company, the
Lake City Bank, and other institutions heavily loaded with his
securities, he turned in a moment of inspirational thought to Hand.
Cowperwood was always a great borrower. His paper was out in large
quantities. He introduced himself frequently to powerful men in this
way, taking long or short loans at high or low rates of interest, as
the case might be, and sometimes finding some one whom he could work
with or use. In the case of Hand, though the latter was ostensibly of
the enemies' camp--the Schryhart-Union-Gas-Douglas-Trust-Company