He turned to the window, thinking of how easy it would have been, if Aileen and he had not been exposed by this anonymous note, to have arranged all with Butler.  Rather than injure the party, Butler, in extremis, would have assisted him.  Now...!

His father got up to go.  He was as stiff with despair as though he were suffering from cold.

“Well,” he said, wearily.

Cowperwood suffered intensely for him.  What a shame!  His father!  He felt a great surge of sorrow sweep over him but a moment later mastered it, and settled to his quick, defiant thinking.  As the old man went out, Harper Steger was brought in.  They shook hands, and at once started for Stener’s office.  But Stener had sunk in on himself like an empty gas-bag, and no efforts were sufficient to inflate him.  They went out, finally, defeated.

“I tell you, Frank,” said Steger, “I wouldn’t worry.  We can tie this thing up legally until election and after, and that will give all this row a chance to die down.  Then you can get your people together and talk sense to them.  They’re not going to give up good properties like this, even if Stener does go to jail.”

Steger did not know of the sixty thousand dollars’ worth of hypothecated securities as yet.  Neither did he know of Aileen Butler and her father’s boundless rage.

Chapter XXX

There was one development in connection with all of this of which Cowperwood was as yet unaware.  The same day that brought Edward Butler the anonymous communication in regard to his daughter, brought almost a duplicate of it to Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood, only in this case the name of Aileen Butler had curiously been omitted.

Perhaps you don’t know that your husband is running with another woman.  If you don’t believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street.

Mrs. Cowperwood was in the conservatory watering some plants when this letter was brought by her maid Monday morning.  She was most placid in her thoughts, for she did not know what all the conferring of the night before meant.  Frank was occasionally troubled by financial storms, but they did not see to harm him.

“Lay it on the table in the library, Annie.  I’ll get it.”

She thought it was some social note.

In a little while (such was her deliberate way), she put down her sprinkling-pot and went into the library.  There it was lying on the green leather sheepskin which constituted a part of the ornamentation of the large library table.  She picked it up, glanced at it curiously because it was on cheap paper, and then opened it.  Her face paled slightly as she read it; and then her hand trembled—­not much.  Hers was not a soul that ever loved passionately, hence she could not suffer passionately.  She was hurt, disgusted, enraged for the moment, and frightened; but she was not broken in spirit entirely.  Thirteen