Chapter V



Concerning A Wife And Family

If any one fancies for a moment that this commercial move on the
part of Cowperwood was either hasty or ill-considered they but
little appreciate the incisive, apprehensive psychology of the
man. His thoughts as to life and control (tempered and hardened
by thirteen months of reflection in the Eastern District Penitentiary)
had given him a fixed policy. He could, should, and would rule
alone. No man must ever again have the least claim on him save
that of a suppliant. He wanted no more dangerous combinations
such as he had had with Stener, the man through whom he had lost
so much in Philadelphia, and others. By right of financial intellect
and courage he was first, and would so prove it. Men must swing
around him as planets around the sun.

Moreover, since his fall from grace in Philadelphia he had come
to think that never again, perhaps, could he hope to become socially
acceptable in the sense in which the so-called best society of a
city interprets the phrase; and pondering over this at odd moments,
he realized that his future allies in all probability would not
be among the rich and socially important--the clannish, snobbish
elements of society--but among the beginners and financially strong
men who had come or were coming up from the bottom, and who had
no social hopes whatsoever. There were many such. If through
luck and effort he became sufficiently powerful financially he
might then hope to dictate to society. Individualistic and even