Meanwhile, Lillian Semple caught and held his interest.  Just what it was about her that attracted him at this age it would be hard to say, for she was really not suited to him emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise.  He was not without experience with women or girls, and still held a tentative relationship with Marjorie Stafford; but Lillian Semple, in spite of the fact that she was married and that he could have legitimate interest in her, seemed not wiser and saner, but more worth while.  She was twenty-four as opposed to Frank’s nineteen, but still young enough in her thoughts and looks to appear of his own age.  She was slightly taller than he—­though he was now his full height (five feet ten and one-half inches)—­and, despite her height, shapely, artistic in form and feature, and with a certain unconscious placidity of soul, which came more from lack of understanding than from force of character.  Her hair was the color of a dried English walnut, rich and plentiful, and her complexion waxen—­cream wax—–­with lips of faint pink, and eyes that varied from gray to blue and from gray to brown, according to the light in which you saw them.  Her hands were thin and shapely, her nose straight, her face artistically narrow.  She was not brilliant, not active, but rather peaceful and statuesque without knowing it.  Cowperwood was carried away by her appearance.  Her beauty measured up to his present sense of the artistic.  She was lovely, he thought—­gracious, dignified.  If he could have his choice of a wife, this was the kind of a girl he would like to have.

As yet, Cowperwood’s judgment of women was temperamental rather than intellectual.  Engrossed as he was by his desire for wealth, prestige, dominance, he was confused, if not chastened by considerations relating to position, presentability and the like.  None the less, the homely woman meant nothing to him.  And the passionate woman meant much.  He heard family discussions of this and that sacrificial soul among women, as well as among men—­women who toiled and slaved for their husbands or children, or both, who gave way to relatives or friends in crises or crucial moments, because it was right and kind to do so—­but somehow these stories did not appeal to him.  He preferred to think of people—­even women—­as honestly, frankly self-interested.  He could not have told you why.  People seemed foolish, or at the best very unfortunate not to know what to do in all circumstances and how to protect themselves.  There was great talk concerning morality, much praise of virtue and decency, and much lifting of hands in righteous horror at people who broke or were even rumored to have broken the Seventh Commandment.  He did not take this talk seriously.  Already he had broken it secretly many times.  Other young men did.  Yet again, he was a little sick of the women of the streets and the bagnio.  There were too many coarse, evil features in connection with such contacts.  For a little while, the false tinsel-glitter