“Not always as pleasant as this, I assure you.  But I’m a person of two occupations—­I’m studying law, and my visit to Montgomery was on an errand for the office where I’m allowed to use the books in return for slight services of one kind and another.  As a newspaper man I’m something of an impostor; I hope I’m only a passing pilgrim in the business.”

Dan faced Mrs. Bassett as he made this explanation, and he was conscious, as he turned toward the master of the house, that Bassett was observing him intently.  His gaze was so direct and searching that Harwood was disconcerted for a moment; then Bassett remarked carelessly,—­

“I should think newspaper work a good training for the law.  It drills faculties that a lawyer exercises constantly.”

Mrs. Bassett now made it possible for Marian and young Blackford to contribute to the conversation.

“I’m going to Annapolis,” announced the boy.

“You’ve had a change of heart,” said his father, with a smile.  “It was West Point last week.”

“Well, it will be Annapolis next week,” the lad declared; and then, as if to explain his abandonment of a military career, “In the Navy you get to see the world, and in the Army you’re likely to be stuck away at some awful place on the Plains where you never see anything.  The Indians are nearly all killed anyhow.”

“We hear a good deal nowadays about the higher education of woman,” Mrs. Bassett remarked, “and I suppose girls should be prepared to earn their own living.  Mothers of daughters have that to think about.”

Miss Marian, catching Dan’s eye, smiled as though to express her full appreciation of the humor of her mother’s remark.

“Mama learned that from my Aunt Sally,” she ventured; and Dan saw that she was an independent spirit, given to daring sayings, and indulged in them by her parents.

“Well, Aunt Sally is the wisest woman in the world,” replied Mrs. Bassett, with emphasis.  “It would be to your credit if you followed her, my dear.”

Marian ignored her mother’s rebuke and addressed herself to the visitor.

“Aunt Sally lives in Indianapolis and I go there to Miss Waring’s School.  I’m just home for Sunday.”

“Mrs. Owen is my aunt; you may have heard of her, Mr. Harwood; she was my father’s only sister.”

“Oh, the Mrs. Owen!  Of course every one has heard of her; and I knew that she was Senator Singleton’s sister.  I am sorry to say I don’t know her.”

Unconsciously the sense of Morton Bassett’s importance deepened.  In marrying Mrs. Jackson Owen’s niece Bassett had linked himself to the richest woman at the state capital.  He had not encumbered himself with a crude wife from the countryside, but had married a woman with important connections.  Blackford Singleton had been one of the leading men of the state, and Mrs. Owen, his sister, was not a negligible figure in the background against which the reporter saw he must sketch the Fraserville senator.  Harwood had met the wives of other Hoosier statesmen—­uninteresting creatures in the main, and palpably of little assistance to ambitious husbands.