“I want to marry Aileen,” Cowperwood repeated, for emphasis’ sake. “She wants to marry me. Under the circumstances, however you may feel, you can have no real objection to my doing that, I am sure; yet you go on fighting me—making it hard for me to do what you really know ought to be done.”
“Ye’re a scoundrel,” said Butler, seeing through his motives quite clearly. “Ye’re a sharper, to my way of thinkin’, and it’s no child of mine I want connected with ye. I’m not sayin’, seein’ that things are as they are, that if ye were a free man it wouldn’t be better that she should marry ye. It’s the one dacent thing ye could do—if ye would, which I doubt. But that’s nayther here nor there now. What can ye want with her hid away somewhere? Ye can’t marry her. Ye can’t get a divorce. Ye’ve got your hands full fightin’ your lawsuits and kapin’ yourself out of jail. She’ll only be an added expense to ye, and ye’ll be wantin’ all the money ye have for other things, I’m thinkin’. Why should ye want to be takin’ her away from a dacent home and makin’ something out of her that ye’d be ashamed to marry if you could? The laist ye could do, if ye were any kind of a man at all, and had any of that thing that ye’re plased to call love, would be to lave her at home and keep her as respectable as possible. Mind ye, I’m not thinkin’ she isn’t ten thousand times too good for ye, whatever ye’ve made of her. But if ye had any sinse of dacency left, ye wouldn’t let her shame her family and break her old mother’s heart, and that for no purpose except to make her worse than she is already. What good can ye get out of it, now? What good can ye expect to come of it? Be hivins, if ye had any sinse at all I should think ye could see that for yerself. Ye’re only addin’ to your troubles, not takin’ away from them—and she’ll not thank ye for that later on.”
He stopped, rather astonished that he should have been drawn into an argument. His contempt for this man was so great that he could scarcely look at him, but his duty and his need was to get Aileen back. Cowperwood looked at him as one who gives serious attention to another. He seemed to be thinking deeply over what Butler had said.
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Butler,” he said, “I did not want Aileen to leave your home at all; and she will tell you so, if you ever talk to her about it. I did my best to persuade her not to, and when she insisted on going the only thing I could do was to be sure she would be comfortable wherever she went. She was greatly outraged to think you should have put detectives on her trail. That, and the fact that you wanted to send her away somewhere against her will, was the principal reasons for her leaving. I assure you I did not want her to go. I think you forget sometimes, Mr. Butler, that Aileen is a grown woman, and that she has a will of her own. You think I control her to her great disadvantage. As a matter of fact, I am very much in love with her, and have been for three or four years; and if you know anything about love you know that it doesn’t always mean control. I’m not doing Aileen any injustice when I say that she has had as much influence on me as I have had on her. I love her, and that’s the cause of all the trouble. You come and insist that I shall return your daughter to you. As a matter of fact, I don’t know whether I can or not. I don’t know that she would go if I wanted her to. She might turn on me and say that I didn’t care for her any more. That is not true, and I would not want her to feel that way. She is greatly hurt, as I told you, by what you did to her, and the fact that you want her to leave Philadelphia. You can do as much to remedy that as I can. I could tell you where she is, but I do not know that I want to. Certainly not until I know what your attitude toward her and this whole proposition is to be.”
He paused and looked calmly at the old contractor, who eyed him grimly in return.
“What proposition are ye talkin’ about?” asked Butler, interested by the peculiar developments of this argument. In spite of himself he was getting a slightly different angle on the whole situation. The scene was shifting to a certain extent. Cowperwood appeared to be reasonably sincere in the matter. His promises might all be wrong, but perhaps he did love Aileen; and it was possible that he did intend to get a divorce from his wife some time and marry her. Divorce, as Butler knew, was against the rules of the Catholic Church, which he so much revered. The laws of God and any sense of decency commanded that Cowperwood should not desert his wife and children and take up with another woman—not even Aileen, in order to save her. It was a criminal thing to plan, sociologically speaking, and showed what a villain Cowperwood inherently was; but, nevertheless, Cowperwood was not a Catholic, his views of life were not the same as his own, Butler’s, and besides and worst of all (no doubt due in part to Aileen’s own temperament), he had compromised her situation very materially. She might not easily be restored to a sense of the normal and decent, and so the matter was worth taking into thought. Butler knew that ultimately he could not countenance any such thing—certainly not, and keep his faith with the Church—but he was human enough none the less to consider it. Besides, he wanted Aileen to come back; and Aileen from now on, he knew, would have some say as to what her future should be.
“Well, it’s simple enough,” replied Cowperwood. “I should like to have you withdraw your opposition to Aileen’s remaining in Philadelphia, for one thing; and for another, I should like you to stop your attacks on me.” Cowperwood smiled in an ingratiating way. He hoped really to placate Butler in part by his generous attitude throughout this procedure. “I can’t make you do that, of course, unless you want to. I merely bring it up, Mr. Butler, because I am sure that if it hadn’t been for Aileen you would not have taken the course you have taken toward me. I understood you received an anonymous letter, and that afternoon you called your loan with me. Since then I have heard from one source and another that you were strongly against me, and I merely wish to say that I wish you wouldn’t be. I am not guilty of embezzling any sixty thousand dollars, and you know it. My intentions were of the best. I did not think I was going to fail at the time I used those certificates, and if it hadn’t been for several other loans that were called I would have gone on to the end of the month and put them back in time, as I always had. I have always valued your friendship very highly, and I am very sorry to lose it. Now I have said all I am going to say.”
Butler looked at Cowperwood with shrewd, calculating eyes. The man had some merit, but much unconscionable evil in him. Butler knew very well how he had taken the check, and a good many other things in connection with it. The manner in which he had played his cards to-night was on a par with the way he had run to him on the night of the fire. He was just shrewd and calculating and heartless.
“I’ll make ye no promise,” he said. “Tell me where my daughter is, and I’ll think the matter over. Ye have no claim on me now, and I owe ye no good turn. But I’ll think it over, anyhow.”
“That’s quite all right,” replied Cowperwood. “That’s all I can expect. But what about Aileen? Do you expect her to leave Philadelphia?”
“Not if she settles down and behaves herself: but there must be an end of this between you and her. She’s disgracin’ her family and ruinin’ her soul in the bargain. And that’s what you are doin’ with yours. It’ll be time enough to talk about anything else when you’re a free man. More than that I’ll not promise.”
Cowperwood, satisfied that this move on Aileen’s part had done her a real service if it had not aided him especially, was convinced that it would be a good move for her to return to her home at once. He could not tell how his appeal to the State Supreme Court would eventuate. His motion for a new trial which was now to be made under the privilege of the certificate of reasonable doubt might not be granted, in which case he would have to serve a term in the penitentiary. If he were compelled to go to the penitentiary she would be safer—better off in the bosom of her family. His own hands were going to be exceedingly full for the next two months until he knew how his appeal was coming out. And after that—well, after that he would fight on, whatever happened.
During all the time that Cowperwood had been arguing his case in this fashion he had been thinking how he could adjust this compromise so as to retain the affection of Aileen and not offend her sensibilities by urging her to return. He knew that she would not agree to give up seeing him, and he was not willing that she should. Unless he had a good and sufficient reason, he would be playing a wretched part by telling Butler where she was. He did not intend to do so until he saw exactly how to do it—the way that would make it most acceptable to Aileen. He knew that she would not long be happy where she was. Her flight was due in part to Butler’s intense opposition to himself and in part to his determination to make her leave Philadelphia and behave; but this last was now in part obviated. Butler, in spite of his words, was no longer a stern Nemesis. He was a melting man—very anxious to find his daughter, very willing to forgive her. He was whipped, literally beaten, at his own game, and Cowperwood could see it in the old man’s eyes. If he himself could talk to Aileen personally and explain just how things were, he felt sure he could make her see that it would be to their mutual advantage, for the present at least, to have the matter amicably settled. The thing to do was to make Butler wait somewhere—here, possibly—while he went and talked to her. When she learned how things were she would probably acquiesce.
“The best thing that I can do under the circumstances,” he said, after a time, “would be to see Aileen in two or three days, and ask her what she wishes to do. I can explain the matter to her, and if she wants to go back, she can. I will promise to tell her anything that you say.”
“Two or three days!” exclaimed Butler, irritably. “Two or three fiddlesticks! She must come home to-night. Her mother doesn’t know she’s left the place yet. To-night is the time! I’ll go and fetch her meself to-night.”
