She shook her head dreamily. “No; what makes you ask? They haven’t paid very much attention to me. They’ve always liked Lucille and Gilbert and Ormond best.” Her voice had a plaintive, neglected ring. It was the voice she used in her best scenes on the stage. “Don’t they realize that you are very talented?” “I think perhaps my mother feels that I may have some ability. My father doesn’t, I’m sure. Why?” She lifted those languorous, plaintive eyes. “Why, Stephanie, if you want to know, I think you’re wonderful. I thought so the other night when you were looking at those jades. It all came over me. You are an artist, truly, and I have been so busy I have scarcely seen it. Tell me one thing.” “Yes.” She drew in a soft breath, filling her chest and expanding her bosom, while she looked at him from under her black hair. Her hands were crossed idly in her lap. Then she looked demurely down. “Look, Stephanie! Look up! I want to ask you something. You have known something of me for over a year. Do you like me?” “I think you’re very wonderful,” she murmured. “Is that all?” “Isn’t that much?” she smiled, shooting a dull, black-opal look in his direction. “You wore my bracelet to-day. Were you very glad to get it?” “Oh yes,” she sighed, with aspirated breath, pretending a kind of suffocation. “How beautiful you really are!” he said, rising and looking down at her. She shook her head. “No.” “Yes!” “No.” “Come, Stephanie! Stand by me and look at me. You are so tall and slender and graceful. You are like something out of Asia.” She sighed, turning in a sinuous way, as he slipped his arm her. “I don’t think we should, should we?” she asked, naively, after a moment, pulling away from him. “Stephanie!” “I think I’d better go, now, please.” CHAPTER XXVI. Love and War It was during the earlier phases of his connection with Chicago street-railways that Cowperwood, ardently interesting himself in Stephanie Platow, developed as serious a sex affair as any that had yet held him. At once, after a few secret interviews with her, he adopted his favorite ruse in such matters and established bachelor quarters in the down-town section as a convenient meeting-ground. Several conversations with Stephanie were not quite as illuminating as they might have been, for, wonderful as she was—a kind of artistic godsend in this dull Western atmosphere—she was also enigmatic and elusive, very. He learned speedily, in talking with her on several days when they met for lunch, of her dramatic ambitions, and of the seeming spiritual and artistic support she required from some one who would have faith in her and inspire her by his or her confidence. He learned all about the Garrick Players, her home intimacies and friends, the growing quarrels in the dramatic organization. He asked her, as they sat in a favorite and inconspicuous resort of his finding, during one of those moments when blood and not intellect was ruling between them, whether she had ever—