True to his promise of protectorship and assistance, he had established her in a New York apartment adjacent to her daughter's school, and where he fancied that he himself might spend many happy hours were Berenice but near.

Proximity to Berenice! The desire to arouse her interest and command her favor! Cowperwood would scarcely have cared to admit to himself how great a part this played in a thought which had recently been creeping into his mind.

It was that of erecting a splendid house in New York.
By degrees this idea of building a New York house had grown upon him.
His Chicago mansion was a costly sepulcher in which Aileen sat brooding over the woes which had befallen her.

Moreover, aside from the social defeat which it represented, it was becoming merely as a structure, but poorly typical of the splendor and ability of his imaginations.

This second dwelling, if he ever achieved it, should be resplendent, a monument to himself.