The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

Mamie Calligan and her mother were adoring slaveys, so she was not entirely out of the atmosphere which she craved and to which she was accustomed.

Chapter XLVI

Meanwhile, in the Butler home the family was assembling for dinner.

Mrs. Butler was sitting in rotund complacency at the foot of the table, her gray hair combed straight back from her round, shiny forehead. She had on a dark-gray silk dress, trimmed with gray-and-white striped ribbon. It suited her florid temperament admirably. Aileen had dictated her mother’s choice, and had seen that it had been properly made. Norah was refreshingly youthful in a pale-green dress, with red-velvet cuffs and collar. She looked young, slender, gay. Her eyes, complexion and hair were fresh and healthy. She was trifling with a string of coral beads which her mother had just given her.

“Oh, look, Callum,” she said to her brother opposite her, who was drumming idly on the table with his knife and fork. “Aren’t they lovely? Mama gave them to me.”

“Mama does more for you than I would. You know what you’d get from me, don’t you?”

“What?”

He looked at her teasingly. For answer Norah made a face at him.

Just then Owen came in and took his place at the table. Mrs.

Butler saw Norah’s grimace.

“Well, that’ll win no love from your brother, ye can depend on that,” she commented.

“Lord, what a day!” observed Owen, wearily, unfolding his napkin.

“I’ve had my fill of work for once.”

“What’s the trouble?” queried his mother, feelingly.

“No real trouble, mother,” he replied. “Just everything—ducks and drakes, that’s all.”

“Well, ye must ate a good, hearty meal now, and that’ll refresh ye,” observed his mother, genially and feelingly. “Thompson”—she was referring to the family grocer—“brought us the last of his beans. You must have some of those.”

“Sure, beans’ll fix it, whatever it is, Owen,” joked Callum.

“Mother’s got the answer.”

“They’re fine, I’d have ye know,” replied Mrs. Butler, quite unconscious of the joke.

“No doubt of it, mother,” replied Callum. “Real brain-food. Let’s feed some to Norah.”

“You’d better eat some yourself, smarty. My, but you’re gay! I suppose you’re going out to see somebody. That’s why.”

“Right you are, Norah. Smart girl, you. Five or six. Ten to fifteen minutes each. I’d call on you if you were nicer.”

“You would if you got the chance,” mocked Norah. “I’d have you know I wouldn’t let you. I’d feel very bad if I couldn’t get somebody better than you.”

“As good as, you mean,” corrected Callum.

“Children, children!” interpolated Mrs. Butler, calmly, looking about for old John, the servant. “You’ll be losin’ your tempers in a minute. Hush now. Here comes your father. Where’s Aileen?”

Butler walked heavily in and took his seat.

John, the servant, appeared bearing a platter of beans among other things, and Mrs. Butler asked him to send some one to call Aileen.

“It’s gettin’ colder, I’m thinkin’,” said Butler, by way of conversation, and eyeing Aileen’s empty chair. She would come soon now—his heavy problem. He had been very tactful these last two months—avoiding any reference to Cowperwood in so far as he could help in her presence.

“It’s colder,” remarked Owen, “much colder. We’ll soon see real winter now.”

Old John began to offer the various dishes in order; but when all had been served Aileen had not yet come.

“See where Aileen is, John,” observed Mrs. Butler, interestedly.

“The meal will be gettin’ cold.”

Old John returned with the news that Aileen was not in her room.

“Sure she must be somewhere,” commented Mrs. Butler, only slightly perplexed. “She’ll be comin’, though, never mind, if she wants to.

She knows it’s meal-time.”

The conversation drifted from a new water-works that was being planned to the new city hall, then nearing completion; Cowperwood’s financial and social troubles, and the state of the stock market generally; a new gold-mine in Arizona; the departure of Mrs.

Mollenhauer the following Tuesday for Europe, with appropriate comments by Norah and Callum; and a Christmas ball that was going to be given for charity.

“Aileen’ll be wantin’ to go to that,” commented Mrs. Butler.

“I’m going, you bet,” put in Norah.

“Who’s going to take you?” asked Callum.

“That’s my affair, mister,” she replied, smartly.

The meal was over, and Mrs. Butler strolled up to Aileen’s room to see why she had not come down to dinner. Butler entered his den, wishing so much that he could take his wife into his confidence concerning all that was worrying him. On his desk, as he sat down and turned up the light, he saw the note. He recognized Aileen’s handwriting at once. What could she mean by writing him? A sense of the untoward came to him, and he tore it open slowly, and, putting on his glasses, contemplated it solemnly.

So Aileen was gone. The old man stared at each word as if it had been written in fire. She said she had not gone with Cowperwood.

It was possible, just the same, that he had run away from Philadelphia and taken her with him. This was the last straw. This ended it.

Aileen lured away from home—to where—to what? Butler could scarcely believe, though, that Cowperwood had tempted her to do this. He had too much at stake; it would involve his own and Butler’s families.

The papers would be certain to get it quickly. He got up, crumpling the paper in his hand, and turned about at a noise. His wife was coming in. He pulled himself together and shoved the letter in his pocket.

“Aileen’s not in her room,” she said, curiously. “She didn’t say anything to you about going out, did she?”

“No,” he replied, truthfully, wondering how soon he should have to tell his wife.

“That’s odd,” observed Mrs. Butler, doubtfully. “She must have gone out after somethin’. It’s a wonder she wouldn’t tell somebody.”

Butler gave no sign. He dared not. “She’ll be back,” he said, more in order to gain time than anything else. He was sorry to have to pretend. Mrs. Butler went out, and he closed the door.

Then he took out the letter and read it again. The girl was crazy.

She was doing an absolutely wild, inhuman, senseless thing. Where could she go, except to Cowperwood? She was on the verge of a public scandal, and this would produce it. There was just one thing to do as far as he could see. Cowperwood, if he were still in Philadelphia, would know. He would go to him—threaten, cajole, actually destroy him, if necessary. Aileen must come back. She need not go to Europe, perhaps, but she must come back and behave herself at least until Cowperwood could legitimately marry her.

That was all he could expect now. She would have to wait, and some day perhaps he could bring himself to accept her wretched proposition.

Horrible thought! It would kill her mother, disgrace her sister.

He got up, took down his hat, put on his overcoat, and started out.

Arriving at the Cowperwood home he was shown into the reception-room.

Cowperwood at the time was in his den looking over some private papers. When the name of Butler was announced he immediately went downstairs. It was characteristic of the man that the announcement of Butler’s presence created no stir in him whatsoever. So Butler had come. That meant, of course, that Aileen had gone. Now for a battle, not of words, but of weights of personalities. He felt himself to be intellectually, socially, and in every other way the more powerful man of the two. That spiritual content of him which we call life hardened to the texture of steel. He recalled that although he had told his wife and his father that the politicians, of whom Butler was one, were trying to make a scapegoat of him, Butler, nevertheless, was not considered to be wholly alienated as a friend, and civility must prevail. He would like very much to placate him if he could, to talk out the hard facts of life in a quiet and friendly way. But this matter of Aileen had to be adjusted now once and for all. And with that thought in his mind he walked quickly into Butler’s presence.

The old man, when he learned that Cowperwood was in and would see him, determined to make his contact with the financier as short and effective as possible. He moved the least bit when he heard Cowperwood’s step, as light and springy as ever.

“Good evening, Mr. Butler,” said Cowperwood, cheerfully, when he saw him, extending his hand. “What can I do for you?”

“Ye can take that away from in front of me, for one thing,” said Butler, grimly referring to his hand. “I have no need of it.

It’s my daughter I’ve come to talk to ye about, and I want plain answers. Where is she?”

“You mean Aileen?” said Cowperwood, looking at him with steady, curious, unrevealing eyes, and merely interpolating this to obtain a moment for reflection. “What can I tell you about her?”