ing before her, was
sobered by her charm. He felt an impulse to speak to her of his
affection, to tell her how delicious she was to him.

"You," he said, pausing over the word and giving it special
emphasis--"you are the only thing here that is wonderful to me."

She looked at him a moment, the live fish in her extended hands, her
eyes keying to the situation. For the least fraction of a moment she
was uncertain, as he could see, how to take this. Many men had been
approximative before. It was common to have compliments paid to her.
But this was different. She said nothing, but fixed him with a look
which said quite plainly, "You had better not say anything more just
now, I think." Then, seeing that he understood, that his manner
softened, and that he was troubled, she crinkled her nose gaily and
added: "It's like fairyland. I feel as though I had caught it out of
another world." Cowperwood understood. The direct approach was not for
use in her case; and yet there was something, a camaraderie, a sympathy
which he felt and which she felt. A girls' school, conventions, the
need of socially placing herself, her conservative friends, and their
viewpoint--all were working here. If he were only single now, she told
herself, she would be willing to listen to him in a very different
spirit, for he was charming. But this way-- And he, for his part,
concluded that here was one woman whom he would gladly marry if she
would have him.

Chapter XLVII

American Match

Following Cowperwood's coup in securing cash by means of his seeming
gift of three hundred thousand dollars for a telescope his enemies
rested for a time, but only because of a lack of ideas wherewith to
destroy him. Public sentiment--created by the newspapers--was still
against him. Yet his franchises had still from eight to ten years to
run, and meanwhile he might make himself unassailably powerful. For
the present he was busy, surrounded by his engineers and managers and
legal advisers, constructing his several elevated lines at a whirlwind
rate. At the same time, through Videra, Kaffrath, and Addison, he was
effecting a scheme of loaning money on call to the local Chicago
banks--the very banks which were most opposed to him--so that in a
crisis he could retaliate. By manipulating the vast quantity of stocks
and bonds of which he was now the master he was making money hand over
fist, his one rule being that six per cent. was enough to pay