She breathed heavily.
At this announcement, made in the heat of spite and rage generated by long indifference, Cowperwood sat up for a moment, and his eyes hardened with quite that implacable glare with which he sometimes confronted an enemy.

He felt at once there were many things he could do to make her life miserable, and to take revenge on Lynde, but he decided after a moment he would not.

It was not weakness, but a sense of superior power that was moving him.

Why should he be jealous?
Had he not been unkind enough?
In a moment his mood changed to one of sorrow for Aileen, for himself, for life, indeed--its tangles of desire and necessity.

He could not blame Aileen.