Dan drummed his desk.  This reference to Thatcher’s ambitions only kindled his anger and he wished that Allen would end his confidences and take himself off.  But he pricked up his ears as Allen went on.

“I’m telling you this just to show you how it mixes up things for Marian and me.  I came to you for help, old man; and I want you to see how hard it is for me to go to Mr. Bassett and tell him I want to marry Marian.”

“Just a minute, Allen.  Are you quite sure that Marian has made up her mind to marry you; that she really wants to marry anybody?”

“I tell you it’s all fixed!  You don’t imply that Marian is merely amusing herself at my expense!  It wouldn’t be like you to think that.  I have always thought you liked Marian and saw how superb she is.”

“Of course I like Marian,” said Dan hastily.  “My one hope is that both of you will be happy; and the difficulties you have suggested only make that more important.  You will have to wait.  I’m not sure but that you had better keep this to yourselves for a while—­maybe for a long time.  It would be wise for you to talk to Aunt Sally.  She’s a good friend of yours, and one of the wisest of women.”

It was not in Allen’s eye that he sought wisdom.  With him, as with most people who ask advice, advice was the last thing he wanted.  It was his way to unbosom himself, however, and he forged ahead with his story, with what seemed to Harwood a maddening failure to appreciate its sinister import.  “You remember that when we were up there on the Kankakee, John Ware told a story one night—­a mighty good story about an experience he had once?”

“Yes; he told a lot of stories.  Which one do you mean?”

“Oh, the best one of all—­about the woman in the Adirondacks.  You haven’t forgotten that?”

“No; I do remember something about it.”

“You may not have noticed that while Ware was telling the story dad got up from the bed in the corner and walked over to the stove, after Ware had asked you—­it was you, wasn’t it?—­to reach into the pocket of his coat over your head and get the book he was talking about—­it was you he spoke to, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; it comes back to me now,” replied Dan, frowning.

“Well, I remember, because it struck me as odd that dad should be interested; it was Emerson, you know; and dad looked at the book in the light from the stove and asked me what the name was down in the inside of the cover.  It was the binder’s name in small letters,—­Z.  Fenelsa.  Well, there’s a long story about that.  It’s a horrible story to know about any man; but dad had been trying to find something he could use on Bassett.  He’s had people—­the sort you can get to do such jobs—­going over Bassett’s whole life to find material.  Dad says there’s always something in every man’s life that he wants to hide, and that if you keep looking you can find it.  You see—­”