The talk at the Wares’ went badly that evening.  Harwood’s mind was on the political situation.  As he sat in the minister’s library he knew that in upper chambers of the State House, and in hotels and boarding-houses, members of the majority in twos and threes, or here and there a dozen, were speculating and plotting.  The deadlock was becoming intolerable.  Interest in the result was keen in all parts of the country, and the New York and Chicago newspapers had sent special representatives to watch the fight.  Dan was sick of the sight and sound of it.  In the strict alignment of factions he had voted with Thatcher, yet he told himself he was not a Thatcher man.  He had personally projected Ramsay’s name one night in the hope of breaking the Bassett phalanx, but the only result was to arouse Thatcher’s wrath against him.  Bassett’s men believed in Bassett.  The old superstition as to his invulnerability had never more thoroughly possessed the imaginations of his adherents.  Bassett was not only himself again, but his iron grip seemed tighter than ever He was making the fight of his life, and he was beyond question a “game” fighter, the opposition newspapers that most bitterly opposed Bassett tempered their denunciations with this concession Dan fumed at this, such bosses were always game fighters, they had to be, and the readiness of Americans to admire the gameness of the Bassetts deepened his hostility.  The very use of sporting terminology in politics angered him.  In his mind the case was docketed not as Thatcher versus Bassett, but as Thatcher and Bassett versus the People.  It all came to that.  And why should not the People—­the poor, meek, long-suffering People, the “pee-pul” of familiar derision—­sometimes win?  His pride in the state of his birth was strong; his pride in his party was only second to it.  He would serve both if he could.  Not only must Bassett be forever put down, but Thatcher also; and he assured himself that it was not the men he despised, but the wretched, brutal mediaeval system that survived in them.  And so pondering, it was no wonder that Dan brought no joy to John Ware’s library that night.  The minister himself seemed unwontedly preoccupied; Sylvia stared at the fire as though seeking in the flames answers to unanswerable questions.  Mrs. Ware sought vainly to bring cheer to the company: 

Shortly after eight o’clock, Sylvia rose to leave.

“Aunt Sally got home from Kentucky this afternoon, and I must drop in for a minute, Dan, if you don’t mind.”

Sylvia hardly spoke on the way to Mrs. Owen’s.  Since that night on the lake she had never been the same, or so it seemed to Dan.  She had gone back to her teaching, and when they met she talked of her work and of impersonal things.  Once he had broached the subject of marriage,—­soon after her return to town,—­but she had made it quite clear that this was a forbidden topic.  The good comradeship ship and frankness of their intercourse