Miss Marian Bassett, definitely described as the daughter of Morton Bassett, the well-known Indiana politician, had been of the party.

Allen Thatcher was another guest of the Willings, a fact which added to Bassett's anger.

He had never visited his hatred of Thatcher upon Allen, whom he had regarded as a harmless boy not to be taken seriously; but the conjunction of his daughter's name with that of his enemy's son in a newspaper of wide circulation in Indiana greatly enraged him.

It was bound to occasion talk, and he hated publicity.

The Willings were flashy people who had begun to spend noisily the money earned for them by an automobile patent.