"Sylvia"—remarked Mrs. Owen, drawling the name a trifle more than usual—"Sylvia can do what she pleases anywhere."
"I think," said Bassett, who had not before entered into the discussion, "that Aunt Sally has struck the right word there. In these days a girl can do as she likes; and we haven't any business to discuss Miss Garrison's right to live at Elizabeth House."
"Of course, Sylvia, we didn't mean to seem to criticize you. You know that," said Mrs. Bassett, flushing.
"You are my friends," said Sylvia, glancing round the table, "and if there's criticizing to be done, you have the first right."
"If Sylvia is to be criticized,—and I don't understand that any one has tried it," remarked Mrs. Owen,—"I want the first chance at her myself." And with the snapping of her spectacle case they rose from the table.
They had barely settled themselves in the parlor when Harwood and Allen arrived in Allen's motor. Dan had expected his friend to resent his part in the convention, and he had sought Allen at Lüders's shop to satisfy himself that their personal relations had not been disturbed. He had found Allen, at the end of a day's work, perched upon a bench discoursing to the workmen on the Great Experiment. Allen had, it seemed, watched the convention from an obscure corner of the gallery. He pronounced Dan's speech "immense"; "perfectly bully"; he was extravagant in his praise of it. His father's success in naming the ticket had seemed to him a great triumph. Allen viewed the whole matter with a kind of detachment, as a spectator whose interest is wholly impersonal. He thought there would be a great fight between the combatants; his dad hadn't finished yet, he declared, sententiously. The incidents of the convention had convinced him that the Great Experiment was progressing according to some predestined formula. He and Harwood had dined together at the University Club and he was quite in the humor to call on the Bassetts at Mrs. Owen's; and the coming of Sylvia, as to whom Mrs. Owen had piqued his curiosity, was not to be overlooked.
He cleared the air by brushing away the convention with a word, addressed daringly to Bassett:—
"Papa's come back from fishing! My papa is digging bait," and they all laughed.
"Miss Garrison, you must be the greatest of girls, for you have my own ideas! Our invincible young orator here has been telling me so!"
"That was a grand speech; many happy returns of the day!" was Marian's greeting to Dan.