present. The Addisons called or invited them occasionally. But it was a dull game, the more so since their complete defeat wasthus all the more plainly indicated.This defeat, as Cowperwood kept reflecting, was really not hisfault at all. He had been getting along well enough personally. If Aileen had only been a somewhat different type of woman!Nevertheless, he was in no way prepared to desert or reproach her.She had clung to him through his stormy prison days. She had | encouraged him when he needed encouragement. He would stand by her and see what could be done a little later; but this ostracismwas a rather dreary thing to endure. Besides, personally, heappeared to be becoming more and more interesting to men and towomen. The men friends he had made he retained--Addison, Bailey,Videra, McKibben, Rambaud, and others. There were women in society,a number of them, who regretted his disappearance if not that ofAileen. Occasionally the experiment would be tried of invitinghim without his wife. At first he refused invariably; later hewent alone occasionally to a dinner-party without her knowledge. |