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He walked his office floor thinking what he could do. Question Aileen--that was what he would
do. If her face, or her lips, told him that his suspicion was true, he would deal with Cowperwood
later. This city treasurer business, now. It was not a crime in so far as Cowperwood was
concerned; but it might be made to be.
So now, telling the clerk to say to Owen that he had gone down the street for a few moments,
he boarded a street-car and rode out to his home, where he found his elder daughter just
getting ready to go out. She wore a purple-velvet street dress edged with narrow, flat gilt braid,
and a striking gold-and-purple turban. She had on dainty new boots of bronze kid and long
gloves of lavender suede. In her ears was one of her latest affectations, a pair of long jet
earrings. The old Irishman realized on this occasion, when he saw her, perhaps more clearly
than he ever had in his life, that he had grown a bird of rare plumage.
"Where are you going, daughter?" he asked, with a rather unsuccessful attempt to conceal his
fear, distress, and smoldering anger.
"To the library," she said easily, and yet with a sudden realization that all was not right with her
father. His face was too heavy and gray. He looked tired and gloomy.
"Come up to my office a minute," he said. "I want to see you before you go."
Aileen heard this with a strange feeling of curiosity and wonder. It was not customary for her
father to want to see her in his office just when she was going out; and his manner indicated, in
this instance, that the exceptional procedure portended a strange revelation of some kind.
Aileen, like every other person who offends against a rigid convention of the time, was
conscious of and sensitive to the possible disastrous results which would follow exposure. She
had often thought about what her family would think if they knew what she was doing; she had
never been able to satisfy herself in her mind as to what they would do. Her father was a very
vigorous man. But she had never known him to be cruel or cold in his attitude toward her or any
other member of the family, and especially not toward her. Always he seemed too fond of her to
be completely alienated by anything that might happen; yet she could not be sure.
Butler led the way, planting his big feet solemnly on the steps as he went up. Aileen followed
with a single glance at herself in the tall pier-mirror which stood in the hall, realizing at once how
charming she looked and how uncertain she was feeling about what was to follow. What could
her father want? It made the color leave her cheeks for the moment, as she thought what he
might want.
Butler strolled into his stuffy room and sat down in the big leather chair, disproportioned to
everything else in the chamber, but which, nevertheless, accompanied his desk. Before him,
against the light, was the visitor's chair, in which he liked to have those sit whose faces he was
anxious to study. When Aileen entered he motioned her to it, which was also ominous to her,
and said, "Sit down there."
She took the seat, not knowing what to make of his procedure. On the instant her promise to
Cowperwood to deny everything, whatever happened, came back to her. If her father was about
to attack her on that score, he would get no satisfaction, she thought. She owed it to Frank. Her
pretty face strengthened and hardened on the instant. Her small, white teeth set themselves in
two even rows; and her father saw quite plainly that she was consciously bracing herself for an
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