He needed Sylvia.  For several months he had been sure of that.  He loved her and he meant to marry her.  Since leaving college he had indulged in several more or less ardent flirtations, but they had ended harmlessly; it was very different with Sylvia!  He had realized all that spring that she was becoming increasingly necessary to him; he needed her solace and her inspiration.  He thrust one or two new books on the prevailing social unrest into his suit case and added a box of candy, smiling at the combination.  Sylvia with all her ideals was still so beautifully human.  She was quite capable of nibbling bon-bons to the accompaniment of a vivacious discussion of the sorrows of the world—­he had seen her do just that!  With her ideals of life and service, she would not be easily won; but he was in the race to win.  Yes, there were things he meant to say to Sylvia, and in the tedious journey through the hot afternoon to Waupegan he formulated them and visualized the situations in which he should utter them.

Dan reached Waupegan at six o’clock and went to one of the little inns at the lakeside near the village.  He got into his flannels, ate supper, and set off for Mrs. Owen’s with his offerings on the seven o’clock boat.  In the old days of his intimacy with Bassett he had often visited Waupegan, and the breach between them introduced an element of embarrassment into his visit.  He was very likely to meet his former chief, who barely bowed to him now when they met in hotels or in the streets of the capital.

Jumping aboard the steamer just as it was pulling out, he at once saw Bassett sitting alone in the bow.  There were only a few other passengers, and hearing Dan’s step on the deck behind him, Bassett turned slightly, nodded, and then resumed his inspection of the farther shore lines.  A light overcoat lay across his knees, and the protruding newspapers explained his visit to the village.  Dan found a seat on the opposite side of the deck, resolved to accept Bassett’s own definition of their relations—­markedly expressed in Bassett’s back and shoulders that were stolidly presented to him.  Dan, searching out the lights that were just beginning to blink on the darkling shores, found the glimmering lanterns of Mrs. Owen’s landing.  Sylvia was there!  It was Sylvia he had come to see, and the coldness with which Morton Bassett turned his back upon him did not matter in the least.  It was his pliability in Bassett’s hands, manifested at the convention where he had appeared as the boss’s spokesman, that had earned him Sylvia’s first rebuke.

He was thinking of this and of Sylvia when Bassett left his chair and crossed the deck.  Dan barely turned his head, thinking he was merely changing his seat for a better view; but as Bassett stopped in front of him, Dan rose and pushed forward a chair.

“No, thank you; I suppose you came up on the evening train.  I just wondered whether you saw Fitch to-day.”