The Financier a novel by Theodore Dreiser

 
 

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Chapter XLIX 
The business of arranging Cowperwood's sentence for Monday was soon 
disposed of through Shannon, who had no personal objection to any 
reasonable delay. 
Steger next visited the county jail, close on to five o'clock, when it was 
already dark. Sheriff Jaspers came lolling out from his private library, where 
he had been engaged upon the work of cleaning his pipe. 
"How are you, Mr. Steger?" he observed, smiling blandly. "How are you? 
Glad to see you. Won't you sit down? I suppose you're round here again on 
that Cowperwood matter. I just received word from the district attorney that 
he had lost his case." 
"That's it, Sheriff," replied Steger, ingratiatingly. "He asked me to step 
around and see what you wanted him to do in the matter. Judge Payderson 
has just fixed the sentence time for Monday morning at ten o'clock. I don't 
suppose you'll be much put out if he doesn't show up here before Monday at 
eight o'clock, will you, or Sunday night, anyhow? He's perfectly reliable, as 
you know." Steger was sounding Jaspers out, politely trying to make the 
time of Cowperwood's arrival a trivial matter in order to avoid paying the 
hundred dollars, if possible. But Jaspers was not to be so easily disposed of. 
His fat face lengthened considerably. How could Steger ask him such a favor 
and not even suggest the slightest form of remuneration? 
"It's ag'in' the law, Mr. Steger, as you know," he began, cautiously and 
complainingly. "I'd like to accommodate him, everything else being equal, 
but since that Albertson case three years ago we've had to run this office 
much more careful, and—" 
"Oh, I know, Sheriff," interrupted Steger, blandly, "but this isn't an ordinary 
case in any way, as you can see for yourself. Mr. Cowperwood is a very 
important man, and he has a great many things to attend to. Now if it were 
only a mere matter of seventy-five or a hundred dollars to satisfy some court 
clerk with, or to pay a fine, it would be easy enough, but—" He paused and 
looked wisely away, and Mr. Jaspers's face began to relax at once. The law 
against which it was ordinarily so hard to offend was not now so important. 
Steger saw that it was needless to introduce any additional arguments. 
"It's a very ticklish business, this, Mr. Steger," put in the sheriff, yieldingly, 
and yet with a slight whimper in his voice. "If anything were to happen, it 
would cost me my place all right. I don't like to do it under any 
circumstances, and I wouldn't, only I happen to know both Mr. Cowperwood 
and Mr. Stener, and I like 'em both. I don' think they got their rights in this 
matter, either. I don't mind making an exception in this case if Mr. 
Cowperwood don't go about too publicly. I wouldn't want any of the men in 

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the district attorney's office to know this. I don't suppose he'll mind if I keep 
a deputy somewhere near all the time for looks' sake. I have to, you know, 
really, under the law. He won't bother him any. Just keep on guard like." 
Jaspers looked at Mr. Steger very flatly and wisely—almost placatingly 
under the circumstances—and Steger nodded. 
"Quite right, Sheriff, quite right. You're quite right," and he drew out his 
purse while the sheriff led the way very cautiously back into his library. 
"I'd like to show you the line of law-books I'm fixing up for myself in here, 
Mr. Steger," he observed, genially, but meanwhile closing his fingers gently 
on the small roll of ten-dollar bills Steger was handing him. "We have 
occasional use for books of that kind here, as you see. I thought it a good 
sort of thing to have them around." He waved one arm comprehensively at 
the line of State reports, revised statutes, prison regulations, etc., the while 
he put the money in his pocket and Steger pretended to look. 
"A good idea, I think, Sheriff. Very good, indeed. So you think if Mr. 
Cowperwood gets around here very early Monday morning, say eight or 
eight-thirty, that it will be all right?" 
"I think so," replied the sheriff, curiously nervous, but agreeable, anxious to 
please. "I don't think that anything will come up that will make me want him 
earlier. If it does I'll let you know, and you can produce him. I don't think so, 
though, Mr. Steger; I think everything will be all right." They were once more 
in the main hall now. "Glad to have seen you again, Mr. Steger—very glad," 
he added. "Call again some day." 
Waving the sheriff a pleasant farewell, he hurried on his way to 
Cowperwood's house. 
You would not have thought, seeing Cowperwood mount the front steps of 
his handsome residence in his neat gray suit and well-cut overcoat on his 
return from his office that evening, that he was thinking that this might be 
his last night here. His air and walk indicated no weakening of spirit. He 
entered the hall, where an early lamp was aglow, and encountered "Wash" 
Sims, an old negro factotum, who was just coming up from the basement, 
carrying a bucket of coal for one of the fireplaces. 
"Mahty cold out, dis evenin', Mistah Coppahwood," said Wash, to whom 
anything less than sixty degrees was very cold. His one regret was that 
Philadelphia was not located in North Carolina, from whence he came. 
"'Tis sharp, Wash," replied Cowperwood, absentmindedly. He was thinking 
for the moment of the house and how it had looked, as he came toward it 
west along Girard Avenue—what the neighbors were thinking of him, too, 
observing him from time to time out of their windows. It was clear and cold. 
The lamps in the reception-hall and sitting-room had been lit, for he had 

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permitted no air of funereal gloom to settle down over this place since his 
troubles had begun. In the far west of the street a last tingling gleam of 
lavender and violet was showing over the cold white snow of the roadway. 
The house of gray-green stone, with its lighted windows, and cream-colored 
lace curtains, had looked especially attractive. He had thought for the 
moment of the pride he had taken in putting all this here, decorating and 
ornamenting it, and whether, ever, he could secure it for himself again. 
"Where is your mistress?" he added to Wash, when he bethought himself. 
"In the sitting-room, Mr. Coppahwood, ah think." 
Cowperwood ascended the stairs, thinking curiously that Wash would soon 
be out of a job now, unless Mrs. Cowperwood, out of all the wreck of other 
things, chose to retain him, which was not likely. He entered the sitting-
room, and there sat his wife by the oblong center-table, sewing a hook and 
eye on one of Lillian, second's, petticoats. She looked up, at his step, with 
the peculiarly uncertain smile she used these days—indication of her pain, 
fear, suspicion—and inquired, "Well, what is new with you, Frank?" Her 
smile was something like a hat or belt or ornament which one puts on or off 
at will. 
"Nothing in particular," he replied, in his offhand way, "except that I 
understand I have lost that appeal of mine. Steger is coming here in a little 
while to let me know. I had a note from him, and I fancy it's about that." 
He did not care to say squarely that he had lost. He knew that she was 
sufficiently distressed as it was, and he did not care to be too abrupt just 
now. 
"You don't say!" replied Lillian, with surprise and fright in her voice, and 
getting up. 
She had been so used to a world where prisons were scarcely thought of, 
where things went on smoothly from day to day without any noticeable 
intrusion of such distressing things as courts, jails, and the like, that these 
last few months had driven her nearly mad. Cowperwood had so definitely 
insisted on her keeping in the background—he had told her so very little 
that she was all at sea anyhow in regard to the whole procedure. Nearly all 
that she had had in the way of intelligence had been from his father and 
mother and Anna, and from a close and almost secret scrutiny of the 
newspapers. 
At the time he had gone to the county jail she did not even know anything 
about it until his father had come back from the court-room and the jail and 
had broken the news to her. It had been a terrific blow to her. Now to have 
this thing suddenly broken to her in this offhand way, even though she had 
been expecting and dreading it hourly, was too much. 

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She was still a decidedly charming-looking woman as she stood holding her 
daughter's garment in her hand, even if she was forty years old to 
Cowperwood's thirty-five. She was robed in one of the creations of their late 
prosperity, a cream-colored gown of rich silk, with dark brown trimmings—a 
fetching combination for her. Her eyes were a little hollow, and reddish 
about the rims, but otherwise she showed no sign of her keen mental 
distress. There was considerable evidence of the former tranquil sweetness 
that had so fascinated him ten years before. 
"Isn't that terrible?" she said, weakly, her hands trembling in a nervous way. 
"Isn't it dreadful? Isn't there anything more you can do, truly? You won't 
really have to go to prison, will you?" He objected to her distress and her 
nervous fears. He preferred a stronger, more self-reliant type of woman, but 
still she was his wife, and in his day he had loved her much. 
"It looks that way, Lillian," he said, with the first note of real sympathy he 
had used in a long while, for he felt sorry for her now. At the same time he 
was afraid to go any further along that line, for fear it might give her a false 
sense as to his present attitude toward her which was one essentially of 
indifference. But she was not so dull but what she could see that the 
consideration in his voice had been brought about by his defeat, which 
meant hers also. She choked a little—and even so was touched. The bare 
suggestion of sympathy brought back the old days so definitely gone forever. 
If only they could be brought back! 
"I don't want you to feel distressed about me, though," he went on, before 
she could say anything to him. "I'm not through with my fighting. I'll get out 
of this. I have to go to prison, it seems, in order to get things straightened 
out properly. What I would like you to do is to keep up a cheerful 
appearance in front of the rest of the family—father and mother particularly. 
They need to be cheered up." He thought once of taking her hand, then 
decided not. She noted mentally his hesitation, the great difference between 
his attitude now and that of ten or twelve years before. It did not hurt her 
now as much as she once would have thought. She looked at him, scarcely 
knowing what to say. There was really not so much to say. 
"Will you have to go soon, if you do have to go?" she ventured, wearily. 
"I can't tell yet. Possibly to-night. Possibly Friday. Possibly not until Monday. 
I'm waiting to hear from Steger. I expect him here any minute." 
To prison! To prison! Her Frank Cowperwood, her husband—the substance 
of their home here—and all their soul destruction going to prison. And even 
now she scarcely grasped why! She stood there wondering what she could 
do. 

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"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, starting forward as if out of 
a dream. "Do you want me to do anything? Don't you think perhaps you had 
better leave Philadelphia, Frank? You needn't go to prison unless you want 
to." 
She was a little beside herself, for the first time in her life shocked out of a 
deadly calm. 
He paused and looked at her for a moment in his direct, examining way, his 
hard commercial business judgment restored on the instant. 
"That would be a confession of guilt, Lillian, and I'm not guilty," he replied, 
almost coldly. "I haven't done anything that warrants my running away or 
going to prison, either. I'm merely going there to save time at present. I can't 
be litigating this thing forever. I'll get out—be pardoned out or sued out in a 
reasonable length of time. Just now it's better to go, I think. I wouldn't think 
of running away from Philadelphia. Two of five judges found for me in the 
decision. That's pretty fair evidence that the State has no case against me." 
His wife saw she had made a mistake. It clarified her judgment on the 
instant. "I didn't mean in that way, Frank," she replied, apologetically. "You 
know I didn't. Of course I know you're not guilty. Why should I think you 
were, of all people?" 
She paused, expecting some retort, some further argument—a kind word 
maybe. A trace of the older, baffling love, but he had quietly turned to his 
desk and was thinking of other things. 
At this point the anomaly of her own state came over her again. It was all so 
sad and so hopeless. And what was she to do in the future? And what was 
he likely to do? She paused half trembling and yet decided, because of her 
peculiarly nonresisting nature—why trespass on his time? Why bother? No 
good would really come of it. He really did not care for her any more—that 
was it. Nothing could make him, nothing could bring them together again, 
not even this tragedy. He was interested in another woman—Aileen—and so 
her foolish thoughts and explanations, her fear, sorrow, distress, were not 
important to him. He could take her agonized wish for his freedom as a 
comment on his probable guilt, a doubt of his innocence, a criticism of him! 
She turned away for a minute, and he started to leave the room. 
"I'll be back again in a few moments," he volunteered. "Are the children 
here?" 
"Yes, they're up in the play-room," she answered, sadly, utterly nonplussed 
and distraught. 
"Oh, Frank!" she had it on her lips to cry, but before she could utter it he 
had bustled down the steps and was gone. She turned back to the table, her 

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left hand to her mouth, her eyes in a queer, hazy, melancholy mist. Could it 
be, she thought, that life could really come to this—that love could so 
utterly, so thoroughly die? Ten years before—but, oh, why go back to that? 
Obviously it could, and thoughts concerning that would not help now. Twice 
now in her life her affairs had seemed to go to pieces—once when her first 
husband had died, and now when her second had failed her, had fallen in 
love with another and was going to be sent off to prison. What was it about 
her that caused such things? Was there anything wrong with her? What was 
she going to do? Where go? She had no idea, of course, for how long a term 
of years he would be sent away. It might be one year or it might be five 
years, as the papers had said. Good heavens! The children could almost 
come to forget him in five years. She put her other hand to her mouth, also, 
and then to her forehead, where there was a dull ache. She tried to think 
further than this, but somehow, just now, there was no further thought. 
Suddenly quite outside of her own volition, with no thought that she was 
going to do such a thing, her bosom began to heave, her throat contracted in 
four or five short, sharp, aching spasms, her eyes burned, and she shook in 
a vigorous, anguished, desperate, almost one might have said dry-eyed, cry, 
so hot and few were the tears. She could not stop for the moment, just stood 
there and shook, and then after a while a dull ache succeeded, and she was 
quite as she had been before. 
"Why cry?" she suddenly asked herself, fiercely—for her. "Why break down 
in this stormy, useless way? Would it help?" 
But, in spite of her speculative, philosophic observations to herself, she still 
felt the echo, the distant rumble, as it were, of the storm in her own soul. 
"Why cry? Why not cry?" She might have said—but wouldn't, and in spite of 
herself and all her logic, she knew that this tempest which had so recently 
raged over her was now merely circling around her soul's horizon and would 
return to break again.