it.  His father’s success in naming the ticket had seemed to him a great triumph.  Allen viewed the whole matter with a kind of detachment, as a spectator whose interest is wholly impersonal.  He thought there would be a great fight between the combatants; his dad hadn’t finished yet, he declared, sententiously.  The incidents of the convention had convinced him that the Great Experiment was progressing according to some predestined formula.  He and Harwood had dined together at the University Club and he was quite in the humor to call on the Bassetts at Mrs. Owen’s; and the coming of Sylvia, as to whom Mrs. Owen had piqued his curiosity, was not to be overlooked.

He cleared the air by brushing away the convention with a word, addressed daringly to Bassett:—­

“Papa’s come back from fishing! My papa is digging bait,” and they all laughed.

“Miss Garrison, you must be the greatest of girls, for you have my own ideas!  Our invincible young orator here has been telling me so!”

“That was a grand speech; many happy returns of the day!” was Marian’s greeting to Dan.

“You certainly have a great voice, Daniel,” remarked Mrs. Owen, “and you had your nerve with you.”

“You were effective from the first moment, Mr. Harwood.  You ought to consider going on the lecture platform,” said Mrs. Bassett.

“Oh, Dan hasn’t come to that yet; its only defeated statesmen who spout in the Chautauquas,” Bassett remarked.

Harwood was in fine fettle.  Many men had expressed their approval of him; at the club he had enjoyed the chaffing of the young gentlemen with whom he ate luncheon daily, and whose tolerance of the universe was tinged with a certain cynicism.  They liked Harwood; they knew he was a “smart” fellow; and because they liked and admired him they rallied him freely.  The president of a manufacturing company had called at the Boordman Building to retain him in a damage suit; a tribute to his growing fame.  Dan was a victim of that error to which young men yield in exultant moments, when, after a first brush with the pickets, they are confident of making their own terms with life.  Dan’s attitude toward the world was receptive; here in the Bassett domestic circle he felt no shame at being a Bassett man.  All but Sylvia had spoken to him of his part in the convention, and she turned to him now after a passage with Allen that had left the young man radiant.

“You have a devoted admirer in Mr. Thatcher.  He must be a difficult friend to satisfy,” said Sylvia.

“Then do you think I don’t satisfy him?”

“Oh, perfectly!  He’s a combination of optimist and fatalist, I judge.  He thinks nothing matters much, for everything is coming out all right in the end.”

“Then where do you place me in his scheme of things?”

“That depends, doesn’t it,” she replied carelessly, “on whether you are the master of the ship or only a prisoner under the hatches.”