He was counting practically, and man-fashion, on her love for her children.

Aileen looked at him with clear, questioning, uncertain eyes.  She was not wholly without sympathy, but in a way this situation did not appeal to her as needing much.  Mrs. Cowperwood was not friendly in her mood toward her.  It was not based on anything save a difference in their point of view.  Mrs. Cowperwood could never understand how a girl could carry her head so high and “put on such airs,” and Aileen could not understand how any one could be so lymphatic and lackadaisical as Lillian Cowperwood.  Life was made for riding, driving, dancing, going.  It was made for airs and banter and persiflage and coquetry.  To see this woman, the wife of a young, forceful man like Cowperwood, acting, even though she were five years older and the mother of two children, as though life on its romantic and enthusiastic pleasurable side were all over was too much for her.  Of course Lillian was unsuited to Frank; of course he needed a young woman like herself, and fate would surely give him to her.  Then what a delicious life they would lead!

“Oh, Frank,” she exclaimed to him, over and over, “if we could only manage it.  Do you think we can?”

“Do I think we can?  Certainly I do.  It’s only a matter of time.  I think if I were to put the matter to her clearly, she wouldn’t expect me to stay.  You look out how you conduct your affairs.  If your father or your brother should ever suspect me, there’d be an explosion in this town, if nothing worse.  They’d fight me in all my money deals, if they didn’t kill me.  Are you thinking carefully of what you are doing?”

“All the time.  If anything happens I’ll deny everything.  They can’t prove it, if I deny it.  I’ll come to you in the long run, just the same.”

They were in the Tenth Street house at the time.  She stroked his cheeks with the loving fingers of the wildly enamored woman.

“I’ll do anything for you, sweetheart,” she declared.  “I’d die for you if I had to.  I love you so.”

“Well, pet, no danger.  You won’t have to do anything like that.  But be careful.”

Chapter XXIII

Then, after several years of this secret relationship, in which the ties of sympathy and understanding grew stronger instead of weaker, came the storm.  It burst unexpectedly and out of a clear sky, and bore no relation to the intention or volition of any individual.  It was nothing more than a fire, a distant one—­the great Chicago fire, October 7th, 1871, which burned that city—­its vast commercial section—­to the ground, and instantly and incidentally produced a financial panic, vicious though of short duration in various other cities in America.  The fire began on Saturday and continued apparently unabated until the following Wednesday.  It destroyed the banks, the commercial houses, the shipping conveniences,