Chapter XXIX

But time was not a thing to be had in this emergency.  With the seventy-five thousand dollars his friends had extended to him, and sixty thousand dollars secured from Stires, Cowperwood met the Girard call and placed the balance, thirty-five thousand dollars, in a private safe in his own home.  He then made a final appeal to the bankers and financiers, but they refused to help him.  He did not, however, commiserate himself in this hour.  He looked out of his office window into the little court, and sighed.  What more could he do?  He sent a note to his father, asking him to call for lunch.  He sent a note to his lawyer, Harper Steger, a man of his own age whom he liked very much, and asked him to call also.  He evolved in his own mind various plans of delay, addresses to creditors and the like, but alas! he was going to fail.  And the worst of it was that this matter of the city treasurer’s loans was bound to become a public, and more than a public, a political, scandal.  And the charge of conniving, if not illegally, at least morally, at the misuse of the city’s money was the one thing that would hurt him most.

How industriously his rivals would advertise this fact!  He might get on his feet again if he failed; but it would be uphill work.  And his father!  His father would be pulled down with him.  It was probable that he would be forced out of the presidency of his bank.  With these thoughts Cowperwood sat there waiting.  As he did so Aileen Butler was announced by his office-boy, and at the same time Albert Stires.

“Show in Miss Butler,” he said, getting up.  “Tell Mr. Stires to wait.”  Aileen came briskly, vigorously in, her beautiful body clothed as decoratively as ever.  The street suit that she wore was of a light golden-brown broadcloth, faceted with small, dark-red buttons.  Her head was decorated with a brownish-red shake of a type she had learned was becoming to her, brimless and with a trailing plume, and her throat was graced by a three-strand necklace of gold beads.  Her hands were smoothly gloved as usual, and her little feet daintily shod.  There was a look of girlish distress in her eyes, which, however, she was trying hard to conceal.

“Honey,” she exclaimed, on seeing him, her arms extended—­“what is the trouble?  I wanted so much to ask you the other night.  You’re not going to fail, are you?  I heard father and Owen talking about you last night.”

“What did they say?” he inquired, putting his arm around her and looking quietly into her nervous eyes.

“Oh, you know, I think papa is very angry with you.  He suspects.  Some one sent him an anonymous letter.  He tried to get it out of me last night, but he didn’t succeed.  I denied everything.  I was in here twice this morning to see you, but you were out.  I was so afraid that he might see you first, and that you might say something.”

“Me, Aileen?”