see if some other plan can't
be arranged. I want to fix it so the children won't suffer. I can
provide for them amply, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Lillian
would be willing to let me go. She certainly wouldn't want any
publicity."

He was counting practically, and man-fashion, on her love for her
children.

Aileen looked at him with clear, questioning, uncertain eyes. She was
not wholly without sympathy, but in a way this situation did not appeal
to her as needing much. Mrs. Cowperwood was not friendly in her mood
toward her. It was not based on anything save a difference in their
point of view. Mrs. Cowperwood could never understand how a girl could
carry her head so high and "put on such airs," and Aileen could not
understand how any one could be so lymphatic and lackadaisical as
Lillian Cowperwood. Life was made for riding, driving, dancing, going.
It was made for airs and banter and persiflage and coquetry. To see this
woman, the wife of a young, forceful man like Cowperwood, acting, even
though she were five years older and the mother of two children, as
though life on its romantic and enthusiastic pleasurable side were all
over was too much for her. Of course Lillian was unsuited to Frank; of
course he needed a young woman like herself, and fate would surely give
him to her. Then what a delicious life they would lead!

"Oh, Frank," she exclaimed to him, over and over, "if we could only
manage it. Do you think we can?"

"Do I think we can? Certainly I do. It's only a matter of time. I think
if I were to put the matter to her clearly, she wouldn't expect me to
stay. You look out how you conduct your affairs. If your father or your
brother should ever suspect me, there'd be an explosion in this town,
if nothing worse. They'd fight me in all my money deals, if they didn't
kill me. Are you thinking carefully of what you are doing?"

"All the time. If anything happens I'll deny everything. They can't
prove it, if I deny it. I'll come to you in the long run, just the
same."

They were in the Tenth Street house at the time. She stroked his cheeks
with the loving fingers of the wildly enamored woman.

"I'll do anything for you, sweetheart," she declared. "I'd die for you
if I had to. I love you so."

"Well, pet, no danger. You won't have to do anything like that. But be
careful."

Chapter XXIII

Then, after several years of this secret relationship, in which the ties
of sympathy and underst