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her, and have been for three or four years; and if you know anything about love you know that it
doesn't always mean control. I'm not doing Aileen any injustice when I say that she has had as
much influence on me as I have had on her. I love her, and that's the cause of all the trouble.
You come and insist that I shall return your daughter to you. As a matter of fact, I don't know
whether I can or not. I don't know that she would go if I wanted her to. She might turn on me
and say that I didn't care for her any more. That is not true, and I would not want her to feel that
way. She is greatly hurt, as I told you, by what you did to her, and the fact that you want her to
leave Philadelphia. You can do as much to remedy that as I can. I could tell you where she is,
but I do not know that I want to. Certainly not until I know what your attitude toward her and this
whole proposition is to be."
He paused and looked calmly at the old contractor, who eyed him grimly in return.
"What proposition are ye talkin' about?" asked Butler, interested by the peculiar developments
of this argument. In spite of himself he was getting a slightly different angle on the whole
situation. The scene was shifting to a certain extent. Cowperwood appeared to be reasonably
sincere in the matter. His promises might all be wrong, but perhaps he did love Aileen; and it
was possible that he did intend to get a divorce from his wife some time and marry her. Divorce,
as Butler knew, was against the rules of the Catholic Church, which he so much revered. The
laws of God and any sense of decency commanded that Cowperwood should not desert his
wife and children and take up with another woman--not even Aileen, in order to save her. It was
a criminal thing to plan, sociologically speaking, and showed what a villain Cowperwood
inherently was; but, nevertheless, Cowperwood was not a Catholic, his views of life were not the
same as his own, Butler's, and besides and worst of all (no doubt due in part to Aileen's own
temperament), he had compromised her situation very materially. She might not easily be
restored to a sense of of the normal and decent, and so the matter was worth taking into
thought. Butler knew that ultimately he could not countenance any such thing--certainly not, and
keep his faith with the Church--but he was human enough none the less to consider it. Besides,
he wanted Aileen to come back; and Aileen from now on, he knew, would have some say as to
what her future should be.
"Well, it's simple enough," replied Cowperwood. "I should like to have you withdraw your
opposition to Aileen's remaining in Philadelphia, for one thing; and for another, I should like you
to stop your attacks on me." Cowperwood smiled in an ingratiating way. He hoped really to
placate Butler in part by his generous attitude throughout this procedure. "I can't make you do
that, of course, unless you want to. I merely bring it up, Mr. Butler, because I am sure that if it
hadn't been for Aileen you would not have taken the course you have taken toward me. I
understood you received an anonymous letter, and that afternoon you called your loan with me.
Since then I have heard from one source and another that you were strongly against me, and I
merely wish to say that I wish you wouldn't be. I am not guilty of embezzling any sixty thousand
dollars, and you know it. My intentions were of the best. I did not think I was going to fail at the
time I used those certificates, and if it hadn't been for several other loans that were called I
would have gone on to the end of the month and put them back in time, as I always had. I have
always valued your friendship very highly, and I am very sorry to lose it. Now I have said all I am
going to say."
Butler looked at Cowperwood with shrewd, calculating eyes. The man had some merit, but
much unconscionable evil in him. Butler knew very well how he had taken the check, and a
good many other things in connection with it. The manner in which he had played his cards to-
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