years of life with Frank Cowperwood had taught her a number of things.  He was selfish, she knew now, self-centered, and not as much charmed by her as he had been.  The fear she had originally felt as to the effect of her preponderance of years had been to some extent justified by the lapse of time.  Frank did not love her as he had—­he had not for some time; she had felt it.  What was it?—­she had asked herself at times—­almost, who was it?  Business was engrossing him so.

Finance was his master.  Did this mean the end of her regime, she queried.  Would he cast her off?  Where would she go?  What would she do?  She was not helpless, of course, for she had money of her own which he was manipulating for her.  Who was this other woman?  Was she young, beautiful, of any social position?  Was it—?  Suddenly she stopped.  Was it?  Could it be, by any chance—­her mouth opened—­Aileen Butler?

She stood still, staring at this letter, for she could scarcely countenance her own thought.  She had observed often, in spite of all their caution, how friendly Aileen had been to him and he to her.  He liked her; he never lost a chance to defend her.  Lillian had thought of them at times as being curiously suited to each other temperamentally.  He liked young people.  But, of course, he was married, and Aileen was infinitely beneath him socially, and he had two children and herself.  And his social and financial position was so fixed and stable that he did not dare trifle with it.  Still she paused; for forty years and two children, and some slight wrinkles, and the suspicion that we may be no longer loved as we once were, is apt to make any woman pause, even in the face of the most significant financial position.  Where would she go if she left him?  What would people think?  What about the children?  Could she prove this liaison?  Could she entrap him in a compromising situation?  Did she want to?

She saw now that she did not love him as some women love their husbands.  She was not wild about him.  In a way she had been taking him for granted all these years, had thought that he loved her enough not to be unfaithful to her; at least fancied that he was so engrossed with the more serious things of life that no petty liaison such as this letter indicated would trouble him or interrupt his great career.  Apparently this was not true.  What should she do?  What say?  How act?  Her none too brilliant mind was not of much service in this crisis.  She did not know very well how either to plan or to fight.

The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery.  It is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like.  It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed.  Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived.  No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever