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some appeal to his sense of the possible or necessary. Aileen's present situation was quite
unsatisfactory without marriage in view. And even if he, Cowperwood, was a convicted
embezzler in the eyes of the public, that did not make him so. He might get free and restore
himself-- would certainly--and Aileen ought to be glad to marry him if she could under the
circumstances. He did not quite grasp the depth of Butler's religious and moral prejudices.)
"Lately," he went on, "you have been doing all you can, as I understand it, to pull me down, on
account of Aileen, I suppose; but that is simply delaying what I want to do."
"Ye'd like me to help ye do that, I suppose?" suggested Butler, with infinite disgust and
patience.
"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
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