de Park, where
she rode and drove; at Claridges' where they stayed; in Bond Street,
where she shopped. The Englishwomen, the majority of them remote,
ultra-conservative, simple in their tastes, lifted their eyes.
Cowperwood sensed the situation, but said nothing. He loved Aileen, and
she was satisfactory to him, at least for the present, anyhow,
beautiful. If he could adjust her station in Chicago, that would be
sufficient for a beginning. After three weeks of very active life,
during which Aileen patronized the ancient and honorable glories of
England, they went on to Paris.

Here she was quickened to a child-like enthusiasm. "You know," she
said to Cowperwood, quite solemnly, the second morning, "the English
don't know how to dress. I thought they did, but the smartest of them
copy the French. Take those men we saw last night in the Cafe
d'Anglais. There wasn't an Englishman I saw that compared with them."

"My dear, your tastes are exotic," replied Cowperwood, who was watching
her with pleased interest while he adjusted his tie. "The French smart
crowd are almost too smart, dandified. I think some of those young
fellows had on corsets."

"What of it?" replied Aileen. "I like it. If you're going to be
smart, why not be very smart?"

"I know that's your theory, my dear," he said, "but it can be overdone.
There is such a thing as going too far. You have to compromise even if
you don't look as well as you might. You can't be too very
conspicuously different from your neighbors, even in the right
direction."

"You know," she said, stopping and looking at him, "I believe you're
going to get very conservative some day--like my brothers."

She came over and touched his tie and smoothed his hair.

"Well, one of us ought to be, for the good of the family," he
commented, half smiling.

"I'm not so sure, though, that it will be you, either."

"It's a charming day. See how nice those white-marble statues look.
Shall we go to the Cluny or Versailles or Fontainbleau? To-night we
ought to see Bernhardt at the Francaise."

Aileen was so gay. It was so splendid to be traveling with her true
husband at last.

It was on this trip that Cowperwood's taste for art and life and his
determination to possess them revived to the fullest. He made the
acquaintance in London, Paris, and Brussels of the important art
dealers. His conception of great masters and the older schools of art
shaped themselves. By one of t