force that she upset a glass in
which was champagne, the wine making a frayed, yellowish splotch on the
white linen, and, rising, hurried toward the door. She was choking
with anger, pain, shame, regret.

"Aileen! Aileen!" he called, hurrying after her, regardless of the
butler, who, hearing the sound of stirring chairs, had entered. These
family woes were an old story to him. "It's love you want--not
revenge. I know--I can tell. You want to be loved by some one
completely. I'm sorry. You mustn't be too hard on me. I sha'n't be
on you." He seized her by the arm and detained her as they entered the
next room. By this time Aileen was too ablaze with emotion to talk
sensibly or understand what he was doing.

"Let me go!" she exclaimed, angrily, hot tears in her eyes. "Let me
go! I tell you I don't love you any more. I tell you I hate you!" She
flung herself loose and stood erect before him. "I don't want you to
talk to me! I don't want you to speak to me! You're the cause of all my
troubles. You're the cause of whatever I do, when I do it, and don't
you dare to deny it! You'll see! You'll see! I'll show you what I'll
do!"

She twisted and turned, but he held her firmly until, in his strong
grasp, as usual, she collapsed and began to cry. "Oh, I cry," she
declared, even in her tears, "but it will be just the same. It's too
late! too late!"

Chapter XXXVIII

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. Change! Change! the inevitable passing of things! Who
parts with a perfect thing, even if no more than an unreasoning love,
without a touch of self-pity?

But there followed swiftly the sixth of November, with its election,
noisy and irrational, and the latter r