Two years later, following the meteoric appearance of a young speculator in Duluth, and after Chicago had seen the tentative opening of a grain and commission company labeled Frank A. Cowperwood & Co., which ostensibly dealt in the great wheat crops of the West, a quiet divorce was granted Mrs. Frank A. Cowperwood in Philadelphia, because apparently she wished it.  Time had not seemingly dealt badly with her.  Her financial affairs, once so bad, were now apparently all straightened out, and she occupied in West Philadelphia, near one of her sisters, a new and interesting home which was fitted with all the comforts of an excellent middle-class residence.  She was now quite religious once more.  The two children, Frank and Lillian, were in private schools, returning evenings to their mother.  “Wash” Sims was once more the negro general factotum.  Frequent visitors on Sundays were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Worthington Cowperwood, no longer distressed financially, but subdued and wearied, the wind completely gone from their once much-favored sails.  Cowperwood, senior, had sufficient money wherewith to sustain himself, and that without slaving as a petty clerk, but his social joy in life was gone.  He was old, disappointed, sad.  He could feel that with his quondam honor and financial glory, he was the same—­and he was not.  His courage and his dreams were gone, and he awaited death.

Here, too, came Anna Adelaide Cowperwood on occasion, a clerk in the city water office, who speculated much as to the strange vicissitudes of life.  She had great interest in her brother, who seemed destined by fate to play a conspicuous part in the world; but she could not understand him.  Seeing that all those who were near to him in any way seemed to rise or fall with his prosperity, she did not understand how justice and morals were arranged in this world.  There seemed to be certain general principles—­or people assumed there were—­but apparently there were exceptions.  Assuredly her brother abided by no known rule, and yet he seemed to be doing fairly well once more.  What did this mean?  Mrs. Cowperwood, his former wife, condemned his actions, and yet accepted of his prosperity as her due.  What were the ethics of that?

Cowperwood’s every action was known to Aileen Butler, his present whereabouts and prospects.  Not long after his wife’s divorce, and after many trips to and from this new world in which he was now living, these two left Philadelphia together one afternoon in the winter.  Aileen explained to her mother, who was willing to go and live with Norah, that she had fallen in love with the former banker and wished to marry him.  The old lady, gathering only a garbled version of it at first, consented.

Thus ended forever for Aileen this long-continued relationship with this older world.  Chicago was before her—­a much more distinguished career, Frank told her, than ever they could have had in Philadelphia.

“Isn’t it nice to be finally going?” she commented.