I'll go and see the warden myself.
He'll let me see you.
I'm sure he will, if I talk to him."
She fairly gasped in her excitement, not willing to pause in her tirade, but Cowperwood interposed with her,
"You're not thinking what you're saying, Aileen.
You're not thinking.
Remember your father!
Remember your family!
Your father may know the warden out there.
You don't want it to get all over town that you're running out there to see me, do you?
Your father might cause you trouble.
Besides you don't know the small party politicians as I do.
They gossip like a lot of old women.
You'll have to be very careful what you do and how you do it.
I don't want to lose you. I want to see you.
But you'll have to mind what you're doing.
Don't try to see me at once.
I want you to, but I want to find out how the land lies, and I want you to find out too.
You won't lose me. I'll be there, well enough."
He paused as he thought of the long tier of iron cells which must be there, one of which would be his—for how long?—and of Aileen seeing him through the door of it or in it.
At the same time he was thinking, in spite of all his other calculations, how charming she was looking to-day.
How young she kept, and how forceful!
While he was nearing his full maturity she was a comparatively young girl, and as beautiful as ever.
She was wearing a black-and-white-striped silk in the curious bustle style of the times, and a set of sealskin furs, including a little sealskin cap set jauntily on top her red-gold hair.
"I know, I know," replied Aileen, firmly.
"But think of three months!
Honey, I can't! I won't!
It's nonsense.
Three months!
I know that my father wouldn't have to wait any three months if he wanted to see anybody out there, nor anybody else that he wanted to ask favors for.
And I won't, either.
I'll find some way."
Cowperwood had to smile.
You could not defeat Aileen so easily.
"But you're not your father, honey; and you don't want him to know."
"I know I don't, but they don't need to know who I am.
I can go heavily veiled.
I don't think that the warden knows my father.
He may. Anyhow, he doesn't know me; and he wouldn't tell on me if he did if I talked to him."
Her confidence in her charms, her personality, her earthly privileges was quite anarchistic.
Cowperwood shook his head.
"Honey, you're about the best and the worst there is when it comes to a woman," he observed, affectionately, pulling her head down to kiss her, "but you'll have to listen to me just the same.
I have a lawyer, Steger—you know him.
He's going to take up this matter with the warden out there—is doing it today.
He may be able to fix things, and he may not.
I'll know to-morrow or Sunday, and I'll write you.
But don't go and do anything rash until you hear.
I'm sure I can cut that visiting limit in half, and perhaps down to once a month or once in two weeks even.
They only allow me to write one letter in three months"—Aileen exploded again—"and I'm sure I can have that made different—some; but don't write me until you hear, or at least don't sign any name or put any address in.
They open all mail and read it.