"Yes; I have done it," he answered, and looked at her wonderingly.
A moment later he had made his peace with Mrs. Owen and paid his compliments to Mrs. Bassett at the favor table, heaped high with beribboned hatchets and bunches of cherries for the first figure.
Morton Bassett had heard praise of his daughter from many lips, but he watched her joyous course through the cherry-tree figure in the german with an attention that was not wholly attributable to fatherly pride. Harwood's white-gloved hand led her hither and thither through the intricate maze; one must have been sadly lacking in the pictorial sense not to have experienced a thrill of delight in a scene so animate with grace, so touched with color. It was ungracious to question the sincerity of those who pronounced Marian the belle of the ball when Colonel Ramsay, the supreme authority in Hoosier pulchritude, declared her to be the fairest rose in a rose-garden of girls. He said the same thing to the adoring parents of a dozen other girls that night. (The Colonel was born in Tecumseh County, on our side of the Ohio, and just plays at being a Kentuckian!) Mothers of daughters, watching the dance with a jealous eye on their own offspring, whispered among themselves that as likely as not Marian's tall, broad-shouldered cavalier was the man chosen of all time to be her husband. He was her father's confidential man, and nothing could stay his upward course.
Bassett saw it all and guessed what they were thinking. Sylvia flashed across his vision now and then. He overheard people asking who she was, and he caught the answers, that she was a girl Mrs. Owen had taken up; a public school-teacher, they believed, the daughter of an old friend. Sylvia, quite unconscious of this interest, saw that the figures she had done so much toward planning were enacted without a hitch. The last one, the Pergola, with real roses, if you must know, well deserved Colonel Ramsay's compliment. "You can't tell," said the Colonel in his best manner, "where the roses end and the girls begin!"
It was two o'clock when Harwood, after taking Mrs. Owen down to supper, found himself free. He met Thatcher in the lower hall, muffled in astrakhan and swearing softly to himself because his carriage had been lost in the blizzard.
"Well; how are things going with you, young man?"
"Right enough. I'm tired and it's about bed-time for me."
"Haven't got House Bill Ninety-five in your pockets have you?" asked Thatcher with a grin. "A reporter for the 'Advertiser' was in here looking for you a minute ago. He said your committee had taken a vote to-night and he wanted to know about it. Told him you'd gone home. Hope you appreciate that; I'm used to lying to reporters. You see, my son, I ain't in that deal. You understand? That bill was fixed up in Chicago, and every corporation lawyer that does business in the old Hoosier State has his eye on it. I'm not asking any questions; Lord, no! It's up to you. Grand party; that's a nice girl of Bassett's. My wagon here? All right. Good-night, Dan! Good-night, Bassett!"
Harwood turned and found himself face to face with Bassett, who was loitering aimlessly about the hall.
"Good-evening, sir," he said, and they shook hands mechanically.