“Yes?” she replied, with a half-hearted smile, rubbing her waking eyes. She was clad in a foamy nightgown of white and pink. “That’s nice, isn’t it?” Cowperwood brought himself up on one elbow and looked at her, smoothing her round, bare arms, which he always admired. The luminous richness of her hair had never lost its charm completely. “That means that I can do the same thing with the Chicago West Division Company in a year or so,” he went on. “But there’s going to be a lot of talk about this, I’m afraid, and I don’t want that just now. It will work out all right. I can see Schryhart and Merrill and some of these other people taking notice pretty soon. They’ve missed out on two of the biggest things Chicago ever had—gas and railways.” “Oh yes, Frank, I’m glad for you,” commented Aileen, rather drearily, who, in spite of her sorrow over his defection, was still glad that he was going on and forward. “You’ll always do all right.” “I wish you wouldn’t feel so badly, Aileen,” he said, with a kind of affectional protest. “Aren’t you going to try and be happy with me? This is as much for you as for me. You will be able to pay up old scores even better than I will.” He smiled winningly. “Yes,” she replied, reproachfully but tenderly at that, a little sorrowfully, “a lot of good money does me. It was your love I wanted.” “But you have that,” he insisted. “I’ve told you that over and over. I never ceased to care for you really. You know I didn’t.” “Yes, I know,” she replied, even as he gathered her close in his arms. “I know how you care.” But that did not prevent her from responding to him warmly, for back of all her fuming protest was heartache, the wish to have his love intact, to restore that pristine affection which she had once assumed would endure forever. CHAPTER XXIII. The Power of the Press The morning papers, in spite of the efforts of Cowperwood and his friends to keep this transfer secret, shortly thereafter were full of rumors of a change in “North Chicago.” Frank Algernon Cowperwood, hitherto unmentioned in connection with Chicago street-railways, was pointed to as the probable successor to Onias C. Skinner, and Edwin L. Kaffrath, one of the old directors, as future vice-president. The men back of the deal were referred to as “in all likelihood Eastern capitalists.” Cowperwood, as he sat in Aileen’s room examining the various morning papers, saw that before the day was over he would be sought out for an expression of opinion and further details. He proposed to ask the newspaper men to wait a few days until he could talk to the publishers of the papers themselves—win their confidence—and then announce a general policy; it would be something that would please the city, and the residents of the North Side in particular. At the same time he did not care to promise anything which he could not easily and profitably perform. He wanted fame and reputation, but he wanted money even more; he intended to get both.