Ibly sad, despairing look.

“But it would be so fine for ye, Aileen. Ye surely can’t expect

“Ye don’t believe in the Church?” he asked.

to stay here after—” He paused, for he was going to say “what

“No, not exactly—not like you do.” has happened.” He knew she was very sensitive on that point.

He shook his head.

His own conduct in hunting her down had been such a breach

“The harm that has come to yer soul!” he replied. “It’s of fatherly courtesy that he knew she felt resentful, and in a plain to me, daughter, that somethin’ terrible has happened way properly so. Still, what could be greater than her own to ye. This man has ruined ye, body and soul. Somethin’

crime? “After,” he concluded, “ye have made such a mistake must be done. I don’t want to be hard on ye, but ye must ye surely wouldn’t want to stay here. Ye won’t be wantin’ to leave Philadelphy. Ye can’t stay here. I can’t permit ye. Ye can keep up that—committin’ a mortal sin. It’s against the laws go to Europe, or ye can go to yer aunt’s in New Orleans; but of God and man.”

ye must go somewhere. I can’t have ye stayin’ here—it’s too He did so hope the thought of sin would come to Aileen—

dangerous. It’s sure to be comin’ out. The papers’ll be havin’

the enormity of her crime from a spiritual point of view—

It next. Ye’re young yet. Yer life is before you. I tremble for but Aileen did not see it at all.

yer soul; but so long as ye’re young and alive ye may come to

“You don’t understand me, father,” she exclaimed, hope-yer senses. It’s me duty to be hard. It’s my obligation to you lessly toward the end. “You can’t. I have one idea, and you and the Church. Ye must quit this life. Ye must lave this have another. But I don’t seem to be able to make you unman. Ye must never see him any more. I can’t permit ye. He’s 292

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no good. He has no intintion of marrying ye, and it would

“Ye don’t mane to say ye will deliberately disobey me when be a crime against God and man if he did. No, no! Never I’m asking ye to do somethin’ that’s intended for yer own that! The man’s a bankrupt, a scoundrel, a thafe. If ye had good, will ye daughter?”

him, ye’d soon be the unhappiest woman in the world. He

“Yes, I will,” replied Aileen, determinedly. “I won’t go! I’m wouldn’t be faithful to ye. No, he couldn’t. He’s not that sorry, but I won’t!”

kind.” He paused, sick to the depths of his soul. “Ye must go

“Ye really mane that, do ye?” asked Butler, sadly but grimly.

away. I say it once and for all. I mane it kindly, but I want it.

“Yes, I do,” replied Aileen, grimly, in return.

I have yer best interests at heart. I love ye; but ye must. I’m

“Then I’ll have to see what I can do, daughter,” replied the sorry to see ye go—I’d rather have ye here. No one will be old man. “Ye’re still my daughter, whatever ye are, and I’ll sorrier; but ye must. Ye must make it all seem natcheral and not see ye come to wreck and ruin for want of doin’ what I ordinary to yer mother; but ye must go—d’ye hear? Ye must.” know to be my solemn duty. I’ll give ye a few more days to He paused, looking sadly but firmly at Aileen under his think this over, but go ye must. There’s an end of that. There shaggy eyebrows. She knew he meant this. It was his most are laws in this land still. There are things that can be done solemn, his most religious expression. But she did not answer.

to those who won’t obey the law. I found ye this time—

She could not. What was the use? Only she was not going.

much as it hurt me to do it. I’ll find ye again if ye try to She knew that—and so she stood there white and tense.

disobey me. Ye must change yer ways. I can’t have ye goin’

“Now get all the clothes ye want,” went on Butler, by no on as ye are. Ye understand now. It’s the last word. Give this means grasping her true mood. “Fix yourself up in any way man up, and ye can have anything ye choose. Ye’re my girl—

you plase. Say where ye want to go, but get ready.” I’ll do everything I can in this world to make ye happy. Why,

“But I won’t, father,” finally replied Aileen, equally solemnly, why shouldn’t I? What else have I to live for but me chil-equally determinedly. “I won’t go! I won’t leave Philadelphia.” dren? It’s ye and the rest of them that I’ve been workin’ and 293

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plannin’ for all these years. Come now, be a good girl. Ye hardened. He could see that she was infatuated—that his love your old father, don’t ye? Why, I rocked ye in my arms carefully calculated plea had failed. So he must think of some as a baby, Aileen. I’ve watched over ye when ye were not other way.

bigger than what would rest in me two fists here. I’ve been a

“Very well, then,” he said at last and sadly, oh, so sadly, as good father to ye—ye can’t deny that. Look at the other girls Aileen turned away. “Have it yer own way, if ye will. Ye must you’ve seen. Have any of them had more nor what ye have go, though, willy-nilly. It can’t be any other way. I wish to had? Ye won’t go against me in this. I’m sure ye won’t. Ye God it could.”

can’t. Ye love me too much—surely ye do—don’t ye?” His Aileen went out, very solemn, and Butler went over to his voice weakened. His eyes almost filled.

desk and sat down. “Such a situation!” he said to himself.

He paused and put a big, brown, horny hand on Aileen’s Such a complication!”

arm. She had listened to his plea not unmoved—really more or less softened—because of the hopelessness of it. She could not give up Cowperwood. Her father just did not understand. He did not know what love was. Unquestionably he had never loved as she had.

She stood quite silent while Butler appealed to her.

“I’d like to, father,” she said at last and softly, tenderly.

“Really I would. I do love you. Yes, I do. I want to please you; but I can’t in this—I can’t! I love Frank Cowperwood.

You don’t understand—really you don’t!” At the repetition of Cowperwood’s name Butler’s mouth 294

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Chapter XXXVIII

three-year-old daughter. They lived in a small two-story brick house in Cherry Street, near Fifteenth. Mrs. Calligan was THE SITUATION which confronted Aileen was really a trying not a very good dressmaker, not good enough, at least, for one. A girl of less innate courage and determination would the Butler family to patronize in their present exalted state.

have weakened and yielded. For in spite of her various social Aileen went there occasionally for gingham house-dresses, connections and acquaintances, the people to whom Aileen underwear, pretty dressing-gowns, and alterations on some could run in an emergency of the present kind were not nu-of her more important clothing which was made by a very merous. She could scarcely think of any one who would be superior modiste in Chestnut Street. She visited the house likely to take her in for any lengthy period, without ques-largely because she had gone to school with Mamie at St.

tion. There were a number of young women of her own age, Agatha’s, when the outlook of the Calligan family was much married and unmarried, who were very friendly to her, but more promising. Mamie was earning forty dollars a month there were few with whom she was really intimate. The only as the teacher of a sixth-grade room in one of the nearby person who stood out in her mind, as having any real possi-public schools, and Mrs. Calligan averaged on the whole bility of refuge for a period, was a certain Mary Calligan, about two dollars a day—sometimes not so much. The house better known as “Mamie” among her friends, who had at-they occupied was their own, free and clear, and the furni-tended school with Aileen in former years and was now a ture which it contained suggested the size of their joint in-teacher in one of the local schools.

come, which was somewhere near eighty dollars a month.

The Calligan family consisted of Mrs. Katharine Calligan, Mamie Calligan was not good-looking, not nearly as good-the mother, a dressmaker by profession and a widow—her looking as her mother had been before her. Mrs. Calligan husband, a house-mover by trade, having been killed by a was still plump, bright, and cheerful at fifty, with a fund of falling wall some ten years before—and Mamie, her twenty-good humor. Mamie was somewhat duller mentally and 295

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emotionally. She was serious-minded—made so, perhaps, as looked well on those of good form. Alas for Mamie Calligan!

much by circumstances as by anything else, for she was not The mode of the time compelled her to wear one; but she at all vivid, and had little sex magnetism. Yet she was kindly, had neither the arms nor the chest development which made honest, earnest, a good Catholic, and possessed of that this garment admirable. Her hat, by choice, was usually a strangely excessive ingrowing virtue which shuts so many pancake affair with a long, single feather, which somehow people off from the world—a sense of duty. To Mamie never seemed to be in exactly the right position, either to her Calligan duty (a routine conformity to such theories and hair or her face. At most times she looked a little weary; but precepts as she had heard and worked by since her child-she was not physically weary so much as she was bored. Her hood) was the all-important thing, her principal source of life held so little of real charm; and Aileen Butler was uncomfort and relief; her props in a queer and uncertain world questionably the most significant element of romance in it.

being her duty to her Church; her duty to her school; her Mamie’s mother’s very pleasant social disposition, the fact duty to her mother; her duty to her friends, etc. Her mother that they had a very cleanly, if poor little home, that she often wished for Mamie’s sake that she was less dutiful and could entertain them by playing on their piano, and that more charming physically, so that the men would like her.

Mrs. Calligan took an adoring interest in the work she did In spite of the fact that her mother was a dressmaker, for her, made up the sum and substance of the attraction of Mamie’s clothes never looked smart or attractive—she would the Calligan home for Aileen. She went there occasionally as have felt out of keeping with herself if they had. Her shoes a relief from other things, and because Mamie Calligan had were rather large, and ill-fitting; her skirt hung in lifeless a compatible and very understanding interest in literature.

lines from her hips to her feet, of good material but seem-Curiously, the books Aileen liked she liked—Jane Eyre, ingly bad design. At that time the colored “jersey,” so-called, Kenelm Chillingly, Tricotrin, and A Bow of Orange Rib-was just coming into popular wear, and, being close-fitting, bon. Mamie occasionally recommended to Aileen some lat-296

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est effusion of this character; and Aileen, finding her judg-into radiantly beautiful womanhood. He had seen her go to ment good, was constrained to admire her.

school and convent and learn to play the piano—to him a In this crisis it was to the home of the Calligans that Aileen great accomplishment. Also he had seen her manner change turned in thought. If her father really was not nice to her, and become very showy and her knowledge of life broaden, and she had to leave home for a time, she could go to the apparently, and become to him, at least, impressive. Her Calligans. They would receive her and say nothing. They smart, dogmatic views about most things were, to him, at were not sufficiently well known to the other members of least, well worth listening to. She knew more about books the Butler family to have the latter suspect that she had gone and art than Owen or Callum, and her sense of social man-there. She might readily disappear into the privacy of Cherry ners was perfect. When she came to the table—breakfast, Street and not be seen or heard of for weeks. It is an interest-luncheon, or dinner—she was to him always a charming ing fact to contemplate that the Calligans, like the various object to see. He had produced Aileen—he congratulated members of the Butler family, never suspected Aileen of the himself. He had furnished her the money to be so fine. He least tendency toward a wayward existence. Hence her flight would continue to do so. No second-rate upstart of a man from her own family, if it ever came, would be laid more to should be allowed to ruin her life. He proposed to take care the door of a temperamental pettishness than anything else.

of her always—to leave her so much money in a legally in-On the other hand, in so far as the Butler family as a unit volved way that a failure of a husband could not possibly was concerned, it needed Aileen more than she needed it. It affect her. “You’re the charming lady this evenin’, I’m needed the light of her countenance to keep it appropriately thinkin’,” was one of his pet remarks; and also, “My, but cheerful, and if she went away there would be a distinct gulf we’re that fine!” At table almost invariably she sat beside him that would not soon be overcome.

and looked out for him. That was what he wanted. He had Butler, senior, for instance, had seen his little daughter grow put her there beside him at his meals years before when she 297

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was a child.

Mrs. Calligan was alone when she arrived and was delighted Her mother, too, was inordinately fond of her, and Callum to see her. After exchanging the gossip of the day, and not and Owen appropriately brotherly. So Aileen had thus far at knowing quite how to proceed in connection with the er-least paid back with beauty and interest quite as much as she rand which had brought her, she went to the piano and played received, and all the family felt it to be so. When she was away a melancholy air.

for a day or two the house seemed glum—the meals less appe-

“Sure, it’s lovely the way you play, Aileen,” observed Mrs.

tizing. When she returned, all were happy and gay again.

Calligan who was unduly sentimental herself. “I love to hear Aileen understood this clearly enough in a way. Now, when you. I wish you’d come oftener to see us. You’re so rarely here it came to thinking of leaving and shifting for herself, in nowadays.”

order to avoid a trip which she did not care to be forced into,

“Oh, I’ve been so busy, Mrs. Calligan,” replied Aileen. “I’ve her courage was based largely on this keen sense of her own had so much to do this fall, I just couldn’t. They wanted me significance to the family. She thought over what her father to go to Europe; but I didn’t care to. Oh, dear!” she sighed, had said, and decided she must act at once. She dressed for and in her playing swept off with a movement of sad, rothe street the next morning, after her father had gone, and mantic significance. The door opened and Mamie came in.

decided to step in at the Calligans’ about noon, when Mamie Her commonplace face brightened at the sight of Aileen.

would be at home for luncheon. Then she would take up the

“Well, Aileen Butler!” she exclaimed. “Where did you come matter casually. If they had no objection, she would go there.

from? Where have you been keeping yourself so long?” She sometimes wondered why Cowperwood did not sug-Aileen rose to exchange kisses. “Oh, I’ve been very busy, gest, in his great stress, that they leave for some parts un-Mamie. I’ve just been telling your mother. How are you, known; but she also felt that he must know best what he anyway? How are you getting along in your work?” could do. His increasing troubles depressed her.

Mamie recounted at once some school difficulties which 298

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were puzzling her—the growing size of classes and the amount

“Well, whatever can it be?” commented Mamie. “I never of work expected. While Mrs. Calligan was setting the table saw you act this way before. Can’t you tell me? What is it?” Mamie went to her room and Aileen followed her.

“No, I don’t think I can—not now, anyhow.” Aileen paused.

As she stood before her mirror arranging her hair Aileen

“Do you suppose your mother would object,” she asked, looked at her meditatively.

suddenly, “if I came here and stayed a little while? I want to

“What’s the matter with you, Aileen, to-day?” Mamie asked.

get away from home for a time for a certain reason.”

“You look so—” She stopped to give her a second glance.

“Why, Aileen Butler, how you talk!” exclaimed her friend.

“How do I look?” asked Aileen.

“Object! You know she’d be delighted, and so would I. Oh,

“Well, as if you were uncertain or troubled about something.

dear—can you come? But what makes you want to leave I never saw you look that way before. What’s the matter?” home?”

“Oh, nothing,” replied Aileen. “I was just thinking.” She

“That’s just what I can’t tell you—not now, anyhow. Not went to one of the windows which looked into the little yard, you, so much, but your mother. You know, I’m afraid of meditating on whether she could endure living here for any what she’d think,” replied Aileen. “But, you mustn’t ask me length of time. The house was so small, the furnishings so yet, anyhow. I want to think. Oh, dear! But I want to come, very simple.