know that will be the first thing,
Allen."

"That's exactly what I want you to help me about? He's at Waupegan now,
and of course I've got to see him. But you know this row between him and
dad makes it hard. You know dad would do anything in the world for
me--dear old dad! Of course I've told _him_. And you'd be surprised to
see the way he took it. You know people don't know dad the way I do.
They think he's just a rough old chap, without any fine feeling about
anything. And mother and the girls leaving him that way has hurt him; it
hurts him a whole lot. And when I told him last night, up at that big
hollow cave of a house, how happy I was and all that, it broke him all
up. He cried, you know--dad cried!"

The thought of Edward G. Thatcher in tears failed to arrest the dark
apprehensions that tramped harshly through Dan's mind. As for Bassett,
Dan recalled his quondam chief's occasional flings at Allen, whom the
senator from Fraser had regarded as a spoiled and erratic but innocuous
trifler. Mrs. Bassett, Dan was aware, valued her social position highly.
As the daughter of Blackford Singleton she considered herself
unassailably a member of the upper crust of the Hoosier aristocracy. And
Dan suspected that Bassett also harbored similar notions of caste.

Independently of the struggle in progress between Thatcher and Bassett,
it was quite likely that the Bassetts would look askance at the idea of
a union between their daughter and Edward Thatcher's son, no matter what
might be said in Allen's favor. Bassett's social acceptance was fairly
complete, and he enjoyed meeting men of distinction. He was invariably
welcomed to the feasts of reason we are always, in our capital,
proffering to the great and good of all lands who pause for
enlightenment and inspiration in our empurpled Athens. He was never
ignored in the choice of those frock-coated and silk-hatted non-partisan
committees that meet all trains at the Union Station, and quadrennially
welcome home our eternal candidates for the joyous office of
Vice-President of the Republic. He kept his dress suit packed for flight
at Fraserville free of that delicate scent of camphor that sweetens the
air of provincial festivals. Thatcher never, to the righteous,
sensitive, local consciousness, wholly escaped from the maltster's
taint, in itself horrible and shocking; nor did his patronage of budding
genius in the prize ring, or his adventures (often noisily heralded) as
a financ