It was in vain that the Addisons, Sledds, Kingslands, Hoecksemas, and others made their appearance; Aileen was not reassured.
However, after dinner the younger set, influenced by McKibben, came to dance, and Aileen was at her best in spite of her doubts.
She was gay, bold, attractive. Kent McKibben, a past master in the mazes and mysteries of the grand march, had the pleasure of leading her in that airy, fairy procession, followed by Cowperwood, who gave his arm to Mrs. Simms. Aileen, in white satin with a touch of silver here and there and necklet, bracelet, ear-rings, and hair-ornament of diamonds, glittered in almost an exotic way.
She was positively radiant. McKibben, almost smitten, was most attentive.
"This is such a pleasure," he whispered, intimately. "You are very beautiful--a dream!"
"You would find me a very substantial one," returned Aileen.
"Would that I might find," he laughed, gaily; and Aileen, gathering the hidden significance, showed her teeth teasingly. Mrs. Simms, engrossed by Cowperwood, could not hear as she would have liked.
After the march Aileen, surrounded by a half-dozen of gay, rudely thoughtless young bloods, escorted them all to see her portrait.
The conservative commented on the flow of wine, the intensely nude Gerome at one end of the gallery, and the sparkling portrait of Aileen at the other, the enthusiasm of some of the young men for her company. Mrs. Rambaud, pleasant and kindly, remarked to her husband that Aileen was "very eager for life," she thought. Mrs.
Addison, astonished at the material flare of the Cowperwoods, quite transcending in glitter if not in size and solidity anything she and Addison had ever achieved, remarked to her husband that "he must be making money very fast."
"The man's a born financier, Ella," Addison explained, sententiously.
"He's a manipulator, and he's sure to make money. Whether they can get into society I don't know. He could if he were alone, that's sure. She's beautiful, but he needs another kind of woman, I'm afraid. She's almost too good-looking."
"That's what I think, too. I like her, but I'm afraid she's not going to play her cards right. It's too bad, too."
Just then Aileen came by, a smiling youth on either side, her own face glowing with a warmth of joy engendered by much flattery.
The ball-room, which was composed of the music and drawing rooms thrown into one, was now the objective. It glittered before her with a moving throng; the air was full of the odor of flowers, and the sound of music and voices.
"Mrs. Cowperwood," observed Bradford Canda to Horton Biggers, the society editor, "is one of the prettiest women I have seen in a long time. She's almost too pretty."
"How do you think she's taking?" queried the cautious Biggers.
"Charming, but she's hardly cold enough, I'm afraid; hardly clever enough. It takes a more serious type. She's a little too high-spirited. These old women would never want to get near her; she makes them look too old. She'd do better if she were not so young and so pretty."
"That's what I think exactly," said Biggers. As a matter of fact, he did not think so at all; he had no power of drawing any such accurate conclusions. But he believed it now, because Bradford Canda had said it.
