An Hour of Defeat The stoic Cowperwood, listening to the blare and excitement that went with the fall campaign, was much more pained to learn of Aileen's desertion than to know that he had arrayed a whole social element against himself in Chicago.

He could not forget the wonder of those first days when Aileen was young, and love and hope had been the substance of her being.

The thought ran through all his efforts and cogitations like a distantly orchestrated undertone.

In the main, in spite of his activity, he was an introspective man, and art, drama, and the pathos of broken ideals were not beyond him.

He harbored in no way any grudge against Aileen--only a kind of sorrow over the inevitable consequences of his own ungovernable disposition, the will to freedom within himself.