se 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