leads. Aileen, unfortunately, was not so much at home, for her
natural state and mood were remote not so much from a serious as
from an accurate conception of life. So many things, except in a
very nebulous and suggestive way, were sealed books to Aileen--merely
faint, distant tinklings. She knew nothing of literature except
certain authors who to the truly cultured might seem banal. As
for art, it was merely a jingle of names gathered from Cowperwood's
private comments. Her one redeeming feature was that she was truly
beautiful herself--a radiant, vibrating objet d'art. A man like
Rambaud, remote, conservative, constructive, saw the place of a
woman like Aileen in the life of a man like Cowperwood on the
instant. She was such a woman as he would have prized himself in
a certain capacity.

Sex interest in all strong men usually endures unto the end,
governed sometimes by a stoic resignation. The experiment of such
attraction can, as they well know, be made over and over, but to
what end? For many it becomes too troublesome. Yet the presence
of so glittering a spectacle as Aileen on this night touched Mr.
Rambaud with an ancient ambition. He looked at her almost sadly.
Once he was much younger. But alas, he had never attracted the
flaming interest of any such woman. As he studied her now he
wished that he might have enjoyed such good fortune.

In contrast with Aileen's orchid glow and tinted richness Mrs.
Rambaud's simple gray silk, the collar of which came almost to her
ears, was disturbing--almost reproving--but Mrs. Rambaud's ladylike
courtesy and generosity made everything all right. She came out
of intellectual New England--the Emerson-Thoreau-Channing Phillips
school of philosophy--and was broadly tolerant. As a matter of