not
otherwise. It looked as though the Cowperwoods must be favored; but
who were they, anyhow?

The danger of publicity, and even moderate social success, is that
scandal loves a shining mark. When you begin to stand out the least
way in life, as separate from the mass, the cognoscenti wish to know
who, what, and why. The enthusiasm of Aileen, combined with the genius
of Cowperwood, was for making their opening entertainment a very
exceptional affair, which, under the circumstances, and all things
considered, was a dangerous thing to do. As yet Chicago was
exceedingly slow socially. Its movements were, as has been said, more
or less bovine and phlegmatic. To rush in with something utterly
brilliant and pyrotechnic was to take notable chances. The more
cautious members of Chicago society, even if they did not attend, would
hear, and then would come ultimate comment and decision.

The function began with a reception at four, which lasted until
six-thirty, and this was followed by a dance at nine, with music by a
famous stringed orchestra of Chicago, a musical programme by artists of
considerable importance, and a gorgeous supper from eleven until one in
a Chinese fairyland of lights, at small tables filling three of the
ground-floor rooms. As an added fillip to the occasion Cowperwood had
hung, not only the important pictures which he had purchased abroad,
but a new one--a particularly brilliant Gerome, then in the heyday of
his exotic popularity--a picture of nude odalisques of the harem,
idling beside the highly colored stone marquetry of an oriental bath.
It was more or less "loose" art for Chicago, shocking to the
uninitiated, though harmless enough to the illuminati; but it gave a
touch of color to the art-gallery which the latter needed. There was
also, newly arrived and newly hung, a portrait of Aileen by a Dutch
artist, Jan van Beers, whom they had encountered the previous summer at
Brussels. He had painted Aileen in nine sittings, a rather brilliant
canvas, high in key, with a summery, out-of-door world behind her--a
low stone-curbed pool, the red corner of a Dutch brick palace, a
tulip-bed, and a blue sky with fleecy clouds. Aileen was seated on the
curved arm of a stone bench, green grass at her feet, a pink-and-white
parasol with a lacy edge held idly to one side; her rounded, vigorous
figure clad in the latest mode of Paris, a white and blue striped-silk
walking-suit, with a blue-and-white-bande