. And beyond was
nothing save crumbling age, darkness, silence.

In the mean time, owing to the preliminary activity and tact of his
agents and advisers, the Sunday newspapers were vying with one another
in describing the wonders of his new house in New York--its cost, the
value of its ground, the wealthy citizens with whom the Cowperwoods
would now be neighbors. There were double-column pictures of Aileen
and Cowperwood, with articles indicating them as prospective
entertainers on a grand scale who would unquestionably be received
because of their tremendous wealth. As a matter of fact, this was
purely newspaper gossip and speculation. While the general columns
made news and capital of his wealth, special society columns, which
dealt with the ultra-fashionable, ignored him entirely. Already the
machination of certain Chicago social figures in distributing
information as to his past was discernible in the attitude of those
clubs, organizations, and even churches, membership in which
constitutes a form of social passport to better and higher earthly, if
not spiritual, realms. His emissaries were active enough, but soon
found that their end was not to be gained in a day. Many were waiting
locally, anxious enough to get in, and with social equipments which the
Cowperwoods could scarcely boast. After being blackballed by one or two
exclusive clubs, seeing his application for a pew at St. Thomas's
quietly pigeon-holed for the present, and his invitations declined by
several multimillionaires whom he met in the course of commercial
transactions, he began to feel that his splendid home, aside from its
final purpose as an art-museum, could be of little value.

At the same time Cowperwood's financial genius was constantly being
rewarded by many new phases of materiality chiefly by an offensive and
defensive alliance he was now able to engineer between himself and the
house of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. Seeing the iron manner in which
he had managed to wrest victory out of defeat after the first seriously
contested election, these gentlemen had experienced a change of heart
and announced that they would now gladly help finance any new
enterprise which Cowperwood might undertake. Among many other
financiers, they had heard of his triumph in connection with the
failure of American Match.

"Dot must be a right cleffer man, dot Cowperwood," Mr. Gotloeb told
several of his partners, rubbing his hands and smiling. "I sho