. and Mrs. Addison are anxious to meet you,
and I've delayed too long in that matter as it is. But what I mean is
that I don't believe it's advisable to push this social exchange too
far. People are sure to begin to make inquiries if we do. My plan is
to wait a little while and then build a really fine house so that we
won't need to rebuild. We're going to go to Europe next spring, if
things go right, and we may get some ideas over there. I'm going to
put in a good big gallery," he concluded. "While we're traveling we
might as well see what we can find in the way of pictures and so on."

Aileen was thrilling with anticipation. "Oh, Frank," she said to him,
quite ecstatically, "you're so wonderful! You do everything you want,
don't you?"

"Not quite," he said, deprecatingly; "but it isn't for not wanting to.
Chance has a little to say about some of these chings, Aileen."

She stood in front of him, as she often did, her plump, ringed hands on
his shoulders, and looked into those steady, lucid pools--his eyes.
Another man, less leonine, and with all his shifting thoughts, might
have had to contend with the handicap of a shifty gaze; he fronted the
queries and suspicions of the world with a seeming candor that was as
disarming as that of a child. The truth was he believed in himself, and
himself only, and thence sprang his courage to think as he pleased.
Aileen wondered, but could get no answer.

"Oh, you big tiger!" she said. "You great, big lion! Boo!"

He pinched her cheek and smiled. "Poor Aileen!" he thought. She
little knew the unsolvable mystery that he was even to himself--to
himself most of all.

Immediately after their marriage Cowperwood and Aileen journeyed to
Chicago direct, and took the best rooms that the Tremont provided, for
the time being. A little later they heard of a comparatively small
furnished house at Twenty-third and Michigan Avenue, which, with horses
and carriages thrown in, was to be had for a season or two on lease.
They contracted for it at once, installing a butler, servants, and the
general service of a well-appointed home. Here, because he thought it
was only courteous, and not because he thought it was essential or wise
at this time to attempt a social onslaught, he invited the Addisons and
one or two others whom he felt sure would come--Alexander Rambaud,
president of the Chicago & Northwestern, and his wife, and Taylor Lord,
an architect whom he had recently called into