"Hello, Dan! You're back from the country all right, I see! I guess you boys all know Harwood. You've seen his name in the newspapers!"

Several of the loungers shook hands with Harwood, who had cultivated the handshaking habit, and he made a point of addressing to each one some personal remark. Thus the gentleman from Tippecanoe, who had met Dan at the congressional convention in Lafayette two years earlier, felt that he must have favorably impressed Bassett's agent on that occasion; else how had Harwood asked at once, with the most shameless flattery, whether they still had the same brand of fried chicken at his house! And the gentleman from the remote shores of the Lake, a rare visitor in town, had every right to believe, from Dan's reference to the loss by fire of the gentleman's house a year earlier, that that calamity had aroused in Dan the deepest sympathy. Dan had mastered these tricks; it rather tickled his sense of humor to practice them; but it must be said for him that he was sincerely interested in people, particularly in these men who played the great game. If he ever achieved anything in politics it must be through just such material as offered itself on such occasions as this in the halls of the Whitcomb. These men might be tearing the leader to pieces to-morrow, or the day after; but he was still in the saddle, and not knowing but that young Harwood might be of use to them some day, they greeted him as one of the inner circle.

Most of these men sincerely liked and admired Bassett; and many of them accepted the prevailing superstition as to his omniscience and invulnerability; even in the Republican camp many shared the belief that the spears of the righteous were of no avail against him. Dan's loyalty to Bassett had never been more firmly planted. Bassett had always preserved a certain formality in his relations with him; to-night he was calling him Dan, naturally and as though unconscious of the transition. This was not without its effect on Harwood; he was surprised to find how agreeable it was to be thus familiarly addressed by the leader in such a gathering.

Bassett suggested that he speak to Mrs. Bassett and Marian, who were spending a few days in town, and he found them in the hotel parlor, where Bassett joined them shortly. Mrs. Bassett and Dan had always got on well together; his nearness to her husband brought him close to the domestic circle; and he had been invariably responsive to her demands upon his time. Dan had learned inevitably a good deal of the inner life of the Bassetts, and now and then he had been aware that Mrs. Bassett was sounding him discreetly as to her husband's plans and projects; but these approaches had been managed with the nicest tact and discretion. In her long absences from home she had lost touch with Bassett's political interests and occupations, but she knew of his break with Thatcher. She prided herself on being a woman of the world, and while she had flinched sometimes at the attacks made upon her husband, she was nevertheless proud of his influence in affairs. Bassett had once, at a time when he was being assailed for smothering some measure in the senate, given her a number of books bearing upon the anti-slavery struggle, in which she read that the prominent leaders in that movement had suffered the most unjust attacks, and while it was not quite clear wherein lay Bassett's likeness to Lincoln, Lovejoy, and Wendell Phillips, she had been persuaded that the most honorable men in public life are often the targets of scandal. Her early years in Washington with her father had impressed her imagination; the dream of returning there as the wife of a Senator danced brightly in her horizons. It would mean much to Marian and Blackford if their father, like their Grandfather Singleton, should attain a seat in the Senate. And she was aware that without such party service as Bassett was rendering, with its resulting antagonisms, the virulent newspaper attacks, the social estrangements that she had not escaped in Fraserville, a man could not hope for party preferment.

Bassett had recently visited Blackford at the military school where his son was established, and talk fell upon the boy.

"Black likes to have a good time, but he will come out all right. The curriculum doesn't altogether fit him—that's his only trouble."

Bassett glanced at Harwood for approval and Dan promptly supported the father's position. Blackford had, as a matter of fact, been threatened with expulsion lately for insubordination. Bassett had confessed to Dan several times his anxiety touching the boy. To-day, when the lad's mother had just returned after a long sojourn in a rest cure, was not a fit occasion for discussing such matters.

"What's Allen doing?" asked Marian. "I suppose now that papa is having a rumpus with Mr. Thatcher I shall never see him any more."

"You shouldn't speak so, Marian. A hotel parlor is no place to discuss your father's affairs," admonished Mrs. Bassett.

"Oh, Allen's ever so much fun. He's a Socialist or something. Aunt Sally likes him ever so much. Aunt Sally likes Mr. Thatcher, too, for that matter," she concluded boldly.

"Mr. Thatcher is an old friend of mine," said Bassett soberly.

"You can be awfully funny when you want to, papa," replied Marian. "As we came through Pittsburg this morning I bought a paper that told about 'Stop, Look, Listen.' But Allen won't mind if you do whistle to his father to keep off the track."

"Mr. Thatcher's name was never mentioned by me in any such connection," replied Bassett; but he laughed when Marian leaned over and patted his cheek to express her satisfaction in her father's cleverness.

"I think it unfortunate that you have gone to war with that man," remarked Mrs. Bassett wearily.

"You dignify it too much by calling it a war," Harwood interjected. "We don't want such men in politics in this state and somebody has to deal with them."

"I guess it will be a lively scrap all right enough," said Marian, delighted at the prospect. "We're going to move to the city this fall, Mr. Harwood. Hasn't papa told you?"

Mrs. Bassett glanced at her husband with alert suspicion, thinking that perhaps in her absence he had been conniving to this end with Marian.

Bassett smiled at his daughter's adroitness in taking advantage of Harwood's presence to introduce this subject; it had been the paramount issue with her for several years.

"I shall be glad enough to stay at Fraserville the rest of my days if I get through another Waupegan summer safely," said Mrs. Bassett. "The mere thought of moving is horrible!"

"Oh, we wouldn't exactly move in coming here; we'd have an apartment in one of these comfortable new houses and come down while the legislature's in session, so we can be with papa. And there's ever so much music here now, and the theatres, and I could have a coming-out party here. You know I never had one, papa. And it would be nice to be near Aunt Sally; she's getting old and needs us."

"Yes; she undoubtedly does," said Bassett, with faint irony.

Her daughter's rapid fire of suggestions wearied Mrs. Bassett. She turned to Harwood:—

"Mr. Bassett and Marian have been telling me, Mr. Harwood, that Aunt Sally went back to college with Sylvia Garrison after Professor Kelton's death. Poor girl, it's quite like Aunt Sally to do that. Sylvia must be very forlorn, with all her people gone. I think Aunt Sally knew her mother. I hope the girl isn't wholly destitute?"

"No, the Professor left a small estate and Miss Garrison expects to teach," Dan answered.

"Dan is the administrator," remarked Bassett "I'm sure you will be glad to know that Miss Garrison's affairs are in good hands, Hallie."

"Aunt Sally is very fond of you, Mr. Harwood; I hope you appreciate that," said Mrs Bassett. "Aunt Sally doesn't like everybody."

"Aunt Sally's a brick, all right," declared Marian, as an accompaniment to Dan's expression of his gratification that Mrs. Owen had honored him with her friendship.

"It's too bad the girl will have to teach," said Mrs. Bassett; "it must be a dog's life."

"I think Miss Garrison doesn't look at it that way," Harwood intervened. "She thinks she's in the world to do something for somebody; she's a very interesting, a very charming young woman."

"Well, I haven't seen her in five years; she was only a young girl that summer at the lake. How soon will Aunt Sally be back? I do hope she's coming to Waupegan. If I'd known she was going to Wellesley, we could have waited for her in New York, and Marian and I could have gone with them to see Sylvia graduated. I always wanted to visit the college."

"It was better for you to come home, Hallie," said Mr. Bassett. "You are not quite up to sight-seeing yet. And now," he added, "Dan and I have some business on hand for an hour or so, and I'm going to send you and Marian for an automobile ride before dinner. You must quit the moment you are tired. Wish we could all go, but I haven't seen Dan much lately, and as I'm going home with you to-morrow we shan't have another chance."

When his wife and daughter had been dispatched in the motor Bassett suggested that they go to a private room he had engaged in the hotel, first giving orders at the office that he was not to be disturbed. He did not, however, escape at once from men who had been lying in wait for him in the lobby and corridors, but he made short work of them.

"I want to thresh out some things with you to-day, and I'll be as brief as possible," said Bassett when he and Harwood were alone. "You got matters fixed satisfactorily at Montgomery—no trouble about your appointment?"

"None; Mrs. Owen had arranged all that."

"You mentioned to her, did you, my offer to help?"

"Oh, yes! But she had already arranged with Akins, the banker, about the administrator's bond, and we went at once to business."

"That's all right; only I wanted to be sure Mrs. Owen understood I had offered to help you. She's very kind to my wife and children; Mrs. Bassett has been almost like a daughter to her, you know. There's really some property to administer, is there?"

"Very little, sir. The Professor had been obliged to drop part of his life insurance and there was only two thousand in force when he died. The house he lived in may bring another two. There are some publishers' contracts that seem to have no value. And the old gentleman had invested what was a large sum for him in White River Canneries."

Bassett frowned and he asked quickly:—

"How much?"

"Five thousand dollars."

"As much as that?"

Bassett's connection with White River Canneries was an incident of the politician's career to which Harwood had never been wholly reconciled. Nor was he pleasantly impressed by Bassett's next remark, which, in view of Mrs. Bassett's natural expectations,—and these Dan had frequently heard mentioned at the capital,—partook of the nature of a leading question. "That's unfortunate. But I suppose Mrs. Owen, by reason of her friendship for the grandfather, won't let the girl suffer."

"She's not the sort of girl who would be dependent in any case. She holds rather altruistic ideas in fact," remarked Harwood. "I mean," he added, seeing that Bassett waited for him to explain himself, "that Miss Garrison feels that she starts life in debt to the world—by reason of her own opportunities and so on; she expects to make payments on that debt."

"In debt?" Bassett repeated vacantly. "Oh, not literally, I see! She expects to teach and help others in that way. That's commendable. But let me see."

He had taken an unsharpened lead pencil from his pocket and was slipping it through his fingers absently, allowing its blunt ends to tap the arm of his chair at intervals. After a moment's silence he plunged into his own affairs.

"You probably saw my tip to Thatcher in the 'Courier'? I guess everybody has seen it by this time," he added grimly; and he went on as though making a statement his mind had thoroughly rehearsed: "Thatcher and I have been pretty thick. We've been in a good many business deals together. We've been useful to each other. He had more money than I had to begin with, but I had other resources—influence and so on that he needed. I guess we're quits on the business side. You may be interested to know that I never had a cent of money in his breweries and distilleries; but I've helped protect the traffic in return for support he has given some of my own enterprises. I never owned a penny in that Fraserville brewery, for instance; but I've been pointed out as its owner. They've got the idea here in Indiana that saloons are my chief joy in life; but nothing is farther from the truth. When Mrs. Bassett has been troubled about that I have always been able to tell her with a good conscience that I hadn't a penny in the business. I've frankly antagonized legislation directed against the saloon, for I've never taken any stock in this clamor of the Prohibitionists and temperance cranks generally; but I've stood consistently for a proper control. Thatcher and I got along all right until he saw that the party was coming into power again and got the senatorial bee in his bonnet. He's got the idea that he can buy his way in; and to buy a seat he's got to buy my friends. That's a clear proposition, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir; I haven't seen that he had any personal influence worth counting."

"Exactly. Now, I don't intend that Ed Thatcher shall buy a seat in the United States Senate if our party in Indiana has one to dispose of. I'm not so good myself, but when I found that Thatcher had begun to build up a little machine for himself, I resolved to show him that I can't be used by any man so long as he thinks he needs me and then kicked out when I'm in the way. And I've got some state pride, too, and with all the scandals going around in other states over the sale of seats at Washington I'm not going to have my party in the state where I was born and where I have lived all my life lend itself to the ambitions of an Ed Thatcher. I think you share that feeling?"

"The people of the whole state will commend that," replied Dan warmly. "And if you want to go to the Senate—"

"I don't want anything from my party that it doesn't want me to have," interrupted Bassett.

He rose and paced the floor. An unusual color had come into his face, but otherwise he betrayed no agitation. He crossed from the door to the window and resumed his seat.

"They've said of me that I fight in the dark; that I'm a man of secret and malign methods. The 'Advertiser' said only this morning that I have no courage; that I never make an attack where it costs me anything. I've already proved that to be a lie. My attack on Thatcher is likely to cost me a good deal. You may be sure he won't scruple to make the bill as heavy as he can. I'm talking to you freely, and I'll say to you that I expect the better element of the party to rally to my support. You see, I'm going to give you idealists a chance to do something that will count. Thatcher is not a foe to be despised. Here's his reply to my 'Stop, Look, Listen,' editorial. The sheriff served it on me just as I stepped into the elevator to come up here."

The paper Harwood took wonderingly was a writ citing Bassett to appear as defendant in a suit brought in the circuit court by Edward G. Thatcher against the Courier Publishing Company, Morton Bassett, and Sarah Owen.

Bassett stretched himself at ease in his chair and explained.

"I wanted a newspaper and he was indifferent about it at the time; but we went in together, and he consented that I should have a controlling interest. As I was tied up tight right then I had to get Mrs. Owen to help me out. It wasn't the kind of deal you want to hawk about town, and neither Thatcher nor I cared to have it known for a while that we had bought the paper. But it's hardly a secret now, of course. Mrs. Owen and I together own one hundred and fifty-one shares of the total of three hundred; Thatcher owns the rest and he was satisfied to let it go that way. He signed an agreement that I should manage the paper, and said he didn't want anything but dividends."

"Mrs. Owen's interest is subject to your wishes, of course; that goes without saying."

"Well, I guaranteed eight per cent on her investment, but we've made it lately, easily. I've now got to devise some means of getting rid of Thatcher; but we'll let him cool till after the convention. Mrs. Owen won't be back for several weeks, I suppose?"

"No; she and Miss Garrison will return immediately after the commencement exercises."

"Well, Thatcher brought that suit, thinking that if he could throw the paper into a receivership he'd run up the price when it came to be sold and shake me out. He knew, too, that it would annoy Mrs. Owen to be involved in litigation. It's surprising that he would incur her wrath himself; she's always been mighty decent to Ed and kind to his boy. But I'll have to buy her stock and let her out; it's a delicate business, and for Mrs. Bassett's sake I've got to get her aunt out as quickly as possible."

"That, of course, will be easily managed. It's too bad she's away just now."

"It was the first time I ever asked her help in any of my business affairs, and it's unfortunate. The fact is that Mrs. Bassett doesn't know of it."

He rose and crossed the room slowly with his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

"But if Mrs. Owen is guaranteed against loss there's no ground for criticizing you," said Dan. "There's nothing to trouble about on that side of it, I should think."

"Oh, I'm not troubling about that," replied Bassett shortly. He shrugged his shoulders and walked to the window, gazing out on the street in silence for several minutes. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I told you, Dan, when you opened our office in the Boordman Building, that if ever the time came when you didn't want to serve me any longer you were to feel free to quit. You are under no obligations to me of any sort. I caught a bargain in you; you have been useful to me in many ways; you have carried nearly the whole burden of the paper-mill receivership in a way to win me the praise of the court and all others interested. If you should quit me to-night I should still be your debtor. I had about decided to leave you out of my calculations in politics; you have the making of a good lawyer and if you opened an office to-morrow you would find clients without trouble. You are beginning to be known, very well known for a man of your years."

Harwood demurred feebly, unheeded by Bassett, who continued steadily.

"I had thought for a time that I shouldn't encourage you to take any part in politics—at least in my affairs. The receivership has been giving you enough to do; and the game, after all, is a hard one. Even after I decided to break with Thatcher I thought I'd leave you out of it: that's why I gave you no intimation of what was coming, but put the details into Atwill's hands. I had really meant to show you a proof of that editorial, but I wasn't sure until they had to close the page that night that I was ready to make the break. I had been pretty hot that evening at the Country Club when I saw Pettit and Thatcher chumming together; I wanted to be sure I had cooled off. But I find that I've got in the habit of relying on you; I've been open with you from the beginning, and as you know I'm not much given to taking men into my confidence. But I've been leaning on you a good deal—more, in fact, than I realized."

There was no questioning Bassett's sincerity, nor was there any doubt that this appeal was having its effect on the younger man. If Bassett had been a weakling timorously making overtures for help, Harwood would have been sensible of it; but a man of demonstrated force and intelligence, who had probably never talked thus to another soul in his life, was addressing him with a candor at once disarming and compelling. It was not easy to say to a man from whom he had accepted every kindness that he had ceased to trust him; that while he had been his willing companion on fair-weather voyages, he would desert without a qualm before the tempest. But even now Bassett had asked nothing of him; why should he harden his heart against the man who had been his friend?

"You have your ideals—fine ideas of public service that I admire. Our party needs such men as you; the young fellows couldn't get away from us fast enough after '96; many of the Sons of old-time Democrats joined the Republicans. Fitch has spoken to me of you often as the kind of man we ought to push forward, and I'm willing to put you out on the firing-line, where you can work for your ideals. My help will handicap you at first,"—his voice grew dry and hard here,-"but once you have got a start you can shake me off as quick as you like. It's a perfectly selfish proposition I'm making, Harwood; it simply gets down to this, that I need your help."

"Of course, Mr. Bassett; if I can serve you in any way—"

"Anything you can do for me you may do if you don't feel that you will be debasing yourself in fighting under my flag. It's a black flag, they say—just as black as Thatcher's. I don't believe you want to join Thatcher; the question is, do you want to stick to me?"

Bassett had spoken quietly throughout. He had made no effort to play upon Harwood's sympathies or to appeal to his gratitude. He was, in common phrase, to be taken or let alone. Harwood realized that he must either decline outright or declare his fealty in a word. It was in no view a debatable matter; he could not suggest points of difference or even inquire as to the nature of the service to be exacted. He was face to face with a man who, he had felt that night of their first meeting at Fraserville, gave and received hard blows. Yet he did not doubt that if their relations terminated to-day Bassett would deal with him magnanimously. He realized that after all it was not Bassett who was on trial; it was Daniel Harwood!

He saw his life in sharp fulgurations; the farm (cleared of debt through Bassett's generosity, to be sure!) where his father and brothers struggled to wrest a livelihood from reluctant soil, and their pride and hope in him; he saw his teachers at college, men who had pointed the way to useful and honorable lives; and more than all, Sumner rose before him—Sumner who had impressed him more than any other man he had ever known. Sumner's clean-cut visage was etched grimly in his consciousness; verily Sumner would not have dallied with a man of Bassett's ilk. He had believed when he left college that Sumner's teaching and example would be a buckler and shield to him all the days of his life; and here he was, faltering before a man to whom the great teacher would have given scarce a moment's contemptuous thought. He could even hear the professor's voice as he ironically pronounced upon sordid little despots of Bassett's stamp. And only forty-eight hours earlier he had been talking to a girl on the campus at Madison who had spoken of idealism and service in the terms of which he had thought of those things when he left college. Even Allen Thatcher, in his whimsical fashion, stood for ideals, and dreamed of the heroic men who had labored steadfastly for great causes. Here was his chance now to rid himself of Bassett; to breathe free air again! On the other hand, Bassett had himself suggested that Harwood, once in a position to command attention, might go his own gait. His servitude would be for a day only, and by it he should win eternal freedom. He caught eagerly at what Bassett was saying, grateful that the moment of his choice was delayed.

"The state convention is only three weeks off and I had pretty carefully mapped it out before the 'Courier' dropped that shot across Thatcher's bows. I've arranged for you to go as delegate to the state convention from this county and to have a place on the committee on resolutions. This will give you an introduction to the party that will be of value. They will say you are my man—but they've said that of other men who have lived it down. I want Thatcher to have his way in that convention, naming the ticket as far as he pleases, and appearing to give me a drubbing. The party's going to be defeated in November—there's no ducking that. We'll let Thatcher get the odium of that defeat. About the next time we'll go in and win and there won't be any more Thatcher nonsense. This is politics, you understand."

Harwood nodded; but Bassett had not finished; it clearly was not his purpose to stand the young man in a corner and demand a choice from him. Bassett pursued negotiations after a fashion of his own.

"Thatcher thinks he has scored heavily on me by sneaking into Fraserville and kidnaping old Ike Pettit. That fellow has always been a nuisance to me; I carried a mortgage on his newspaper for ten years, but Thatcher has mercifully taken that burden off my shoulders by paying it. Thatcher can print anything he wants to about me in my own town; but it will cost him some money; those people up there don't think I'm so wicked, and the 'Fraser County Democrat' won't have any advertisements for a while but fake medical ads. But Ike will have more room for the exploitation of his own peculiar brand of homely Hoosier humor."

Bassett smiled, and Harwood was relieved to be able to laugh aloud. He was enjoying this glimpse of the inner mysteries of the great game. His disdain of Thatcher's clumsy attempts to circumvent Bassett was complete; in any view Bassett was preferable to Thatcher. As the senator from Fraser had said, there was really nothing worse than Thatcher, with his breweries and racing-stable, his sordidness and vulgarity. Thatcher's efforts to practice Bassett's methods with Bassett's own tools was a subject for laughter. It seemed for the moment that Harwood's decision might be struck on this note of mirth. Dan wondered whether, in permitting Bassett thus to disclose his plans and purposes, he had not already nailed his flag to the Bassett masthead.

"I don't want these fellows who are old-timers in state conventions—particularly those known to be my old friends—to figure much," Bassett continued. "I'm asking your aid because you're new and clean-handed. The meanest thing they can say against you is that you're in my camp. They tell me you're an effective speaker, a number of county chairmen have said your speeches in the last campaign made a good impression. I shall want you to prepare a speech about four minutes long, clean-cut and vigorous,—we'll decide later what that speech shall be about. I've got it in mind to spring something in that convention just to show Thatcher that there are turns of the game he doesn't know yet. I'm going to give you a part that will make 'em remember you for some time, Dan."

Bassett's smile showed his strong sound teeth. He rarely laughed, but he yielded now to the contagion of the humor he had aroused in Harwood.

"It's a big chance you're giving me to get into things," replied Harwood. "I'll do my best." Then he added, in the glow of his complete surrender: "You've never asked me to do a dishonorable thing in the four years I've been with you. There's nothing I oughtn't to be glad to do from any standpoint, and I'm grateful for this new mark of your confidence."

"That's all right, Dan. There are things in store for young men in politics in this state—Republicans and Democrats," said Bassett, without elation or any show of feeling whatever. "Once the limelight hits you, you can go far—very far. I must go over to the 'Courier' office now and see Atwill."



CHAPTER XIX

THE THUNDER OF THE CAPTAINS

Marian had suggested to her mother that they visit Mrs. Owen in town before settling at Waupegan for the summer, and it was Marian's planning that made this excursion synchronize with the state convention. Mr. Bassett was not consulted in the matter; in fact, since his wife's return from Connecticut he had been unusually occupied, and almost constantly away from Fraserville. Mrs. Bassett and her daughter arrived at the capital the day after Mrs. Owen reached home from Wellesley with Sylvia, and the Bassetts listened perforce to their kinswoman's enthusiastic account of the commencement exercises. Mrs. Owen had, it appeared, looked upon Smith and Mount Holyoke also on this eastward flight, and these inspections, mentioned in the most casual manner, did not contribute to Mrs. Bassett's happiness.

Finding that her father was inaccessible by telephone, Marian summoned Harwood and demanded tickets for the convention; she would make an occasion of it, and Mrs. Owen and Sylvia should go with them. Mrs. Bassett and her family had always enjoyed the freedom of Mrs. Owen's house; it was disheartening to find Sylvia established in Delaware Street on like terms of intimacy. The old heartache over Marian's indifference to the call of higher education for women returned with a new poignancy as Mrs. Bassett inspected Sylvia's diploma, as proudly displayed by Mrs. Owen as though it marked the achievement of some near and dear member of the family. Sylvia's undeniable good looks, her agreeable manner, her ready talk, and the attention she received from her elders, were well calculated to arm criticism in a prejudiced heart. On the evening of their arrival Admiral and Mrs. Martin and the Reverend John Ware had called, and while Mrs. Bassett assured herself that these were, in a sense, visits of condolence upon Andrew Kelton's granddaughter, the trio, who were persons of distinction, had seemed sincerely interested in Mrs. Owen's protegee. Mrs. Bassett was obliged to hear a lively dialogue between the minister and Sylvia touching some memory of his first encounter with her about the stars. He brought her as a "commencement present" Bacon's "Essays." People listened to Sylvia; Sylvia had things to say! Even the gruff admiral paid her deference. He demanded to know whether it was true that Sylvia had declined a position at the Naval Observatory, which required the calculation of tides for the Nautical Almanac. Mrs. Bassett was annoyed that Sylvia had refused a position that would have removed her from a proximity to Mrs. Owen that struck her as replete with danger. And yet Mrs. Bassett was outwardly friendly, and she privately counseled Marian, quite unnecessarily, to be "nice" to Sylvia. On the same evening Mrs. Bassett was disagreeably impressed by Harwood's obvious rubrication in Mrs. Owen's good books. It seemed darkly portentous that Dan was, at Mrs. Owen's instigation, managing Sylvia's business affairs; she must warn her husband against this employment of his secretary to strengthen the ties between Mrs. Owen and this object of her benevolence.

Mrs. Bassett's presence at the convention did not pass unremarked by many gentlemen upon the floor, or by the newspapers.

"While the state chairman struggled to bring the delegates to order, Miss Marian Bassett, daughter of the Honorable Morton Bassett, of Fraser County, was a charming and vivacious figure in the balcony. At a moment when it seemed that the band would never cease from troubling the air with the strains of 'Dixie,' Miss Bassett tossed a carnation into the Marion County delegation. The flower was deftly caught by Mr. Daniel Harwood, who wore it in his buttonhole throughout the strenuous events of the day."

This item was among the "Kodak Shots" subjoined to the "Advertiser's" account of the convention. It was stated elsewhere in the same journal that "never before had so many ladies attended a state convention as graced this occasion. The wives of both Republican United States Senators and of many prominent politicians of both parties were present, their summer costumes giving to the severe lines of the balcony a bright note of color." The "Capital," in its minor notes of the day, remarked upon the perfect amity that prevailed among the wives and daughters of Republicans and Democrats. It noted also the presence in Mrs. Bassett's party of her aunt, Mrs. Jackson Owen, and of Mrs. Owen's guest, Miss Sylvia Garrison, a graduate of this year's class at Wellesley.

The experiences and sensations of a delegate to a large convention are quite different from those of a reporter at the press table, as Dan Harwood realized; and it must be confessed that he was keyed to a proper pitch of excitement by the day's prospects. In spite of Bassett's promise that he need not trouble to help elect himself a delegate, Harwood had been drawn sharply into the preliminary skirmish at the primaries. He had thought it wise to cultivate the acquaintance of the men who ruled his own county even though his name had been written large upon the Bassett slate.

In the weeks that intervened between his interview with Harwood in the upper room of the Whitcomb and the primaries, Bassett had quietly visited every congressional district, holding conferences and perfecting his plans. "Never before," said the "Advertiser," "had Morton Bassett's pernicious activity been so marked." The belief had grown that the senator from Fraser was in imminent peril; in the Republican camp it was thought that while Thatcher might not control the convention he would prove himself strong enough to shake the faith of many of Bassett's followers in the power of their chief. There had been, apparently, a hot contest at the primaries. In the northern part of the state, in a region long recognized as Bassett's stronghold, Thatcher had won easily; at the capital the contestants had broken even, a result attributable to Thatcher's residence in the county. The word had passed among the faithful that Thatcher money was plentiful, and that it was not only available in this preliminary skirmish, but that those who attached themselves to Thatcher early were to enjoy his bounty throughout his campaign—which might be protracted—for the senatorship. Bassett was not scattering largess; it was whispered that the money he had used previously in politics had come out of Thatcher's pocket and that he would have less to spend in future.

Bassett, in keeping with his forecast to Harwood, had made a point of having many new men, whose faces were unfamiliar in state conventions, chosen at the primaries he controlled, so that in a superficial view of the convention the complexion of a considerable body of the delegates was neutral. Here and there among the delegations sat men who knew precisely Bassett's plans and wishes. The day following the primaries, Bassett, closeted with Harwood in his room at the Boordman Building, had run the point of a walking-stick across every county in the state, reciting from memory just how many delegates he absolutely controlled, those he could get easily if he should by any chance need them, and the number of undoubted Thatcher men there were to reckon with. In Dan's own mingling with the crowd at the Whitcomb the night before the convention he had learned nothing to shake his faith in Bassett's calculations.

The Honorable Isaac Pettit, of Fraser, was one of the most noteworthy figures on the floor. Had he not thrown off the Bassett yoke and trampled the lord of Fraser County underfoot? Did not the opposition press applaud the editor for so courageously wresting from the despicable chieftain the control of a county long inured to slavery? Verily, the Honorable Isaac had done much to encourage belief in the guileless that such were the facts. Even the "Courier" proved its sturdy independence by printing the result of the primary without extenuation or aught set down in malice. The Honorable Isaac Pettit undoubtedly believed in himself as the savior of Fraser. He had personally led the fight in the Fraser County primaries and had vanquished Bassett! "Bassett had fought gamely," the Republican organ averred, to make more glorious the Honorable Isaac's victory. It was almost inconceivable, they said, that Bassett, who had dominated his party for years, should not be able to elect himself a delegate to a state convention.

In a statement printed in the "Courier," Bassett had accepted defeat in a commendable spirit of resignation. He and Atwill had framed that statement a week before the primaries, and Miss Rose Farrell had copied at least a dozen drafts before Bassett's critical sense was satisfied. Harwood was increasingly amused by the manifestations of Bassett's ironic humor. "I have never yet," ran the statement, "placed my own ambitions before the wishes of my party; and if, when the Democrats of Fraser County meet to choose a candidate for state senator, they are not disposed to renominate me for a seat which I have held for twelve years, I shall gladly resign to another and give my loyal support to the candidate of their choice." It was whispered that the Honorable Isaac Pettit would himself be a candidate for the nomination. The chattel mortgage scrolls in the office of the recorder of Fraser County indicated that his printing-press no longer owed allegiance to the Honorable Morton Bassett. Thatcher had treated Pettit generously, taking his unsecured note for the amount advanced to cleanse the "Fraser County Democrat" of the taint of Bassettism.

As they gathered in the convention hall many of the delegates were unable to adjust themselves to the fact that Bassett had not only failed of election as delegate from his own county, but that he was not even present as a spectator of the convention. The scene was set, the curtain had risen, but Hamlet came not to the platform before the castle. Many men sought Harwood and inquired in awed whispers as to Bassett's whereabouts, but he gave evasive answers. He knew, however, that Bassett had taken an early morning train for Waupegan, accompanied by Fitch, their purpose being to discuss in peace and quiet the legal proceeding begun to gain control of the "Courier." The few tried and trusted Bassett men who knew exactly Bassett's plans for the convention listened in silence to the hubbub occasioned by their chief's absence; silence was a distinguishing trait of Bassett's lieutenants. Among the uninitiated there were those who fondly believed that Bassett was killed, not scotched, and they said among themselves that the party and the state were well rid of him. Thatcher was to be reckoned with, but he was no worse than Bassett: with such cogitations they comforted themselves amid the noise and confusion. The old Bassett superstition held, however, with many: this was only another of the Boss's deep-laid schemes, and he would show his hand in due season and prove himself, as usual, master of the situation. Others imagined that Bassett was sulking, and these were not anxious to be the target of his wrath when he chose to emerge from his tent in full armor.

A young woman reporter, traversing the galleries to note the names and gowns of the ladies present, sought Mrs. Bassett for information as to her husband's whereabouts. When Mrs. Bassett hesitated discreetly, Marian rose promptly to the occasion:—

"Papa's gone fishing," she replied suavely.

This was not slow to reach the floor. "Papa's gone fishing" gained wide currency as the answer to the most interesting question of the day.

The Honorable Isaac Pettit, seated majestically with the Fraser County delegation, tested the acoustics of the hall at the first opportunity. While the chairman of the state central committee was endeavoring to present as the temporary chairman of the convention a patriot known as the "War Eagle of the Wabash," the gentleman from Fraser insisted upon recognition.

"Who is that preposterous fat man?" demanded Mrs. Owen, plying her palm-leaf fan vigorously.

"That's Mr. Pettit, from our town," said Mrs. Bassett. "He's an editor and lecturer."

"He's the man that defeated papa in our primaries," added Marian cheerfully. "He's awfully funny, everybody says, and I suppose his defeating papa was a joke. He's going to say something funny now."

"He doesn't need to," said Sylvia, not the least interested of the spectators. "They are laughing before he begins."

The chairman of the state committee feigned not to hear or see the delegate from Fraser, but Mr. Pettit continued to importune the chair amid much laughter and confusion. The chairman had hardened his heart, but the voice of the gentleman from Fraser alone rose above the tumult, and in a moment of comparative calm he addressed the chair unrecognized and unpermitted.

"I beg to call your attention, sir, to the presence in the gallery of many of the fair daughters of the old Hoosier State. (Applause.) They hover above us like guardian angels. They have come in the spirit that brought their sisters of old to watch true knights battle in the tourney. As a mark of respect to these ladies who do us so much honor, I ask the chair to request gentlemen to desist from smoking, and that the sergeant-at-arms be ordered to enforce the rule throughout our deliberations." (Long-continued applause.)

The state chairman was annoyed and showed his annoyance. He had been about to ingratiate himself with the ladies by making this request unprompted; he made it now, but the gentleman from Fraser sat down conscious that the renewed applause was his.

"Why don't they keep on smoking?" asked Mrs. Owen. "The hall couldn't be any fuller of smoke than it is now."

"If they would all put on their coats the room would be more beautiful," said Marian. "They always say the Republicans are much more gentlemanly than the Democrats."

"Hush, Marian; some one might hear you," Mrs. Bassett cautioned.

She did not understand her husband's absence; he rarely or never took her into his confidence in political matters. She had not known until that morning that he was not to be present at the convention. She did not relish the idea that he had been defeated in the primaries; in her mind defeat was inseparable from dishonor. The "War Eagle of the Wabash" was in excellent voice and he spoke for thirty minutes; his speech would have aroused greater enthusiasm if it had not been heard in many previous state conventions and on the hustings through many campaigns. Dan Voorhees had once expressed his admiration of that speech; and it was said that Tom Hendricks had revised the original manuscript the year he was chosen Vice-President. It was a safe speech, containing nothing that any good American might not applaud; it named practically every Democratic President except the twenty-second and twenty-fourth, whom it seemed the better part of valor just then to ignore. With slight emendations that same oration served admirably for high-school commencements, and it had a recognized cash value on the Chautauqua circuit. The peroration, closing with "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!" was well calculated to bring strong men to their feet. The only complaint the War Eagle might have lodged against the Ship of State (in some imaginable admiralty court having jurisdiction of that barnacled old frigate) would have been for its oft-repeated rejection of his own piloting.

The permanent chairman now disclosed was a man of business, who thanked the convention briefly and went to work. By the time the committee on resolutions had presented the platform (on which Bassett and Harwood had collaborated) the convention enjoyed its first sensation as Thatcher appeared, moving slowly down the crowded main aisle to join the delegation of his county. His friends had planned a demonstration for his entrance, and in calling it an ovation the newspapers hardly magnified its apparent spontaneity and volume. The man who had undertaken the herculean task of driving Morton Bassett out of politics was entitled to consideration, and his appearance undoubtedly interrupted the business of the convention for fully five minutes. Thatcher bowed and waved his hand as he sat down. The cordiality of his reception both pleased and embarrassed him. He fanned himself with his hat and feigned indifference to the admiration of his countrymen.

"Papa always gets more applause than that," Marian remarked to Sylvia. "I was at the state convention two years ago and father came in late, just as Mr. Thatcher did. They always come in late after all the stupid speeches have been made; they're surer to stir up a big rumpus that way."

Sylvia gave serious heed to these transactions of history. Her knowledge of politics was largely derived from lectures she had heard at college and from a diligent reading of newspapers. The report of the committee on resolutions—a succinct document to each of whose paragraphs the delegates rose in stormy approval—had just been read.

"I don't see how you can listen to such stuff," said Marian during a lull in the shouting. "It's only the platform and they don't mean a word of it. There's Colonel Ramsay, of Aurora,—the man with white hair who has just come on the stage. He had dinner at our house once and he's perfectly lovely. He's a beautiful speaker, but they won't let him speak any more because he was a gold bug—whatever that is. They say Colonel Ramsay has stopped gold-bugging now and wants to be governor. Sylvia, all these men that don't want to be United States Senator want to be governor. Isn't it funny? I don't see why silver money isn't just as good as any other kind, do you?"

"They told me at college," said Sylvia, "but it's rather complicated. Why didn't your father come to the convention even if he wasn't a delegate? He could have sat in the gallery; I suppose a lot of those men down there are not really delegates."

"Oh, that wouldn't be papa's way of doing things. I wish he had come, just on mama's account; she takes everything so hard. If papa ever did half the naughty things they say he does he'd be in the penitentiary good and tight. I should like to marry a public man; if I trusted a man enough to marry him I shouldn't be jarred a bit by what the newspapers said of him. I like politics; I don't know what it's all about, but I think the men are ever so interesting."

"I think so too," said Sylvia; "only I don't understand why they make so much noise and do so little. That platform they read a little bit ago seemed splendid. I read a lot of political platforms once in college—they were part of the course—and that was the best one I ever heard. It declared for laws against child labor, and I'm interested in that; and for juvenile courts and a lot of the new enlightened things. It was all fine."

"Do you think so? It sounded just like a trombone solo to me. Mr. Harwood was on that committee. Didn't you hear his name read? He's one of these high brows in politics, and father's going to push him forward so he can accomplish the noble things that interest him. Father told me Mr. Harwood would be a delegate to the convention. That's the reason I wanted to come. I hope he will make a speech; they say he's one of the best of the younger men. I heard him at the Opera House at Fraserville in the last campaign and he kept me awake, I can tell you. And funny! You wouldn't think he could be funny."

"Oh, I can see that he has humor—the lines around his mouth show that."

They had discussed the convention and its possibilities at Mrs. Owen's breakfast table and with the morning newspapers as their texts. Sylvia had gained the impression that Bassett had met a serious defeat in the choice of delegates, and she had been conscious that Mrs. Bassett was distressed by the newspaper accounts of it. Marian bubbled on elucidatively, answering all of Sylvia's questions.

"Don't you think that because papa isn't here he won't be heard from; I think I know papa better than that. He didn't think this convention would amount to enough for him to trouble with it. I told Aunt Sally not to talk much before mother about papa and politics; you will notice that Aunt Sally turned the subject several times this morning. That lawsuit Mr. Thatcher brought against papa and Aunt Sally made her pretty hot, but papa will fix that up all right. Papa always fixes up everything," she concluded admiringly.

It was in Sylvia's mind that she was witnessing a scene of the national drama and that these men beneath her in the noisy hall were engaged upon matters more or less remotely related to the business of self-government. She had derived at college a fair idea of the questions of the day, but the parliamentary mechanism and the thunder of the captains and the shouting gave to politics a new, concrete expression. These delegates, drawn from all occupations and conditions of life, were citizens of a republic, endeavoring to put into tangible form their ideas and preferences; and similar assemblies had, she knew, for years been meeting in every American commonwealth, enacting just such scenes as those that were passing under her eyes. Her gravity amused Mrs. Owen.

"Don't you worry, Sylvia; they are all kind to their families and most of 'em earn an honest living. I've attended lots of conventions of all parties and they're all about alike: there are more standing collars in a Republican convention and more whiskers when the Prohibitionists get together, but they're all mostly corn-fed and human. A few fellows with brains in their heads run all the rest."

"Look, Marian, Mr. Harwood seems to be getting ready to do something," said Sylvia. "I wonder what that paper is he has in his hand. He's been holding it all morning."

Harwood sat immediately under them. Several times men had passed notes to him, whereupon he had risen and searched out the writer to give his answer with a nod or shake of the head. When Thatcher appeared, Dan had waited for the hubbub to subside and then he left his seat to shake hands with Bassett's quondam ally. He held meanwhile a bit of notepaper the size of his hand, and scrutinized it carefully from time to time. It contained the precise programme of the convention as arranged by Bassett. Morton Bassett was on a train bound for the pastoral shades of Waupegan a hundred miles away, but the permanent chairman had in his vest pocket a copy of Bassett's scheme of exercises; even Thatcher's rapturous greeting had been ordered by Bassett. There had already been one slight slip; the eagerness of the delegates to proceed to the selection of the state ticket had sent matters forward for a moment beyond the chairman's control. A delegate with a weak voice had gained recognition for the laudable purpose of suggesting a limitation upon nominating speeches; the permanent chairman had mistaken him for another gentleman for whom he was prepared, and he hastened to correct his blunder. He seized the gavel and began pounding vigorously and the man with the weak voice never again caught his eye.

In the middle of the hall a delegate now drew attention to himself by rising upon a chair; he held a piece of paper in his hand and waved it; and the chairman promptly took cognizance of him. The chairman referred to him as the gentleman from Pulaski, but he might have been the gentleman from Vallombrosa for all that any one cared. The convention was annoyed that a gentleman from Pulaski County should have dared to flourish manuscript when there were innumerable orators present fully prepared to speak extempore on any subject. For all that any one knew the gentleman from Pulaski might be primed with a speech on the chinch bug or the Jewish kritarchy; a man with a sheet of paper in his hand was a formidable person, if not indeed a foe of mankind, and he was certainly not to be countenaced or encouraged in a hot hall on a day of June. Yet all other human beings save the gentleman from Pulaski were as nothing, it seemed, to the chairman. The Tallest Delegate, around whose lean form a frock coat hung like a fold of night, and who flung back from a white brow an immense quantity of raven hair, sought to relieve the convention of the sight and sound of the person from Pulaski. The Tallest Delegate was called smartly to order; he rebelled, but when threatened with the sergeant-at-arms subsided amid jeers. The gentleman from Pulaski was indulged to the fullest extent by the chairman, to whom it had occurred suddenly that the aisles must be cleared. The aisles were cleared and delegates were obliged to find their seats before the unknown gentleman from Pulaski was allowed to proceed. Even the War Eagle had received no such consideration. The gentleman from Pulaski calmly waited for a completer silence than the day had known. Ten men in the hall knew what was coming—not more; Miss Rose Farrell had typed ten copies of the memorandum which Harwood held in his hand!

The gentleman from Pulaski did not after all refer to his manuscript; he spoke in a high, penetrating voice that reached the farthest corner of the hall, reciting from memory:—

"Be it resolved by this convention that, whereas two years hence it will be the privilege and duty of the Indiana Democracy to elect a United States Senator to fill the seat now occupied by a Republican, we, the delegates here assembled, do hereby pledge the party's support for the office of Senator in Congress to the Honorable Edward G. Thatcher, of Marion County."

There was a moment's awed calm before the storm broke; Thatcher rose in his seat to look at the strange gentleman from Pulaski who had thus flung his name into the arena. Thatcher men rose and clamored blindly for recognition, without the faintest idea of what they should do if haply the cold eye of the chairman fell upon them. The galleries joined in the uproar; the band began to play "On the Banks of the Wabash" and was with difficulty stopped; a few voices cried "Bassett," but cries of "Thatcher" rose in a mighty roar and drowned them. The chairman hammered monotonously for order; Mr. Daniel Harwood might have been seen to thrust his memorandum into his trousers pocket; he bent forward in his seat with his eye upon the chairman. The Honorable Isaac Pettit had been for a moment nonplussed; he was unacquainted with the gentleman from Pulaski, nor had he known that an effort was to be made to commit the convention to Thatcher's candidacy; still the tone of the resolution was friendly. Thatcher, rising to his feet, was noisily cheered; his face was red and his manner betokened anger; but after glancing helplessly over the hall he sank into his seat. The chairman thumped with his gavel; it seemed for a moment that he had lost control of the convention; and now the Honorable Isaac Pettit was observed demanding to be heard. The chairman lifted his hand and the noise died away. It lay in his power to ignore the resolution wholly or to rule it out of order; the chairman was apparently in no haste to do anything.

"Good old Uncle Ike," howled some one encouragingly, and there was laughter and applause. With superb dignity Mr. Pettit appealed for silence with gestures that expressed self-depreciation, humility, and latent power in one who would, in due course, explain everything. A group of delegates in the rear began chanting stridently, "Order! Order!" and it was flung back antiphonally from a dozen other delegations.

Mr. Harwood became active and climbed upon his chair. Gentlemen in every part of the hall seemed at once anxious to speak, but the chairman was apparently oblivious of all but the delegate from Marion. The delegate from Marion, like the mysterious person from Pulaski, was a stranger to state conventions. The ladies were at once interested in the young gentleman with the red carnation in his buttonhole—a trim young fellow, in a blue serge suit, with a blue four-in-hand knotted under a white winged collar. As he waited with his eye on the chairman he put his hand to his head and smoothed his hair.

"Is Daniel going to speak?" asked Mrs. Owen. "He ought to have asked me if he's going to back Edward Thatcher for Senator."

"I always think his cowlick's so funny. He's certainly the cool one," said Marian.

"I don't know what they're talking about a Senator for," said Mrs. Bassett. "It's very unusual. If I'd known they were going to talk about that I shouldn't have come. There's sure to be a row."

The chairman seemed anxious that the delegate from Marion should be honored with the same close attention that had been secured for the stranger from Pulaski.

"I hope he'll wait till they all sit down," said Sylvia; "I want to hear him speak."

"You'll hear him, all right," said Marian. "You know at Yale they called him 'Foghorn' Harwood, and they put him in front to lead the cheering at all the big games."

Apparently something was expected of Mr. Harwood of Marion. Thatcher had left his seat and was moving toward the corridors to find his lieutenants. Half a dozen men accosted him as he moved through the aisle, but he shook them off angrily. An effort to start another demonstration in his honor was not wholly fruitless. It resulted at least in a good deal of confusion of which the chair was briefly tolerant; then he resumed his pounding, while Harwood stood stubbornly on his chair.

The Tallest Delegate, known to be a recent convert to Thatcher, was thoroughly aroused, and advanced toward the platform shouting; but the chairman leveled his gavel at him and bade him sit down. The moment was critical; the veriest tyro felt the storm-spirit brooding over the hall.

The voice of the chairman was now audible.

"The chair recognizes the delegate from Marion."

"Out of order! What's his name!" howled many voices.

The chairman graciously availed himself of the opportunity to announce the name of the gentleman he had recognized.

"Mr. Harwood, of Marion, has the floor. The convention will be in order. The gentleman will proceed."

"Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order."

Dan's voice rose sonorously; the convention was relieved to find that the gentleman in blue serge could be heard; he was audible even to Mr. Thatcher's excited counsellors in the corridors.

"The delegate will kindly state his point of order."

The chairman was quietly courteous. His right hand rested on his gavel, he thrust his left into the side pocket of his long alpaca coat. He was an old and tried hand in the chair, and his own deep absorption in the remarks of Mr. Harwood communicated itself to the delegates.

Dan uttered rapidly the speech he had committed to memory for this occasion a week earlier. Every sentence had been carefully pondered; both Bassett and Atwill had blue penciled it until it expressed concisely and pointedly exactly what Bassett wished to be said at this point in the convention's proceedings. Interruptions, of applause or derision, were to be reckoned with; but the speaker did not once drop his voice or pause long enough for any one to drive in a wedge of protest. He might have been swamped by an uprising of the whole convention, but strange to say the convention was intent upon hearing him. Once the horde of candidates and distinguished visitors on the platform had been won to attention, Harwood turned slowly until he faced the greater crowd behind him. Several times he lifted his right hand and struck out with it, shaking his head with the vigor of his utterance. ("His voice," said the "Advertiser's" report, "rumbles and bangs like a bowling-alley on Saturday night. There was a big bump every time a sentence rumbled down the hall and struck the rear wall of the building.")

"Sir, I make the obvious point of order that there are no vacancies to fill in the office of United States Senator, and that it does not lie within the province of the delegates chosen to this convention to pledge the party to any man. I do not question the motive of the delegate from Pulaski County, who is my personal friend; and I am animated by no feelings of animosity in demanding that the convention proceed to the discharge of its obligations without touching upon matters clearly beyond its powers. I confidently hope and sincerely believe that our party in Indiana is soon to receive a new commission of trust and confidence from the people of the old Hoosier State. But our immediate business is the choice of a ticket behind which the Hoosier Democracy will move on to victory in November like an army with banners. (Cheers.) There have been intimations in the camp of our enemy that the party is threatened with schism and menaced by factional wars; but I declare my conviction that the party is more harmonious and more truly devoted to high ideals to-day than at any time since the grand old name of Democrat became potent upon Hoosier soil. And what have we to do with leaders? Men come and men go, but principles alone are eternal and live forever. The great task of our party must be to bring the government back to the people. (Scattering applause.) But the choice of an invulnerable state ticket at this convention is our business and our only business. As for Indiana's two seats in the national Senate which we shall soon wrest from our adversaries, in due season we shall fill them with tried men and true. Sir, let us remember that whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. Stop, Look, Listen!"

Hardly a man in the hall so dull that this did not penetrate! Dan had given to his last words a weird, mournful intonation whose effect was startling. He jumped lightly to the floor and was in his seat before the deep boom of his voice had ceased reverberating. Then instantly it seemed that the seventeen hundred delegates had been multiplied by ten, and that every man had become a raving lunatic. This was Bassett's defiance—Bassett, who had gone fishing, but not before planting this mine for the confusion of Thatcher. A hundred men who had already committed themselves to Thatcher sought to rescue their new leader; they rose upon chairs and demanded to be heard. "Stop, Look, Listen" had suggested the idea of a locomotive bearing down upon a dangerous crossing, and Bassett's men began to whistle. The whistling increased in volume until it drowned the shouts, the cheers, and the laughter. Ladies in the galleries stopped their ears while the whistling convention earned its name. It now occurred to the chairman, who had wasted no energy in futile efforts to stay the storm, that he had a duty to perform. Even to his practiced hand the restoration of order was not easy; but by dint of much bawling and pounding he subdued the uproar. Then after impressive deliberation he said:—

"A point of order has been raised against the resolution offered by the gentleman from Pulaski. It is the ruling of the chair that the point is well taken. The resolution is out of order."

This was greeted with great applause; but the chair checked it promptly. The ten gentlemen who had copies of the Bassett programme in their pockets were not surprised by the decision. Thatcher stood at a side door and two of his men were pushing their way through the aisles to reach Pettit; for the Honorable Isaac Pettit was on his feet demanding recognition while Thatcher's delegates shouted to him to sit down; humiliation must go no farther, and if the Fraser County editor did not realize that his new chief was the victim of a vile trick, the gentleman from Fraser must be throttled, if necessary, to prevent a further affront to Thatcher's dignity. Thatcher was purple with rage; it was enough to have been made the plaything of an unscrupulous enemy once, without having one's ambitions repeatedly kicked up and down a convention hall.

The chairman, fully rehearsed in his part, showed a malevolent disposition to continue toward the friends of Thatcher an attitude at once benevolent and just. So many were demanding recognition amid cat-calling and whistling that the fairest and least partial of presiding officers might well have hesitated before singling out one gentleman when so many were eagerly, even furiously, desirous of enlightening the convention. But the presiding officer was obeying the orders communicated to him by a gentleman who was even at this moment skimming across the cool waters of Lake Waupegan. It would more fully have satisfied the chairman's sense of humor to have recognized the Honorable Isaac Pettit and have suffered an appeal from the ruling of the chair, which presumably the editor wished to demand. By this means the weakness of Thatcher might have expressed itself in figures that would have deepened Thatcher's abasement in the eyes of his fellow partisans; but this idea had been discussed with Bassett, who had sharply vetoed it, and the chairman was not a man lightly to disobey orders even to make a Hoosier holiday. He failed to see the editor of the "Fraser County Democrat" and peremptorily closed the incident. There was no mistaking his temper as he announced:—

"The chair announces that the next business in order is the call of the roll of counties for nominations for the office of secretary of state. What is the pleasure of the convention?"

Colonel Ramsay had repaired to the gallery to enjoy the proceedings with Mrs. Bassett's party. In spite of his support of the Palmer and Buckner ticket (how long ago that seems!), the Colonel had never lost touch with the main body of his party, and he carried several Indiana counties in his pocket. His relations with Bassett had never been in the least intimate, though always outwardly cordial, and there were those who looked to him to eliminate the Fraser County chief from politics. He was quite as rich as Bassett, and a successful lawyer, who had become a colonel by grace of a staff appointment in the Spanish War. He had a weakness for the poets, and his speeches were informed with that grace and sentiment which, we are fond of saying, is peculiar to Southern oratory. The Colonel, at all fitting occasions in our commonwealth, responded to "the ladies" in tender and moving phrases. He was a bachelor, and the ladies in the gallery saw in him their true champion.

"Please tell us—we don't understand a bit of it," pleaded Marian—"what it's all about, Colonel Ramsay."

"Oh, it's just a little joke of your father's; nothing funnier ever happened in a state convention." Colonel Ramsay grinned. "The key to the situation is right there: that Pulaski County delegate offered his resolution just to make trouble; it was a fake resolution. Of course the chairman is in the joke. This young fellow down here—yes, Harwood—made his speech to add to the gayety of nations. He had no right to make it, of course, but the word had been passed along the line to let him go through. Amazing vocal powers, that boy,—you couldn't have stopped him!"

Sylvia was aware that Colonel Ramsay's explanation had not pleased Mrs. Bassett; but Mrs. Owen evinced no feeling. Marian was enjoying Colonel Ramsay's praise of her father's adroitness. Near Sylvia were other women who had much at stake in the result of the convention. The wife of a candidate for secretary of state had invited herself to a seat beside Mrs. Bassett; the wife of a Congressman who wished to be governor, sat near, publishing to the world her intimate acquaintance with Morton Bassett's family. The appearance and conduct of these women during the day interested Sylvia almost as much as the incidents occurring on the floor; it was a new idea that politics had a bearing upon the domestic life of the men who engaged in the eternal contest for place and power. The convention as a spectacle was immensely diverting, but she had her misgivings about it as a transaction in history. Colonel Ramsay asked her politics and she confessed that she had none. She had inherited Republican prejudices from her grandfather, and most of the girls she had known in college were of Republican antecedents; but she liked to call herself an independent.

"You'd better not be a Democrat, Sylvia," Mrs. Owen warned her. "I suffered a good deal in my husband's lifetime from being one. There are still people in this town who think a Democrat's the same as a Rebel or a Copperhead. It ain't hardly respectable yet, being a Democrat, and if they don't all of 'em shut up about the 'fathers' and the Constitution, I'm going to move to Mexico where it's all run by niggers."

Sylvia had singled out several figures in the drama enacting below for special attention. The chairman had interested her by reason of his attitude of scrupulous fairness, in which she now saw the transparent irony; the banalities of the temporary chairman had touched her humor; she watched him for the rest of the morning with a kind of awe that any one could he so dull, so timorous, and yet be chosen to address nearly two thousand American citizens on an occasion of importance. She was unable to reconcile Thatcher's bald head, ruddy neck, and heavy shoulders with Marian's description of the rich man's son, who dreamed of heroes and played at carpentry. Dan's speech had not been without its thrill for her, and she now realized its significance. It had been a part of a trick, and in spite of herself she could not share the admiration Colonel Ramsay was expressing for Harwood's share in it. He was immeasurably superior to the majority of those about him in the crowded hall; he was a man of education, a college man, and she had just experienced in her own life that consecration, as by an apostolic laying-on of hands, by which a college confers its honors and imposes its obligations upon those who have enjoyed its ministry. Yet Harwood, who had not struck her as weak or frivolous, had lent himself to-day to a bit of cheap claptrap merely to humble one man for the glorification of another. Bassett she had sincerely liked in their one meeting at Waupegan; and yet this was of his plotting and Harwood was his mouthpiece and tool. It did not seem fair to take advantage of such supreme stupidity as Thatcher's supporters had manifested. Her disappointment in Harwood—and it was quite that—was part of her general disappointment in the methods by which men transacted the serious business of governing themselves.

Harwood was conscious that he was one of the chief figures in the convention; every one knew him now; he was called here and there on the floor, by men anxious to impress themselves upon Bassett's authorized spokesman. It is a fine thing at twenty-seven to find the doors of opportunity flung wide—and had he not crossed the threshold and passed within the portal? He was Bassett's man; every one knew that now; but why should he not be Bassett's man? He would go higher and farther than Bassett: Bassett had merely supplied the ladder on which he would climb. He was happier than he had ever been before in his life; he had experienced the intoxication of applause, and he was not averse to the glances of the women in the gallery above him.

The nomination of candidates now went forward rather tamely, though relieved by occasional sharp contests. The ten gentlemen who had been favored with copies of the Bassett programme were not surprised that so many of Thatcher's friends were nominated; they themselves voted for most of them. It seemed remarkable to the uninitiated that Bassett should have slapped Thatcher and then have allowed him to score in the choice of the ticket. The "Advertiser," anxious to show Bassett as strong and malignant as possible, expressed the opinion that the Fraserville boss had not after all appreciated the full force of the Thatcher movement.

* * * * *

On the veranda of his Waupegan cottage Bassett and Fitch enjoyed the wholesome airs of the country. Late in the afternoon the fussy little steamer that traversed the lake paused at the Bassett dock to deliver a telegram, which Bassett read without emotion. He passed the yellow slip of paper to Fitch, who read it and handed it back.

"Harwood's a clever fellow; but you oughtn't to push him into politics. He's better than that."

"I suppose he is," said Bassett; "but I need him."



CHAPTER XX

INTERVIEWS IN TWO KEYS

Mrs. Bassett remained in bed the day following the convention, less exhausted by the scenes she had witnessed than appalled by their interpretation in the newspapers. The reappearance of Sylvia Garrison had revived the apprehensions which the girl's visit to Waupegan four years earlier had awakened. She had hoped that Sylvia's long absences might have operated to diminish Mrs. Owen's interest and she had managed in one way and another to keep them apart during the college holidays, but the death of Professor Kelton had evidently thrown Sylvia back upon Mrs. Owen. Jealous fears danced blackly in Mrs. Bassett's tired brain.

At a season when she was always busiest with her farms Mrs. Owen had made a long journey to see Sylvia graduated; and here was the girl established on the most intimate terms in the Delaware Street house, no doubt for the remainder of her life. Mrs. Owen did not lightly or often change her plans; but she had abandoned her project of spending the summer at the lake to accommodate herself to the convenience of her protegee. Mrs. Bassett's ill-health was by no means a matter of illusion; she was not well and her sojourns in sanatoriums had served to alienate her in a measure from her family. Marian had grown to womanhood without realizing her mother's ideals. She had hoped to make a very different person of her daughter, and Sylvia's reappearance intensified her sense of defeat. Even in the retrospect she saw no reason why Marian might not have pursued the course that Sylvia had followed; in her confused annoyances and agitations she was bitter not only against Marian but against Marian's father. The time had come when she must take a stand against his further dallyings in politics.

Her day at the convention hall had yielded only the most disagreeable impressions. Such incidents as had not eluded her own understanding on the spot had been freely rendered by the newspapers. It was all sordid and gross—not at all in keeping with her first experience of politics, gained in her girlhood, when her father had stood high in the councils of the nation, winning coveted positions without the support of such allies as she had seen cheering her husband's triumph on the floor of the convention. There had strayed into her hands an envelope of newspaper clippings from an agency that wished to supply her, as, its circular announced, it supplied the wives of many other prominent Americans, with newspaper comments on their husbands. As a bait for securing a client these examples of what the American press was saying of Morton Bassett were decidedly ill-chosen. The "Stop, Look, Listen" editorial had suggested to many influential journals a re-indictment of bossism with the Bassett-Thatcher imbroglio as text. It was disenchanting to find one's husband enrolled in a list of political reprobates whose activities in so many states were a menace to public safety. Her father had served with distinction and honor this same commonwealth that her husband was debasing; he had been a statesman, not a politician, not a boss. Blackford Singleton had belonged to the coterie that included such men as Hoar and Evarts, Thurman and Bayard; neither her imagination nor her affection could bridge the chasm that separated men of their type from her husband, who, in middle life, was content with a seat in the state legislature and busied himself with wars upon petty rivals. Such reflections as these did not contribute to her peace of mind.

She was alone in her room at Mrs. Owen's when Bassett appeared, late in the afternoon. Mrs. Owen was downtown on business matters; Marian, after exhausting all her devices for making her mother comfortable, had flown in search of acquaintances; and Sylvia had that day taken up her work in the normal school. Left to herself for the greater part of the warm afternoon, Mrs. Bassett had indulged luxuriously in forebodings. She had not expected her husband, and his unannounced entrance startled her.

"Well," she remarked drearily, "so you have come back to face it, have you?"

"I'm undoubtedly back, Hallie," he answered, with an effort at lightness, crossing to the bedside and taking her hand.

He had rarely discussed his political plans with her, but he realized that the rupture with Thatcher must naturally have distressed her; and there was also Thatcher's lawsuit involving her aunt, which had disagreeable possibilities.

"I'm sorry your name got into the papers, Hallie. I didn't want you to go to the convention, but of course I knew you went to please Marian. Where is Marian?"

"Oh, she's off somewhere. I couldn't expect her to stay here in this hot room all day."

The room was not uncomfortable; but it seemed wiser not to debate questions of temperature. He found a chair and sat down beside her.

"You mustn't worry about the newspapers, Hallie; they always make the worst of everything. The temptation to distort facts to make a good story is strong; I have seen it in my connection with the 'Courier.' It's lamentable, but you can't correct it in a day. I'm pretty well hardened to it myself, but I'm sorry you have let these attacks on me annoy you. The only thing to do is to ignore them. What's that you have there?"

She still clasped the envelope of clippings and thrust it at him accusingly. The calmness of his inspection irritated her and she broke out sharply:—

"I shouldn't think a man with a wife and family would lay himself open to such attacks in all the newspapers in the country. Those papers call you another such political boss as Quay and Gorman. There's nothing they don't say about you."

"Well, Hallie, they've been saying it for some time; they will go on saying it probably not only about me but about every other man who won't be dictated to by impractical reformers and pharisaical newspapers. But I must confess that this is rather hard luck!" He held up two of the cuttings. "I've undertaken to do just what papers like the New York 'Evening Post' and the Springfield 'Republican' are forever begging somebody with courage to do—I've been trying to drive a rascal out of politics. I'm glad of this chance to talk to you about Thatcher. He and I were friends for years, as you know."

"I never understood how you could tolerate that man; he's so coarse and vulgar that his wife stays abroad to keep her daughters away from him."

"Well, that's not my affair. I have had all I want of him. There's nothing mysterious about my breaking with him; he got it into his head that he's a bigger man in this state than I am. I have known for several years that he intended to get rid of me as soon as he felt he could do it safely, and be ready to capture the senatorship when he saw that our party was in shape to win again. I've always distrusted him, and I've always kept an eye on him. When he came into Fraser County and stooped low enough to buy old Ike Pettit, I thought it time to strike. You read a lot about courage in politics in such newspapers as these that have been philosophizing about me at long range. Well, I'm not going to brag about myself, but it required some courage on my part to take the initiative and read the riot act to Thatcher. I've done what men are sometimes praised for doing; but I don't want praise; I only want to be judged fairly. I've always avoided bringing business or politics home; I've always had an idea that when a man goes home he ought to close the door on everything but the interests the home has for him. I may have been wrong about that; and I'm very sorry that you have been troubled—sincerely sorry. But you may as well know the truth now, which is that Thatcher is out of it altogether. You know enough of him to understand that he's not a man to trust with power, and I've done the state and my party a service in turning him out of doors."

He had spoken quietly and earnestly, and his words had not been without their effect. He had never been harsh with her or the children; his manner to-day was kind and considerate. He had to an extent measurably rehabilitated himself as a heroic public character, a man of honor and a husband to be proud of; but she had not spent a sleepless night and a gray day without fortifying herself against him. All day her eyes had been fixed upon an abandoned squirrel box in the crotch of an elm outside her window; it had become the repository of her thoughts, the habitation of her sorrows. She turned her head slightly so that her eyes might rest upon this tabernacle of fear and illusion, and renewed the assault refreshed.

"How is it, then, that newspapers away off in New York and Massachusetts speak of you in this outrageous fashion? They're so far away that it seems strange they speak of you at all."

He laughed with relief, feeling that the question marked a retreat toward weaker fortifications.

"You're not very complimentary, are you, Hallie? They must think me of some importance or they'd let me alone. I wouldn't subscribe to that clipping bureau if you fear we're too much in the limelight. I've been taking the service of one of these bureaus for several years, and I read every line the papers print about me. It's part of the regular routine in my office to paste them in scrapbooks."

"I shouldn't think you could burn them fast enough; what if the children should see them some day!"

"Well, you may be surprised to know that they're not all so bitter. Once in a long while I get a kind word. That bill I got through the assembly separating hardened criminals from those susceptible of reform—the indeterminate sentence law—was praised by penologists all over the country. It's all in the day's work; sometimes you're patted on the back and the next time they kick you down stairs. Without political influence you have no chance to help the good causes or defeat the bad schemes."

"Yes, I suppose that is true," she murmured weakly.

He had successfully met and turned her attack and the worst had passed; but he expected her to make some reference to Thatcher's lawsuit for the control of the "Courier" and he was not disappointed. Marian, who had a genius for collecting disagreeable information and a dramatic instinct for using it effectively, had apprised her of it. This hazarding of Mrs. Owen's favor became now the gravamen of his offense, the culmination of all his offenses. She demanded to know why he had secretly borrowed money of her aunt, when from the time of their marriage it had been understood that they should never do so. Her own fortune he had been free to use as he liked; she demanded to know why he had not taken her own money; but to ask financial favors of Aunt Sally, and this, too, without consultation, was beyond her comprehension. She was on secure ground here; he had always shared her feeling that Mrs. Owen required cautious handling, but he had nevertheless violated their compact. She rushed breathlessly and with sobs through her recital.

"And you haven't seen Aunt Sally since; you have made no effort to make it right with her!"

"As to that, Hallie, I haven't had a chance to see her; she's only been home two days and I've been away myself since. Now that I'm in her house I shall explain it all to her before I leave."

"But you haven't explained to me why you did it! It seems to me that I have a right to know how you came to do such a thing."

"Well, then, the fact is that newspapers these days are not cheap and the 'Courier' cost a lot of money. I've been pretty well tied up in telephone and other investments of late; and I have never taken advantage of my ownership of the Bassett Bank to use its money except within my reasonable credit as it would be estimated by any one else. Your own funds I have kept invested conservatively in gilt-edged securities wholly removed from speculative influences. I knew that if I didn't get the newspaper Thatcher would, so I made every possible turn to go in with him. I was fifty thousand dollars shy of what I needed to pay for my half, and after I had raked up all the money I could safely, I asked Aunt Sally if she would lend me that sum with all my stock as security."

"Fifty thousand dollars, Morton! You borrowed that much money of her!"

Her satisfaction in learning that Mrs. Owen commanded so large a sum was crushed beneath his stupendous error in having gone to her for money at all.

"Oh, she didn't lend it to me, after all, Hallie; she refused to do so; but she allowed me to buy enough shares for her to make up my quota. Thatcher and I bought at eighty cents on the dollar and she paid the same. She has her shares and it's a good investment, and she knows it. If she hadn't insisted on having the shares in her own name, Thatcher would never have known it."

He turned uneasily in his chair, and she was keenly alert at this sign of discomfiture, and not above taking advantage of it.

"So without her you are at Thatcher's mercy, are you? I haven't spoken to her about this and she hasn't said anything to me; but Marian with her usual heedlessness mentioned it, and it was clear that Aunt Sally was very angry."

"What did she say?" asked Bassett anxiously.

"She didn't say anything, but she shut her jaw tight and changed the subject. It was what she didn't say! You'd better think well before you broach the subject to her."

"I've been thinking about it. If I take her stock at par she ought to be satisfied. I'll pay more if it's necessary. And of course I'll make every effort to restore good feeling. I think I understand her. I'll take care of this, but you must stay out of it, and tell Marian to keep quiet.

"Well, Aunt Sally and Thatcher are friends. He rather amuses her, with his horse-racing, and drinking and gambling. That kind of thing doesn't seem so bad to her. She's so used to dealing with men that she makes allowances for them."

"Then," he said quickly, with a smile, eager to escape through any loophole, "maybe she will make some allowances for me! For the purpose of allaying her anger we'll assume that I'm as wicked as Thatcher."

"Well," she answered, gathering her strength for a final assault, "it doesn't look as simple as that to me. Your first mistake was in getting her into any of your businesses and the second was in making it possible for Thatcher to annoy her by all this ugly publicity of a lawsuit. And what do you think has happened on top of all this—that girl is here—here under this very roof!"

"That girl—what girl?"

His opacity incensed her; she had been brooding over her aunt's renewed interest in Sylvia Garrison all day and his dull ignorance was the last straw upon nerves screwed to the breaking-point. She sat up in bed and drew her dressing-gown about her as though it were the vesture of despair.

"That Garrison girl! She's not only back here, but from all appearances she's going to stay! Aunt Sally's infatuated with her. When the girl's grandfather died, Aunt Sally did everything for her—went over to Montgomery to take charge of the funeral, and then went back to Wellesley to see the girl graduate. And now she's giving up her plan of going to Waupegan for the summer to stay here in all the heat with a girl who hasn't the slightest claim on her. When the Keltons visited Waupegan four years ago I saw this coming. I wanted Marian to go to college and tried to get you interested in the plan because that was what first caught Aunt Sally's fancy—Sylvia's cleverness, and this college idea. But you wouldn't do anything about Marian, and now she's thrown away her chances, and here's this stranger graduating with honors and Aunt Sally going down there to see it! Aunt Sally's going to make a companion of her, and you can't tell what will happen! I'd like to know what you can say to your children when all Aunt Sally's money, that should rightly go to them, goes to a girl she's picked up out of nowhere. This is what your politics has got us into, Morton Bassett!"

The soberness to which this brought him at last satisfied her. She had freely expressed the anxiety caused by Sylvia's first appearance on the domestic horizon, but for a year or two, in his wife's absences in pursuit of health, he had heard little of her apprehensions. Marian's own disinclination for a college career had, from the beginning, seemed to him to interpose an insurmountable barrier to parental guidance in that direction. His wife's attitude in these new circumstances of the return of her aunt's protegee struck him as wholly unjustified and unreasonable.

"You're not quite yourself when you talk that way, Hallie. Professor Kelton was one of Aunt Sally's oldest friends; old people have a habit of going back to the friends of their youth; there's nothing strange in it. And this being true, nothing could have been more natural than for Aunt Sally to help the girl in her trouble, even to the extent of seeing her graduated. It was just like Aunt Sally," he continued, warming to his subject, "who's one of the stanchest friends anybody could have. Aunt Sally's devoted to you and your children; it's ungenerous to her to assume that a young woman she hardly knows is supplanting you or Marian. This newspaper notoriety I'm getting has troubled you and I'm sorry for it; but I can't let you entertain this delusion that your aunt's kindness to the granddaughter of one of her old friends means that Aunt Sally has ceased to care for you, or lost her regard for Marian and Blackford. If you think of it seriously for a moment you'll see how foolish it is to harbor any jealousy of Miss Garrison. Come! Cheer up and forget it. If Aunt Sally got an inkling of this you may be sure that would displease her. You say the girl is here in the house?"

"She's not only here, but she's here to stay! She's going to intrench herself here!"

She sent him to the chiffonier to find a fresh handkerchief. He watched her helplessly for a moment as she dried her eyes. Then he took her hands and bent over her.

"Won't you try to see things a little brighter? It's all just because you got too tired yesterday. You oughtn't to have gone to the convention; and I didn't know you were going or I should have forbidden it."

"Well, Marian wanted to go; and we were coming to town anyhow. And besides, Aunt Sally had taken it into her head to go, too. She wanted this Garrison girl to see a political convention; I suppose that was the real reason."

He laughed, gazing down into her tearful face, in which resentment lingered waveringly, as in the faces of children persuaded against their will and parting reluctantly with the solace of tears.

"You must get up for dinner, Hallie. Your doctors have always insisted that you needed variety and change; and to-morrow we'll take you up to the lake out of this heat. We have a good deal to be grateful for, after all, Hallie. You haven't any right to feel disappointed in Marian: she's the nicest girl in the state, and the prettiest girl you'll find anywhere. We ought to be glad she's so high-spirited and handsome and clever. College never was for her; she certainly was never for college! I talked that over with Miss Waring a number of times. And I don't believe Aunt Sally thinks less of Marian because she isn't a better scholar. Only a small per cent of women go to college, and I'm not sure it's a good thing. I'm even a little doubtful about sending Blackford to college; this education business is overdone, and the sooner a boy gets into harness the better."

Her deep sigh implied that he might do as he liked with his son, now that she had so completely failed with her daughter.

"Aunt Sally is very much interested in Mr. Harwood. She has put Sylvia's affairs in his hands. Could it be possible—"

He groped for her unexpressed meaning, and seeing that he had not grasped it she clarified it to his masculine intelligence.

"If there are two persons she is interested in, and they understand each other, it's all so much more formidable." And then, seeing that this also was too subtle, she put it flatly: "What if Harwood should marry Sylvia!"

"Well, that is borrowing trouble!" he cried impatiently. "Aunt Sally is interested in a great many young people. She is very fond of Allen Thatcher. And Allen seems to find Marian's society agreeable, more so, I fancy, than Harwood does;—why not speculate along that line? It's as plausible as the other."

"Oh, that boy! That's something we must guard against, Morton; that is quite impossible."

"I dare say it is," he replied. "But not more unlikely than that Harwood will marry this Sylvia who worries you so unnecessarily."

"Marian is going to marry somebody, some day, and that's on my mind a great deal. You have got to give more thought to family matters. It's right for Marian to marry, and I think a girl of her tastes should settle early, but we must guard her from mistakes. I've had that on my conscience several years."

"Of course, Hallie; and I've not been unmindful of it."

"And if Aunt Sally is interested in young Harwood and you think well of him yourself—but of course I don't favor him for Marian. I should like Marian to marry into a family of some standing."

"Well, we'll see to it that she does; we want our daughter to be happy—we must do the best we can for our children," he concluded largely.

She promised to appear at the dinner table, and he went down with some idea of seeing Mrs. Owen at once, to assure her of his honorable intentions toward her in the "Courier" matter; he wanted to relieve his own fears as well as his wife's as to the mischief that had been wrought by Thatcher's suit.

In the hall below he met Sylvia, just back from her first day at the normal school. The maid had admitted her, and she was slipping her parasol into the rack as he came downstairs. She heard his step and turned toward him, a slender, dark young woman in black. In the dim hall she did not at once recognize him, and he spoke first.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Garrison! I am Mr. Bassett; I believe I introduced myself to you at Waupegan—and that seems a long time ago."

"I remember very well, Mr. Bassett," Sylvia replied, and they shook hands. "You found me in my dream corner by the lake and walked to Mrs. Owen's with me. I remember our meeting perfectly."

He stood with his hand on the newel regarding her intently. She was entirely at ease, a young woman without awkwardness or embarrassment. She had disposed of their previous meeting lightly, as though such fortuitous incidents had not been lacking in her life. Her mourning hat cast a shadow upon her face, but he had been conscious of the friendliness of her smile. Her dark eyes had inspected him swiftly; he was vaguely aware of a feeling that he wanted to impress her favorably.

"The maid said Mrs. Owen and Marian are still out. I hope Mrs. Bassett is better. I wonder if I can do anything for her."

"No, thank you; she's quite comfortable and will be down for dinner."

"I'm glad to hear that; suppose we find seats here."

She walked before him into the parlor and threw back the curtains the better to admit the air. He watched her attentively, noting the ease and grace of her movements, and took the chair she indicated.

"It's very nice to see Mrs. Bassett and Marian again; they were so good to me that summer at Waupegan; I have carried the pleasantest memories of that visit ever since. It seems a long time ago and it is nearly four years, isn't it."

"Four this summer, I think. I remember, because I had been to Colorado, and that whole year was pretty full for me. But all these years have been busy ones for you, too, I hear. Your grandfather's death must have been a great shock to you. I knew him only by reputation, but it was a reputation to be proud of."

"Yes; Grandfather Kelton had been everything to me."

"It was too bad he couldn't have lived to see you through college; he must have taken a great interest in your work there, through his own training and scholarship."

"It was what he wanted me to do, and I wish he could have known how I value it. He was the best of men, the kindest and noblest; and he was a wonderful scholar. He had the habit of thoroughness."

"That, I suppose, was partly due to the discipline of the Navy. I fancy that a man trained in habits of exactness gets into the way of keeping his mind ship-shape—no loose ends around anywhere."

She smiled at this, and regarded him with rather more attention, as though his remark had given her a new impression of him which her eyes wished to verify.

"They tell me you expect to teach in the city schools; that has always seemed to me the hardest kind of work. I should think you would prefer a college position;—there would be less drudgery, and better social opportunities."

"Every one warns me that it's hard work, but I don't believe it can be so terrible. Somebody has to do it. Of course college positions are more dignified and likely to be better paid."

He started to speak and hesitated.

"Well," she laughed. "You were going to add your warning, weren't you! I'm used to them."

"No; nothing of the sort; I was going to take the liberty of saying that if you cared to have me I should be glad to see whether our state university might not have something for you. I have friends and acquaintances who could help there."

"Oh, you are very kind! It is very good of you to offer to do that; but—"

A slight embarrassment was manifest in the quick opening and closing of her eyes, a slight turning of the head, but she smiled pleasantly, happily. He liked her way of smiling, and smiled himself. He found it agreeable to be talking to this young woman with the fine, candid eyes, whose manner was so assured—without assurance! She smoothed the black gloves in her lap quietly; they were capable hands; her whole appearance and manner somehow betokened competence.

"The fact is, Mr. Bassett, that I have declined one or two college positions. My own college offered to take me in; and I believe there were one or two other chances. But it is kind of you to offer to help me."

She had minimized the importance of the offers she had declined so that he might not feel the meagreness of his proffered help; and he liked her way of doing it; but it was incredible that a young woman should decline an advantageous and promising position to accept a minor one. In the world he knew there were many hands on all the rounds of all the available ladders.