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Aileen, not ungenerous--fool of mingled affection and passion-- could now have cried. She
pitied her father from her heart; but her allegiance was to Cowperwood, her loyalty unshaken.
She wanted to say something, to protest much more; but she knew that it was useless. Her
father knew that she was lying.
"Well, there's no use of my saying anything more, father," she said, getting up. The light of day
was fading in the windows. The downstairs door closed with a light slam, indicating that one of
the boys had come in. Her proposed trip to the library was now without interest to her. "You
won't believe me, anyhow. I tell you, though, that I'm innocent just the same."
Butler lifted his big, brown hand to command silence. She saw that this shameful relationship,
as far as her father was concerned, had been made quite clear, and that this trying conference
was now at an end. She turned and walked shamefacedly out. He waited until he heard her
steps fading into faint nothings down the hall toward her room. Then he arose. Once more he
clinched his big fists.
"The scoundrel!" he said. "The scoundrel! I'll drive him out of Philadelphy, if it takes the last
dollar I have in the world."
Chapter XXVII
For the first time in his life Cowperwood felt conscious of having been in the presence of that
interesting social phenomenon--the outraged sentiment of a parent. While he had no absolute
knowledge as to why Butler had been so enraged, he felt that Aileen was the contributing
cause. He himself was a father. His boy, Frank, Jr., was to him not so remarkable. But little
Lillian, with her dainty little slip of a body and bright-aureoled head, had always appealed to him.
She was going to be a charming woman one day, he thought, and he was going to do much to
establish her safely. He used to tell her that she had "eyes like buttons," "feet like a pussy-cat,"
and hands that were "just five cents' worth," they were so little. The child admired her father and
would often stand by his chair in the library or the sitting-room, or his desk in his private office,
or by his seat at the table, asking him questions.
This attitude toward his own daughter made him see clearly how Butler might feel toward
Aileen. He wondered how he would feel if it were his own little Lillian, and still he did not believe
he would make much fuss over the matter, either with himself or with her, if she were as old as
Aileen. Children and their lives were more or less above the willing of parents, anyhow, and it
would be a difficult thing for any parent to control any child, unless the child were naturally
docile-minded and willing to be controlled.
It also made him smile, in a grim way, to see how fate was raining difficulties on him. The
Chicago fire, Stener's early absence, Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson's indifference to
Stener's fate and his. And now this probable revelation in connection with Aileen. He could not
be sure as yet, but his intuitive instincts told him that it must be something like this.
Now he was distressed as to what Aileen would do, say if suddenly she were confronted by her
father. If he could only get to her! But if he was to meet Butler's call for his loan, and the others
which would come yet to-day or on the morrow, there was not a moment to lose. If he did not
pay he must assign at once. Butler's rage, Aileen, his own danger, were brushed aside for the
moment. His mind concentrated wholly on how to save himself financially.
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