One day not so long after her conversation with Mrs. Platow, Aileen happened to be standing outside the door of her own boudoir, the landing of which commanded the lower hall, and there overheard two of her servants discussing the Cowperwood menage in particular and Chicago life in general. One was a tall, angular girl of perhaps twenty-seven or eight, a chambermaid, the other a short, stout woman of forty who held the position of assistant housekeeper. They were pretending to dust, though gossip conducted in a whisper was the matter for which they were foregathered. The tall girl had recently been employed in the family of Aymar Cochrane, the former president of the Chicago West Division Railway, and now a director of the new West Chicago Street Railway Company. “And I was that surprised,” Aileen heard this girl saying, “to think I should be coming here. I cud scarcely believe me ears when they told me. Why, Miss Florence was runnin’ out to meet him two and three times in the week. The wonder to me was that her mother never guessed.” “Och,” replied the other, “he’s the very divil and all when it comes to the wimmin.” (Aileen did not see the upward lift of the hand that accompanied this). “There was a little girl that used to come here. Her father lives up the street here. Haguenin is his name. He owns that morning paper, the _Press_, and has a fine house up the street here a little way. Well, I haven’t seen her very often of late, but more than once I saw him kissing her in this very room. Sure his wife knows all about it. Depend on it. She had an awful fight with some woman here onct, so I hear, some woman that he was runnin’ with and bringin’ here to the house. I hear it’s somethin’ terrible the way she beat her up—screamin’ and carryin’ on. Oh, they’re the divil, these men, when it comes to the wimmin.” A slight rustling sound from somewhere sent the two gossipers on their several ways, but Aileen had heard enough to understand. What was she to do? How was she to learn more of these new women, of whom she had never heard at all? She at once suspected Florence Cochrane, for she knew that this servant had worked in the Cochrane family. And then Cecily Haguenin, the daughter of the editor with whom they were on the friendliest terms! Cowperwood kissing her! Was there no end to his liaisons—his infidelity?