ys secure, and that of Aileen's if he wished to make
it so. The arduous, upward-ascending rungs of the social ladder that
were troubling her had no such significance to him.

The dinner, as such simple things go, was a success from what might be
called a managerial and pictorial point of view. Cowperwood, because
of his varied tastes and interests, could discuss railroading with Mr.
Rambaud in a very definite and illuminating way; could talk
architecture with Mr. Lord as a student, for instance, of rare promise
would talk with a master; and with a woman like Mrs. Addison or Mrs.
Rambaud he could suggest or follow appropriate leads. Aileen,
unfortunately, was not so much at home, for her natural state and mood
were remote not so much from a serious as from an accurate conception
of life. So many things, except in a very nebulous and suggestive way,
were sealed books to Aileen--merely faint, distant tinklings. She knew
nothing of literature except certain authors who to the truly cultured
might seem banal. As for art, it was merely a jingle of names gathered
from Cowperwood's private comments. Her one redeeming feature was that
she was truly beautiful herself--a radiant, vibrating objet d'art. A
man like Rambaud, remote, conservative, constructive, saw the place of
a woman like Aileen in the life of a man like Cowperwood on the
instant. She was such a woman as he would have prized himself in a
certain capacity.

Sex interest in all strong men usually endures unto the end, governed
sometimes by a stoic resignation. The experiment of such attraction
can, as they well know, be made over and over, but to what end? For
many it becomes too troublesome. Yet the presence of so glittering a
spectacle as Aileen on this night touched Mr. Rambaud with an ancient
ambition. He looked at her almost sadly. Once he was much younger.
But alas, he had never attracted the flaming interest of any such
woman. As he studied her now he wished that he might have enjoyed such
good fortune.

In contrast with Aileen's orchid glow and tinted richness Mrs.
Rambaud's simple gray silk, the collar of which came almost to her
ears, was disturbing--almost reproving--but Mrs. Rambaud's ladylike
courtesy and generosity made everything all right. She came out of
intellectual New England--the Emerson-Thoreau-Channing Phillips school
of philosophy--and was broadly tolerant. As a matter of fact, she
liked Aileen and all the Orient richness she