“Hard words break no bones,” he said to himself, as his wife went out.  “A man’s never done till he’s done.  I’ll show some of these people yet.”  Of Bonhag, who came to close the cell door, he asked whether it was going to rain, it looked so dark in the hall.

“It’s sure to before night,” replied Bonhag, who was always wondering over Cowperwood’s tangled affairs as he heard them retailed here and there.

Chapter LVII

The time that Cowperwood spent in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania was exactly thirteen months from the day of his entry to his discharge.  The influences which brought about this result were partly of his willing, and partly not.  For one thing, some six months after his incarceration, Edward Malia Butler died, expired sitting in his chair in his private office at his home.  The conduct of Aileen had been a great strain on him.  From the time Cowperwood had been sentenced, and more particularly after the time he had cried on Aileen’s shoulder in prison, she had turned on her father in an almost brutal way.  Her attitude, unnatural for a child, was quite explicable as that of a tortured sweetheart.  Cowperwood had told her that he thought Butler was using his influence to withhold a pardon for him, even though one were granted to Stener, whose life in prison he had been following with considerable interest; and this had enraged her beyond measure.  She lost no chance of being practically insulting to her father, ignoring him on every occasion, refusing as often as possible to eat at the same table, and when she did, sitting next her mother in the place of Norah, with whom she managed to exchange.  She refused to sing or play any more when he was present, and persistently ignored the large number of young political aspirants who came to the house, and whose presence in a way had been encouraged for her benefit.  Old Butler realized, of course, what it was all about.  He said nothing.  He could not placate her.

Her mother and brothers did not understand it at all at first. (Mrs. Butler never understood.) But not long after Cowperwood’s incarceration Callum and Owen became aware of what the trouble was.  Once, when Owen was coming away from a reception at one of the houses where his growing financial importance made him welcome, he heard one of two men whom he knew casually, say to the other, as they stood at the door adjusting their coats, “You saw where this fellow Cowperwood got four years, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” replied the other.  “A clever devil that—­wasn’t he?  I knew that girl he was in with, too—­you know who I mean.  Miss Butler—­wasn’t that her name?”

Owen was not sure that he had heard right.  He did not get the connection until the other guest, opening the door and stepping out, remarked:  “Well, old Butler got even, apparently.  They say he sent him up.”