it hurt me to do it.  I’ll find ye again if ye try to disobey me.  Ye must change yer ways.  I can’t have ye goin’ on as ye are.  Ye understand now.  It’s the last word.  Give this man up, and ye can have anything ye choose.  Ye’re my girl—­I’ll do everything I can in this world to make ye happy.  Why, why shouldn’t I?  What else have I to live for but me children?  It’s ye and the rest of them that I’ve been workin’ and plannin’ for all these years.  Come now, be a good girl.  Ye love your old father, don’t ye?  Why, I rocked ye in my arms as a baby, Aileen.  I’ve watched over ye when ye were not bigger than what would rest in me two fists here.  I’ve been a good father to ye—­ye can’t deny that.  Look at the other girls you’ve seen.  Have any of them had more nor what ye have had?  Ye won’t go against me in this.  I’m sure ye won’t.  Ye can’t.  Ye love me too much—­surely ye do—­don’t ye?” His voice weakened.  His eyes almost filled.

He paused and put a big, brown, horny hand on Aileen’s 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 hardened.  He could see that she was infatuated—­that his carefully calculated plea had failed.  So he must think of some other way.

“Very well, then,” he said at last and sadly, oh, so sadly, as Aileen turned away.  “Have it yer own way, if ye will.  Ye must go, though, willy-nilly.  It can’t be any other way.  I wish to God it could.”

Aileen went out, very solemn, and Butler went over to his desk and sat down.  “Such a situation!” he said to himself.  “Such a complication!”

Chapter XXXVIII

The situation which confronted Aileen was really a trying one.  A girl of less innate courage and determination would have weakened and yielded.  For in spite of her various social connections and acquaintances, the people to whom Aileen could run in an emergency of the present kind were not numerous.  She could scarcely think of any one who would be likely to take her in for any lengthy period, without question.  There were a number of young women of her own age, married and unmarried, who were very friendly to her, but there were few with whom she was really intimate.  The only person who stood out in her mind, as having any real possibility of refuge for a period, was a certain Mary Calligan, better known as “Mamie” among her friends, who had attended school with Aileen in former years and was now a teacher in one of the local schools.