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part. "I want no truck with ye. I want my daughter."
"Listen, Mr. Butler," said Cowperwood, quite calmly, relishing the situation for the sheer sense of
superiority it gave him. "I want to be perfectly frank with you, if you will let me. I may know
where your daughter is, and I may not. I may wish to tell you, and I may not. She may not wish
me to. But unless you wish to talk with me in a civil way there is no need of our going on any
further. You are privileged to do what you like. Won't you come up-stairs to my room? We can
talk more comfortably there."
Butler looked at his former protege in utter astonishment. He had never before in all his
experience come up against a more ruthless type--suave, bland, forceful, unterrified. This man
had certainly come to him as a sheep, and had turned out to be a ravening wolf. His
incarceration had not put him in the least awe.
"I'll not come up to your room," Butler said, "and ye'll not get out of Philadelphy with her if that's
what ye're plannin'. I can see to that. Ye think ye have the upper hand of me, I see, and ye're
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anxious to make something of it. Well, ye're not. It wasn't enough that ye come to me as a
beggar, cravin' the help of me, and that I took ye in and helped ye all I could--ye had to steal my
daughter from me in the bargain. If it wasn't for the girl's mother and her sister and her
brothers--dacenter men than ever ye'll know how to be--I'd brain ye where ye stand. Takin' a
young, innocent girl and makin' an evil woman out of her, and ye a married man! It's a God's
blessin' for ye that it's me, and not one of me sons, that's here talkin' to ye, or ye wouldn't be
alive to say what ye'd do."
The old man was grim but impotent in his rage.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Butler," replied Cowperwood, quietly. "I'm willing to explain, but you won't let me.
I'm not planning to run away with your daughter, nor to leave Philadelphia. You ought to know
me well enough to know that I'm not contemplating anything of that kind; my interests are too
large. You and I are practical men. We ought to be able to talk this matter over together and
reach an understanding. I thought once of coming to you and explaining this; but I was quite
sure you wouldn't listen to me. Now that you are here I would like to talk to you. If you will come
up to my room I will be glad to--otherwise not. Won't you come up?"
Butler saw that Cowperwood had the advantage. He might as well go up. Otherwise it was plain
he would get no information.
"Very well," he said.
Cowperwood led the way quite amicably, and, having entered his private office, closed the door
behind him.
"We ought to be able to talk this matter over and reach an understanding," he said again, when
they were in the room and he had closed the door. "I am not as bad as you think, though I know
I appear very bad." Butler stared at him in contempt. "I love your daughter, and she loves me. I
know you are asking yourself how I can do this while I am still married; but I assure you I can,
and that I do. I am not happily married. I had expected, if this panic hadn't come along, to
arrange with my wife for a divorce and marry Aileen. My intentions are perfectly good. The
situation which you can complain of, of course, is the one you encountered a few weeks ago. It
was indiscreet, but it was entirely human. Your daughter does not complain--she understands."
At the mention of his daughter in this connection Butler flushed with rage and shame, but he
controlled himself.
"And ye think because she doesn't complain that it's all right, do ye?" he asked, sarcastically.
"From my point of view, yes; from yours no. You have one view of life, Mr. Butler, and I have
another."
"Ye're right there," put in Butler, "for once, anyhow."
"That doesn't prove that either of us is right or wrong. In my judgment the present end justifies
the means. The end I have in view is to marry Aileen. If I can possibly pull myself out of this
financial scrape that I am in I will do so. Of course, I would like to have your consent for that--so
would Aileen; but if we can't, we can't." (Cowperwood was thinking that while this might not
have a very soothing effect on the old contractor's point of view, nevertheless it must make
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