The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

“How long have ye had these notions, my child?” he suddenly asked, calmly and soberly. “Where did ye get them? Ye certainly never heard anything like that in this house, I warrant. Ye talk as though ye had gone out of yer mind.”

“Oh, don’t talk nonsense, father,” flared Aileen, angrily, thinking how hopeless it was to talk to her father about such things anyhow.

“I’m not a child any more. I’m twenty-four years of age. You just don’t understand. Mr. Cowperwood doesn’t like his wife. He’s going to get a divorce when he can, and will marry me. I love him, and he loves me, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Is it, though?” asked Butler, grimly determined by hook or by crook, to bring this girl to her senses. “Ye’ll be takin’ no thought of his wife and children then? The fact that he’s goin’

to jail, besides, is nawthin’ to ye, I suppose. Ye’d love him just as much in convict stripes, I suppose—more, maybe.” (The old man was at his best, humanly speaking, when he was a little sarcastic.) “Ye’ll have him that way, likely, if at all.”

Aileen blazed at once to a furious heat. “Yes, I know,” she sneered.

“That’s what you would like. I know what you’ve been doing. Frank does, too. You’re trying to railroad him to prison for something he didn’t do—and all on account of me. Oh, I know. But you won’t hurt him. You can’t! He’s bigger and finer than you think he is and you won’t hurt him in the long run. He’ll get out again. You want to punish him on my account; but he doesn’t care. I’ll marry him anyhow. I love him, and I’ll wait for him and marry him, and you can do what you please. So there!”

“Ye’ll marry him, will you?” asked Butler, nonplussed and further astounded. “So ye’ll wait for him and marry him? Ye’ll take him away from his wife and children, where, if he were half a man, he’d be stayin’ this minute instead of gallivantin’ around with you.

And marry him? Ye’d disgrace your father and yer mother and yer family? Ye’ll stand here and say this to me, I that have raised ye, cared for ye, and made somethin’ of ye? Where would you be if it weren’t for me and your poor, hard-workin’ mother, schemin’ and plannin’ for you year in and year out? Ye’re smarter than I am, I suppose. Ye know more about the world than I do, or any one else that might want to say anythin’ to ye. I’ve raised ye to be a fine lady, and this is what I get. Talk about me not bein’ able to understand, and ye lovin’ a convict-to-be, a robber, an embezzler, a bankrupt, a lyin’, thavin’—”

“Father!” exclaimed Aileen, determinedly. “I’ll not listen to you talking that way. He’s not any of the things that you say. I’ll not stay here.” She moved toward the door; but Butler jumped up now and stopped her. His face for the moment was flushed and swollen with anger.

“But I’m not through with him yet,” he went on, ignoring her desire to leave, and addressing her direct—confident now that she was as capable as another of understanding him. “I’ll get him as sure as I have a name. There’s law in this land, and I’ll have it on him. I’ll show him whether he’ll come sneakin’ into dacent homes and robbin’ parents of their children.”

He paused after a time for want of breath and Aileen stared, her face tense and white. Her father could be so ridiculous. He was, contrasted with Cowperwood and his views, so old-fashioned. To think he could be talking of some one coming into their home and stealing her away from him, when she had been so willing to go.

What silliness! And yet, why argue? What good could be accomplished, arguing with him here in this way? And so for the moment, she said nothing more—merely looked. But Butler was by no means done.

His mood was too stormy even though he was doing his best now to subdue himself.

“It’s too bad, daughter,” he resumed quietly, once he was satisfied that she was going to have little, if anything, to say. “I’m lettin’

my anger get the best of me. It wasn’t that I intended talkin’

to ye about when I ast ye to come in. It’s somethin’ else I have on me mind. I was thinkin’, perhaps, ye’d like to go to Europe for the time bein’ to study music. Ye’re not quite yourself just at present. Ye’re needin’ a rest. It would be good for ye to go away for a while. Ye could have a nice time over there. Norah could go along with ye, if you would, and Sister Constantia that taught you. Ye wouldn’t object to havin’ her, I suppose?”

At the mention of this idea of a trip of Europe again, with Sister Constantia and music thrown in to give it a slightly new form, Aileen bridled, and yet half-smiled to herself now. It was so ridiculous—so tactless, really, for her father to bring up this now, and especially after denouncing Cowperwood and her, and threatening all the things he had. Had he no diplomacy at all where she was concerned? It was really too funny! But she restrained herself here again, because she felt as well as saw, that argument of this kind was all futile now.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about that, father,” she began, having softened under his explanation. “I don’t want to go to Europe now.

I don’t want to leave Philadelphia. I know you want me to go; but I don’t want to think of going now. I can’t.”

Butler’s brow darkened again. What was the use of all this opposition on her part? Did she really imagine that she was going to master him—her father, and in connection with such an issue as this? How impossible! But tempering his voice as much as possible, he went on, quite softly, in fact. “But it would be so fine for ye, Aileen.

Ye surely can’t expect to stay here after—” He paused, for he was going to say “what has happened.” He knew she was very sensitive on that point. His own conduct in hunting her down had been such a breach of fatherly courtesy that he knew she felt resentful, and in a way properly so. Still, what could be greater than her own crime? “After,” he concluded, “ye have made such a mistake ye surely wouldn’t want to stay here. Ye won’t be wantin’ to keep up that—committin’ a mortal sin. It’s against the laws of God and man.”

He did so hope the thought of sin would come to Aileen—the enormity of her crime from a spiritual point of view—but Aileen did not see it at all.

“You don’t understand me, father,” she exclaimed, hopelessly toward the end. “You can’t. I have one idea, and you have another. But I don’t seem to be able to make you understand now. The fact is, if you want to know it, I don’t believe in the Catholic Church any more, so there.”

The moment Aileen had said this she wished she had not. It was a slip of the tongue. Butler’s face took on an inexpressibly sad, despairing look.

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

“No, not exactly—not like you do.”

He shook his head.

“The harm that has come to yer soul!” he replied. “It’s plain to me, daughter, that somethin’ terrible has happened to ye. This man has ruined ye, body and soul. Somethin’ must be done. I don’t want to be hard on ye, but ye must leave Philadelphy. Ye can’t stay here. I can’t permit ye. Ye can go to Europe, or ye can go to yer aunt’s in New Orleans; but ye must go somewhere. I can’t have ye stayin’ here—it’s too dangerous. It’s sure to be comin’

out. The papers’ll be havin’ it next. Ye’re young yet. Yer life is before you. I tremble for yer soul; but so long as ye’re young and alive ye may come to yer senses. It’s me duty to be hard.

It’s my obligation to you and the Church. Ye must quit this life.

Ye must lave this man. Ye must never see him any more. I can’t permit ye. He’s no good. He has no intintion of marrying ye, and it would be a crime against God and man if he did. No, no! Never that! The man’s a bankrupt, a scoundrel, a thafe. If ye had him, ye’d soon be the unhappiest woman in the world. He wouldn’t be faithful to ye. No, he couldn’t. He’s not that kind.” He paused, sick to the depths of his soul. “Ye must go away. I say it once and for all. I mane it kindly, but I want it. I have yer best interests at heart. I love ye; but ye must. I’m sorry to see ye go—I’d rather have ye here. No one will be sorrier; but ye must.