g signification of friendship
and admiration. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to
say to her, when they had adjourned to the drawing-room, that if she
were in the neighborhood of his office some day she might care to look
in on him. The look he gave her was one of keen understanding, and
brought a look of its own kind, warm and flushing, in return. She
came, and there began a rather short liaison. It was interesting but
not brilliant. The girl did not have sufficient temperament to bind
him beyond a period of rather idle investigation.

There was still, for a little while, another woman, whom he had
known--a Mrs. Josephine Ledwell, a smart widow, who came primarily to
gamble on the Board of Trade, but who began to see at once, on
introduction, the charm of a flirtation with Cowperwood. She was a
woman not unlike Aileen in type, a little older, not so good-looking,
and of a harder, more subtle commercial type of mind. She rather
interested Cowperwood because she was so trig, self-sufficient, and
careful. She did her best to lure him on to a liaison with her, which
finally resulted, her apartment on the North Side being the center of
this relationship. It lasted perhaps six weeks. Through it all he was
quite satisfied that he did not like her so very well. Any one who
associated with him had Aileen's present attractiveness to contend
with, as well as the original charm of his first wife. It was no easy
matter.

It was during this period of social dullness, however, which somewhat
resembled, though it did not exactly parallel his first years with his
first wife, that Cowperwood finally met a woman who was destined to
leave a marked impression on his life. He could not soon forget her.
Her name was Rita Sohlberg. She was the wife of Harold Sohlberg, a
Danish violinist who was then living in Chicago, a very young man; but
she was not a Dane, and he was by no means a remarkable violinist,
though he had unquestionably the musical temperament.

You have perhaps seen the would-be's, the nearly's, the pretenders in
every field--interesting people all--devoted with a kind of mad
enthusiasm to the thing they wish to do. They manifest in some ways
all the externals or earmarks of their professional traditions, and yet
are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. You would have had to know
Harold Sohlberg only a little while to appreciate that he belonged to
this order of artists. He had a wild, st