He merely gazed at her with his hard, burning eyes. The materiality that accompanies romance in so many temperaments awakened in her, and quite put Cowperwood out of her mind for the moment. It was an astonishing and revolutionary experience for her. She quite burned in reply, and Lynde smiled sweetly, encouragingly.
"Why won't you be friends with me, my sweetheart? I know you're not happy--I can see that. Neither am I. I have a wreckless, wretched disposition that gets me into all sorts of hell. I need some one to care for me. Why won't you? You're just my sort. I feel it. Do you love him so much"--he was referring to Cowperwood --"that you can't love any one else?"
"Oh, him!" retorted Aileen, irritably, almost disloyally. "He doesn't care for me any more. He wouldn't mind. It isn't him."
"Well, then, what is it? Why won't you? Am I not interesting enough?
Don't you like me? Don't you feel that I'm really suited to you?"
His hand sought hers softly.
Aileen accepted the caress.
"Oh, it isn't that," she replied, feelingly, running back in her mind over her long career with Cowperwood, his former love, his keen protestations. She had expected to make so much out of her life with him, and here she was sitting in a public restaurant flirting with and extracting sympathy from a comparative stranger.
It cut her to the quick for the moment and sealed her lips. Hot, unbidden tears welled to her eyes.
Lynde saw them. He was really very sorry for her, though her beauty made him wish to take advantage of her distress. "Why should you cry, dearest?" he asked, softly, looking at her flushed cheeks and colorful eyes. "You have beauty; you are young; you're lovely. He's not the only man in the world. Why should you be faithful when he isn't faithful to you? This Hand affair is all over town. When you meet some one that really would care for you, why shouldn't you? If he doesn't want you, there are others."
At the mention of the Hand affair Aileen straightened up. "The Hand affair?" she asked, curiously. "What is that?"
"Don't you know?" he replied, a little surprised. "I thought you did, or I certainly wouldn't have mentioned it."
"Oh, I know about what it is," replied Aileen, wisely, and with a touch of sardonic humor. "There have been so many or the same kind. I suppose it must be the case the Chicago Review was referring to--the wife of the prominent financier. Has he been trifling with Mrs. Hand?"
"Something like that," replied Lynde. "I'm sorry that I spoke, though? really I am. I didn't mean to be carrying tales."
"Soldiers in a common fight, eh?" taunted Aileen, gaily.
"Oh, not that, exactly. Please don't be mean. I'm not so bad.
It's just a principle with me. We all have our little foibles."
"Yes, I know," replied Aileen; but her mind was running on Mrs.
Hand. So she was the latest. "Well, I admire his taste, anyway, in this case," she said, archly. "There have been so many, though.
She is just one more.
Lynde smiled. He himself admired Cowperwood's taste. Then he dropped the subject.
"But let's forget that," he said. "Please don't worry about him any more. You can't change that. Pull yourself together." He squeezed her fingers. "Will you?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows in inquiry.
"Will I what?" replied Aileen, meditatively.
"Oh, you know. The necklace for one thing. Me, too." His eyes coaxed and laughed and pleaded.
Aileen smiled. "You're a bad boy," she said, evasively. This revelation in regard to Mrs. Hand had made her singularly retaliatory in spirit. "Let me think. Don't ask me to take the necklace to-day. I couldn't. I couldn't wear it, anyhow. Let me see you another time." She moved her plump hand in an uncertain way, and he smoothed her wrist.
"I wonder if you wouldn't like to go around to the studio of a friend of mine here in the tower?" he asked, quite nonchalantly.
"He has such a charming collection of landscapes. You're interested in pictures, I know. Your husband has some of the finest."
Instantly Aileen understood what was meant--quite by instinct.
The alleged studio must be private bachelor quarters.
"Not this afternoon," she replied, quite wrought up and disturbed.
"Not to-day. Another time. And I must be going now. But I will see you."
"And this?" he asked, picking up the necklace.
"You keep it until I do come," she replied. "I may take it then."
She relaxed a little, pleased that she was getting safely away; but her mood was anything but antagonistic, and her spirits were as shredded as wind-whipped clouds. It was time she wanted--a little time--that was all.
