He tried to minimize the disagreeable aspects of the matter.  Rose had been employed by Bassett as stenographer to one of his legislative committees before Dan’s relations with the politician began.  Since Harwood employed her Bassett had made use of her constantly in the writing of letters.  There would have been nothing extraordinary in his calling her to the office for an evening’s work; it was the girl’s falsehood about Ramsay and the quiet closing of the door of Bassett’s inner room that disturbed Harwood.  He passed into the library and Rose left without saying good-night.  The incident annoyed Dan; Bassett’s step had been unmistakable, and the girl’s confusion had its disagreeable significance.  He had not thought this of Bassett; it was inconsonant with the character of man he still believed Morton Bassett to be.

In winding up the receivership of the paper company Bassett had treated Harwood generously.  Dan was out of debt; he had added forty acres of good land to his father’s farm, and he kept a little money in bank.  He had even made a few small investments in local securities that promised well, and his practice had become quite independent of Bassett:  almost imperceptibly Bassett had ceased to be a factor in his prosperity.  The office in the Boordman Building remained the same, and Bassett spent a good deal of time there.  There were days when he seemed deeply preoccupied, and he sometimes buried himself in his room without obvious reason; then after an interval he would come out and throw his leg over a corner of Dan’s desk and talk to him with his earlier frankness.  Once he suggested that Dan might like to leave the Boordman for a new office building that was lifting the urban skyline; but the following day he came rather pointedly to Dan’s desk, and with an embarrassment he rarely showed, said that of course if Dan moved he should expect to go with him; he hoped Dan had understood that.  A few days later he entrusted Dan with several commissions that he seemed to have devised solely to show his good will and confidence.

Harwood was happy these days.  He was still young and life had dealt kindly with him.  Among lawyers he was pointed to as a coming light of the bar; and in politics he was the most conspicuous man of his age in the state.  He was invited to Harrison County that fall to deliver an address at a reunion of the veterans of his father’s regiment, and that had pleased him.  He had more than justified the hopes of his parents and brothers, and they were very proud of him.  While they did not understand his apostasy from the family’s stern Republicanism, this did not greatly matter when Dan’s name so often came floating home in the Indianapolis newspapers.  His mother kept careful track of his social enthrallments; her son was frequently among those present at private and public dinners; and when the president of Yale visited Indiana, Dan spoke at the banquet given in his honor by the alumni; and not without emotion does