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not, would the author of the letter say so practically, "If you don't believe it, watch the house at
931 North Tenth Street"? Wasn't that in itself proof positive--the hard, matter-of-fact realism of
it? And this was the man who had come to him the night before seeking aid--whom he had done
so much to assist. There forced itself into his naturally slow-moving but rather accurate mind a
sense of the distinction and charm of his daughter--a considerably sharper picture than he had
ever had before, and at the same time a keener understanding of the personality of Frank
Algernon Cowperwood. How was it he had failed to detect the real subtlety of this man? How
was it he had never seen any sign of it, if there had been anything between Cowperwood and
Aileen?
Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense of security, to take their
children for granted. Nothing ever has happened, so nothing ever will happen. They see their
children every day, and through the eyes of affection; and despite their natural charm and their
own strong parental love, the children are apt to become not only commonplaces, but ineffably
secure against evil. Mary is naturally a good girl--a little wild, but what harm can befall her? John
is a straight-forward, steady-going boy--how could he get into trouble? The astonishment of
most parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil in connection with any of their children
is almost invariably pathetic. "My John! My Mary! Impossible!" But it is possible. Very possible.
Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding, or both, grow hard and
bitter on the instant. They feel themselves astonishingly abased in the face of notable
tenderness and sacrifice. Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and
uncertainty of life--the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others, taught roughly by life, or
endowed with understanding or intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that
incomprehensible chemistry which we call life and personality, and, knowing that it is quite vain
to hope to gainsay it, save by greater subtlety, put the best face they can upon the matter and
call a truce until they can think. We all know that life is unsolvable-- we who think. The
remainder imagine a vain thing, and are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
So Edward Butler, being a man of much wit and hard, grim experience, stood there on his
doorstep holding in his big, rough hand his thin slip of cheap paper which contained such a
terrific indictment of his daughter. There came to him now a picture of her as she was when she
was a very little girl--she was his first baby girl--and how keenly he had felt about her all these
years. She had been a beautiful child--her red-gold hair had been pillowed on his breast many a
time, and his hard, rough fingers had stroked her soft cheeks, lo, these thousands of times.
Aileen, his lovely, dashing daughter of twenty-three! He was lost in dark, strange, unhappy
speculations, without any present ability to think or say or do the right thing. He did not know
what the right thing was, he finally confessed to himself. Aileen! Aileen! His Aileen! If her mother
knew this it would break her heart. She mustn't! She mustn't! And yet mustn't she?
The heart of a father! The world wanders into many strange by-paths of affection. The love of a
mother for her children is dominant, leonine, selfish, and unselfish. It is concentric. The love of a
husband for his wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a sweet bond of agreement and
exchange trade in a lovely contest. The love of a father for his son or daughter, where it is love
at all, is a broad, generous, sad, contemplative giving without thought of return, a hail and
farewell to a troubled traveler whom he would do much to guard, a balanced judgment of
weakness and strength, with pity for failure and pride in achievement. It is a lovely, generous,
philosophic blossom which rarely asks too much, and seeks only to give wisely and plentifully.
"That my boy may succeed! That my daughter may be happy!" Who has not heard and dwelt
upon these twin fervors of fatherly wisdom and tenderness?
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