k. He returned quickly
to his great longing and need.

"Without you I'm a failure, Sylvia. If it hadn't been for you I should
never have freed myself of that man over there!" And he lifted his arm
toward the lights of the Bassett landing on the nearer shore.

"No; you would have saved yourself in any case; there's no questioning
that. You were bound to do it. And it wasn't the man; it was the base
servitude that you came to despise."

"Not without you! It was your attitude toward me, after that cheap piece
of melodrama I figured in in that convention, that brought me up with a
short turn. It all came through you--my wish to measure up to your
ideal."

"That's absurd, Dan. If I believed that I should think much less of you;
I really should!" she exclaimed. "It was something finer and higher than
that; it was your own manhood asserting itself. That man over there,"
she went on more quietly, "is an object of pity. He's beset on many
sides. It hurt him to lose you. He's far from happy."

"He has no claim upon happiness; he doesn't deserve happiness," replied
Dan doggedly.

"But the break must have cost you something; haven't you missed him just
a little bit?"

It was clear from her tone that she wished affirmation of this. The
reference to his former employer angered him. He had been rejoicing in
his escape from Morton Bassett, and yet Sylvia spoke of him with
tolerance and sympathy. The Bassetts were coolly using her to extricate
themselves from the embarrassments resulting from their own folly; it
was preposterous that they should have sent Sylvia to bring Marian home.
And his rage was intensified by the recollection of the pathos he had
himself felt in Bassett that very evening, as he had watched him mount
the steps of his home. Sylvia was causing the old chords to vibrate with
full knowledge that, in spite of his avowed contempt for the man, Morton
Bassett still roused his curiosity and interest. It was unfair for
Sylvia to take advantage of this.

"Bassett's nothing to me," he said roughly.

"He seems to me the loneliest soul I ever knew," replied Sylvia quietly.

"He deserves it; he's brought himself to that."

"I don't believe he's altogether evil. There must be good in him."

"It's because he's so evil that you pity him; it's because of that that
I'm sorry for him. It's because we know that he must be broken upon the
wheel before he realizes the vile use he has made of his power that we
are sorry for