Ye think ye have the upper hand of me, I see, and ye're 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 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.