with a seeming candor that was as disarming as that of a child.
The truth was he believed in himself, and himself only, and thence
sprang his courage to think as he pleased. Aileen wondered, but
could get no answer.

"Oh, you big tiger!" she said. "You great, big lion! Boo!"

He pinched her cheek and smiled. "Poor Aileen!" he thought. She
little knew the unsolvable mystery that he was even to himself--to
himself most of all.

Immediately after their marriage Cowperwood and Aileen journeyed
to Chicago direct, and took the best rooms that the Tremont provided,
for the time being. A little later they heard of a comparatively
small furnished house at Twenty-third and Michigan Avenue, which,
with horses and carriages thrown in, was to be had for a season
or two on lease. They contracted for it at once, installing a
butler, servants, and the general service of a well-appointed home.
Here, because he thought it was only courteous, and not because he
thought it was essential or wise at this time to attempt a social
onslaught, he invited the Addisons and one or two others whom he
felt sure would come--Alexander Rambaud, president of the Chicago
& Northwestern, and his wife, and Taylor Lord, an architect whom
he had recently called into consultation and whom he found socially
acceptable. Lord, like the Addisons, was in society, but only as
a minor figure.

Trust Cowperwood to do the thing as it should be done. The place
they had leased was a charming little gray-stone house, with a neat
flight of granite, balustraded steps leading up to its wide-arched