What right had she in making him feel this way? And yet, in spite of it all, in some dark way he enjoyed the rejection; for it meant that he was still alive, still capable of chasing down those old ideals he held in such high regard. His great defeat was not a loss in the least, for within it there was a victory that he had so desperately longed for, but had thought of as a mere impossibility for someone such as himself. He was alive, for the first time in his long life, and, in this moment, that's all that really mattered.