Could it be possible that he had not left town?
She journeyed to his office on the pretext of taking old Laughlin's dog, Jennie, a pretty collar she had found; actually to find if Antoinette were away at the same time.

Could it be possible, she kept asking herself, that Cowperwood had become interested in his own stenographer?
The fact that the office assumed that he was out of town and that Antoinette was not there gave her pause.

Laughlin quite innocently informed her that he thought Miss Nowak had gone to one of the libraries to make up certain reports.

It left her in doubt.
What was Aileen to think?
Her moods and aspirations were linked so closely with the love and success of Cowperwood that she could not, in spite of herself, but take fire at the least thought of losing him.

He himself wondered sometimes, as he threaded the mesh-like paths of sex, what she would do once she discovered his variant conduct.