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The Titan by Theodore Dreiser
page 21 of 717 (02%)
Philadelphia, before his failure, before she had been suspected
of the secret liaison with him, he had been beginning (at least)
to entertain in a very pretentious way. If she had been his wife
then she might have stepped smartly into Philadelphia society.
Out here, good gracious! She turned up her pretty nose in disgust.
"What an awful place!" was her one comment at this most stirring
of Western boom towns.

When it came to Chicago, however, and its swirling, increasing
life, Aileen was much interested. Between attending to many
financial matters Cowperwood saw to it that she was not left alone.
He asked her to shop in the local stores and tell him about them;
and this she did, driving around in an open carriage, attractively
arrayed, a great brown hat emphasizing her pink-and-white complexion
and red-gold hair. On different afternoons of their stay he took
her to drive over the principal streets. When Aileen was permitted
for the first time to see the spacious beauty and richness of
Prairie Avenue, the North Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue, and the
new mansions on Ashland Boulevard, set in their grassy spaces, the
spirit, aspirations, hope, tang of the future Chicago began to
work in her blood as it had in Cowperwood's. All of these rich
homes were so very new. The great people of Chicago were all newly
rich like themselves. She forgot that as yet she was not Cowperwood's
wife; she felt herself truly to be so. The streets, set in most
instances with a pleasing creamish-brown flagging, lined with
young, newly planted trees, the lawns sown to smooth green grass,
the windows of the houses trimmed with bright awnings and hung
with intricate lace, blowing in a June breeze, the roadways a gray,
gritty macadam--all these things touched her fancy. On one drive
they skirted the lake on the North Shore, and Aileen, contemplating
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