attribute of the hardier type of personalities--not
necessarily the most brilliant or successful. You might have said that
her soul was naively unconscious of the agony of others in loss. She
would have taken any loss to herself with an amazing equableness--some
qualms, of course, but not many--because her vanity and sense of charm
would have made her look forward to something better or as good.

She had called on Aileen quite regularly in the past, with or without
Harold, and had frequently driven with the Cowperwoods or joined them
at the theater or elsewhere. She had decided, after becoming intimate
with Cowperwood, to study art again, which was a charming blind, for it
called for attendance at afternoon or evening classes which she
frequently skipped. Besides, since Harold had more money he was
becoming gayer, more reckless and enthusiastic over women, and
Cowperwood deliberately advised her to encourage him in some liaison
which, in case exposure should subsequently come to them, would
effectually tie his hands.

"Let him get in some affair," Cowperwood told Rita. "We'll put
detectives on his trail and get evidence. He won't have a word to say."

"We don't really need to do that," she protested sweetly, naively.
"He's been in enough scrapes as it is. He's given me some of the
letters--" (she pronounced it "lettahs")--"written him."

"But we'll need actual witnesses if we ever need anything at all. Just
tell me when he's in love again, and I'll do the rest."

"You know I think," she drawled, amusingly, "that he is now. I saw him
on the street the other day with one of his students--rather a pretty
girl, too."

Cowperwood was pleased. Under the circumstances he would almost have
been willing--not quite--for Aileen to succumb to Sohlberg in order to
entrap her and make his situation secure. Yet he really did not wish
it in the last analysis--would have been grieved temporarily if she had
deserted him. However, in the case of Sohlberg, detectives were
employed, the new affair with the flighty pupil was unearthed and sworn
to by witnesses, and this, combined with the "lettahs" held by Rita,
constituted ample material wherewith to "hush up" the musician if ever
he became unduly obstreperous. So Cowperwood and Rita's state was quite
comfortable.

But Aileen, meditating over Antoinette Nowak, was beside herself with
curiosity, doubt, worry. She did not want to injure Cowperwood in any
way after his bitt