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.