And when I told him last night, up at that big hollow cave of a house, how happy I was and all that, it broke him all up.

He cried, you know--dad cried!" The thought of Edward G.Thatcher in tears failed to arrest the dark apprehensions that tramped harshly through Dan's mind.

As for Bassett, Dan recalled his quondam chief's occasional flings at Allen, whom the senator from Fraser had regarded as a spoiled and erratic but innocuous trifler.

Mrs.Bassett, Dan was aware, valued her social position highly.
As the daughter of Blackford Singleton she considered herself unassailably a member of the upper crust of the Hoosier aristocracy.

And Dan suspected that Bassett also harbored similar notions of caste.
Independently of the struggle in progress between Thatcher and Bassett, it was quite likely that the Bassetts would look askance at the idea of a union between their daughter and Edward Thatcher's son, no matter what might be said in Allen's favor.