ry 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 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 cau