“Don’t be silly.  The newspapers print most horrible things about papa—­”

“Which aren’t true.”

“Of course they’re newspaper lies; but if he lets them say all those things he ought to get something to pay for it.  He’s only a state senator from the jayest county in Indiana.  It makes me tired.”

The girl’s keen penetration had often surprised and it had sometimes appalled Harwood in the curious intimacy that had grown up between them.  Her intuitions were active and she had a daring imagination.  He wondered whether Bassett was fully aware of the problem Marian presented.  Dan had never ventured to suggest a sharper discipline for the girl, except on the occasion when he had caught her walking with Allen in the park.  He had regretted his interference afterward; for Bassett’s anger had seemed to him out of all proportion to the offense.  Like most indifferent or indulgent parents, Bassett was prone to excesses in his fitful experiments in discipline.  Dan had resolved not to meddle again; but Marian was undeniably a provoking young person.  It had been suggested to him of late by one or two of his intimates that in due course of events he would of course marry his employer’s daughter.  As she faced him across the table, the pink light of the candle-shade adding to the glow of health in her pretty cheeks, she caused him to start by the abruptness with which she said:—­

“I don’t see much ahead of me but to get married; do you?”

“If you put it up to me, I don’t see anything ahead of you, unless you take a different view of life; you never seem to have a serious thought.”

“Mr. Harwood, you can be immensely unpleasant when you choose to be.  You talk to me as though I were only nine years old.  You ought to see that I’m very unhappy.  I’m the oldest girl at Miss Waring’s—­locked up there with a lot of little pigeons that coo every time you look at them.  They treat me as though I were their grandmother.”

“Why don’t you say all these things to your father?” asked Harwood, trying to laugh.  “I dare say he’ll do anything you like.  But please cheer up; those people over there will think we’re having a terrible quarrel.”

The fact that they were drawing the glances of Miss Bosworth’s party pleased her; she had been perfectly conscious of it all the time.

“Well, they won’t think you’re making love to me, Mr. Harwood; there’s that to console you.”  And she added icily, settling back in her chair as her father approached, “I hope you understand that I’m not even leading you on!”

CHAPTER XVI

“STOP, LOOK, LISTEN”