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Democracy An American Novel
出处:法律顾问网·涉外www.flguwen.com     时间:2011/8/24 23:08:27

Democracy An American Novel

 

by Henry Adams

 

 

 

 

First published anonymously, March 1880, and soon in various

unauthorized editions. It wasn't until the 1925 edition that Adams

was listed as author. Henry Adams remarked (ironically as usual),

"The wholesale piracy of  Democracy was the single real triumph

of my life."--it was very popular, as readers tried to guess who the

author was and who the characters really were.

 

 

 

Chapter I

 

 

FOR reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs.

Lightfoot Lee  decided to pass the winter in Washington. She was

in excellent health, but she said that the climate would do her

good. In New York she had troops of friends, but she suddenly

became eager to see again the very small number of those who

lived on the Potomac. It was only to her closest intimates that she

honestly acknowledged herself to be tortured by ennui. Since her

husband's death, five years before, she had lost her taste for New

York society; she had felt no interest in the price of stocks, and

very little in the men who dealt in them; she had become serious.

What was it all worth, this wilderness of men and women as

monotonous as the brown stone houses they lived in? In her

despair she had resorted to desperate measures. She had read

philosophy in the original German, and the more she read, the

more she was disheartened that so much culture should lead to

nothing--nothing.

 

After talking of Herbert Spencer for an entire evening with a very

literary transcendental commission-merchant, she could not see

that her time had been better employed than when in former days

she had passed it in flirting with a very agreeable young

stock-broker; indeed, there was an evident proof to the contrary,

for the flirtation might lead to something--had, in fact, led to

marriage; while the philosophy could lead to nothing, unless it

were perhaps to another evening of the same kind, because

transcendental philosophers are mostly elderly men, usually

married, and, when engaged in business, somewhat apt to be

sleepy towards evening. Nevertheless Mrs. Lee did her best to turn

her study to practical use. She plunged into philanthropy, visited

prisons, inspected hospitals, read the literature of pauperism and

crime, saturated herself with the statistics of vice, until her mind

had nearly lost sight of virtue. At last it rose in rebellion against

her, and she came to the limit of her strength. This path, too,

seemed to lead nowhere. She declared that she had lost the sense

of duty, and that, so far as concerned her, all the paupers and

criminals in New York might henceforward rise in their majesty

and manage every railway on the continent. Why should she care?

What was the city to her? She could find nothing in it that seemed

to demand salvation. What gave peculiar sanctity to numbers?

Why were a million people, who all resembled each other, any way

more interesting than one person? What aspiration could she help

to put into the mind of this great million-armed monster that

would make it worth her love or respect? Religion? A thousand

powerful churches were doing their best, and she could see no

chance for a new faith of which she was to be the inspired prophet.

Ambition? High popular ideals? Passion for whatever is lofty and

pure? The very words irritated her. Was she not herself devoured

by ambition, and was she not now eating her heart out because she

could find no one object worth a sacrifice?

 

Was it ambition--real ambition--or was it mere restlessness that

made Mrs. Lightfoot Lee so bitter against New York and

Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston, American life in general and

all life in particular? What did she want? Not social position, for

she herself was an eminently respectable Philadelphian by birth;

her father a famous clergyman; and her husband had been equally

irreproachable, a descendant of one branch of the Virginia Lees,

which had drifted to New York in search of fortune, and had found

it, or enough of it to keep the young man there. His widow had her

own place in society which no one disputed. Though not brighter

than her neighbours, the world persisted in classing her among

clever women; she had wealth, or at least enough of itto give her

all that money can give by way of pleasure to a sensible woman in

an American city; she had her house and her carriage; she dressed

well; her table was good, and her furniture was never allowed to

fall behind the latest standard of decorative art. She had travelled

in Europe, and after several visits, covering some years of time,

had retumed home, carrying in one hand, as it were, a green-grey

landscape, a remarkably pleasing specimen of Corot, and in the

other some bales of Persian and Syrian rugs and embroideries,

Japanese bronzes and porcelain. With this she declared Europe to

be exhausted, and she frankly avowed that she was American to

the tips of her fingers; she neither knew nor greatly cared whether

America or Europe were best to live in; she had no violent love for

either, and she had no objection to abusing both; but she meant to

get all that American life had to offer, good or bad, and to drink it

down to the dregs, fully determined that whatever there was in it

she would have, and that whatever could be made out of it she

would manufacture. "I know," said she, "that America produces

petroleum and pigs; I have seen both on the steamers; and I am

told it produces silver and gold. There is choice enough for any

woman."

 

Yet, as has been already said, Mrs. Lee's first experience was not a

success. She soon declared that New York might represent the

petroleum or the pigs, but the gold of life was not to be discovered

there by her eyes.

 

Not but that there was variety enough; a variety of people,

occupations, aims, and thoughts; but that all these, after growing to

a certain height, stopped short. They found nothing to hold them

up. She knew, more or less intimately, a dozen men whose

fortunes ranged between one million and forty millions. What did

they do with their money? What could they do with it that was

different from what other men did? After all, it is absurd to spend

more money than is enough to satisfy all one's wants; it is vulgar to

live in two houses in the same street, and to drive six horses

abreast. Yet, after setting aside a certain income sufficient for all

one's wants, what was to be done with the rest? To let it

accumulate was to own one's failure; Mrs. Lee's great grievance

was that it did accumulate, without changing or improving the

quality of its owners. To spend it in charity and public works was

doubtless praiseworthy, but was it wise? Mrs. Lee had read enough

political economy and pauper reports to be nearly convinced that

public work should be public duty, and that great benefactions do

harm as well as good.

 

And even supposing it spent on these objects, how could it do

more than increase and perpetuate that same kind of human nature

which was her great grievance? Her New York friends could not

meet this question except by falling back upon their native

commonplaces, which she recklessly trampled upon, averring that,

much as she admired the genius of the famous traveller, Mr.

Gulliver, she never had been able, since she became a widow, to

accept the Brobdingnagian doctrine that he who made two blades

of grass grow where only one grew before deserved better of

mankind than the whole race of politicians. She would not find

fault with the philosopher had he required that the grass should be

of an improved quality; "but," said she, "I cannot honestly pretend

that I should be pleased to see two New York men where I now see

one; the idea is too ridiculous; more than one and a half would be

fatal to me."

 

Then came her Boston friends, who suggested that higher

education was precisely what she wanted; she should throw herself

into a crusade for universities and art-schools. Mrs. Lee turned

upon them with a sweet smile; "Do you know," said she, "that we

have in New York already the richest university in America, and

that its only trouble has always been that it can get no scholars

even by paying for them? Do you want me to go out into the streets

and waylay boys? If the heathen refuse to be converted, can you

give me power over the stake and the sword to compel them to

come in? And suppose you can? Suppose I march all the boys in

Fifth Avenue down to the university and have them all properly

taught Greek and Latin, English literature, ethics, and German

philosophy. What then? You do it in Boston. Now tell me honestly

what comes of it. I suppose you have there a brilliant society;

numbers of poets, scholars, philosophers, statesmen, all up and

down Beacon Street. Your evenings must be sparkling. Your press

must scintillate. How is it that we New Yorkers never hear of it?

We don't go much into your society; but when we do, it doesn't

seem so very much better than our own. You are just like the rest

of us. You grow six inches high, and then you stop. Why will not

somebody grow to be a tree and cast a shadow?"

 

The average member of New York society, although not unused to

this contemptuous kind of treatment from his leaders, retaliated in

his blind, common-sense way. "What does the woman want?" he

said. "Is her head turned with the Tulieries and Marlborough

House? Does she think herself made for a throne? Why does she

not lecture for women's rights? Why not go on the stage? If she

cannot be contented like other people, what need is there for

abusing us just because she feels herself no taller than we are?

What does she expect to get from her sharp tongue? What does she

know, any way?"

 

Mrs. Lee certainly knew very little. She had read voraciously and

promiscuously one subject after another. Ruskin and Taine had

danced merrily through her mind, hand in hand with Darwin and

Stuart Mill, Gustave Droz and Algernon Swinburne. She had even

laboured over the literature of her own country. She was perhaps,

the only woman in New York who knew something of American

history. Certainly she could not have repeated the list of Presidents

in their order, but she knew that the Constitution divided the

goverument into Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary; she was

aware that the President, the Speaker, and the Chief Justice were

important personages, and instinctively she wondered whether they

might not solve her problem; whether they were the shade trees

which she saw in her dreams.

 

Here, then, was the explanation of her restlessness, discontent,

ambition,--call it what you will. It was the feeling of a passenger

on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he

has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She

wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to

touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to

measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She

was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery

of democracy and government. She cared little where her pursuit

might lead her, for she put no extravagant value upon life, having

already, as she said, exhausted at least two lives, and being fairly

hardened to insensibility in the process. "To lose a husband and a

baby," said she, "and keep one's courage and reason, one must

become very hard or very soft. I am now pure steel. You may beat

my heart with a trip-hammer and it will beat the trip-hammer back

again."

 

Perhaps after exhausting the political world she might try again

elsewhere; she did not pretend to say where she might then go, or

what she should do; but at present she meant to see what

amusement there might be in politics.

 

Her friends asked what kind of amusement she expected to find

among the illiterate swarm of ordinary people who in Washington

represented constituencies so dreary that in comparison New York

was a New Jerusalem, and Broad Street a grove of Academe. She

replied that if Washington society were so bad as this, she should

have gained all she wanted, for it would be a pleasure to

return,--precisely the feeling she longed for. In her own mind,

however, she frowned on the idea of seeking for men. What she

wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests

of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at

Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and

uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces

of government, and the machinery of society, at work. What she

wanted, was POWER.

 

Perhaps the force of the engine was a little confused in her mind

with that of the engineer, the power with the men who wielded it.

Perhaps the human interest of politics was after all what really

attracted her, and, however strongly she might deny it, the passion

for exercising power, for its own sake, might dazzle and mislead a

woman who had exhausted all the ordinary feminine resources.

But why speculate about her motives? The stage was before her,

the curtain was rising, the actors were ready to enter; she had only

to go quietly on among the supernumeraries and see how the play

was acted and the stage effects were produced; how the great

tragedians mouthed, and the stage-manager swore.

 

Chapter II

 

ON the first of December, Mrs. Lee took the train for Washington,

and before five o'clock that evening she was entering her newly

hired house on Lafayette Square. She shrugged her shoulders with

a mingled expression of contempt and grief at the curious

barbarism of the curtains and the wall-papers, and her next two

days were occupied with a life-and-death struggle to get the

mastery over her surroundings. In this awful contest the interior of

the doomed house suffered as though a demon were in it; not a

chair, not a mirror, not a carpet, was left untouched, and in the

midst of the worst confusion the new mistress sat, calm as the

statue of Andrew Jackson in the square under her eyes, and issued

her orders with as much decision as that hero had ever shown.

Towards the close of the second day, victory crowned her

forehead. A new era, a nobler conception of duty and existence,

had dawned upon that benighted and heathen residence. The

wealth of Syria and Persia was poured out upon the melancholy

Wilton carpets; embroidered comets and woven gold from Japan

and Teheran depended from and covered over every sad

stuff-curtain; a strange medley of sketches, paintings, fans,

embroideries, and porcelain was hung, nailed, pinned, or stuck

against the wall; finally the domestic altarpiece, the mystical Corot

landscape, was hoisted to its place over the parlour fire, and then

all was over. The setting sun streamed softly in at the windows,

and peace reigned in that redeemed house and in the heart of its

mistress.

 

"I think it will do now, Sybil," said she, surveying the scene.

 

"It must," replied Sybil. "You haven't a plate or a fan or coloured

scarf left. You must send out and buy some of these old

negro-women's bandannas if you are going to cover anything else.

What is the use? Do you suppose any human being in Washington

will like it? They will think you demented."

 

"There is such a thing as self-respect," replied her sister, calmly.

 

Sybil--Miss Sybil Ross--was Madeleine Lee's sister. The keenest

psychologist could not have detected a single feature quality which

they had in common, and for that reason they were devoted

friends. Madeleine was thirty, Sybil twenty-four. Madeleine was

indescribable; Sybil was transparent. Madeleine was of medium

height with a graceful figure, a well-set head, and enough

golden-brown hair to frame a face full of varying expression. Her

eyes were never for two consecutive hours of the same shade, but

were more often blue than grey. People who envied her smile said

that she cultivated a sense of humour in order to show her teeth.

Perhaps they were right; but there was no doubt that her habit of

talking with gesticulation would never have grown upon her unless

she had known that her hands were not only beautiful but

expressive. She dressed as skilfully as New York women do, but in

growing older she began to show symptoms of dangerous

unconventionality. She had been heard to express a low opinion of

her countrywomen who blindly fell down before the golden calf of

Mr. Worth, and she had even fought a battle of great severity,

while it lasted, with one of her best-dressed friends who had been

invited--and had gone--to Mr. Worth's afternoon tea-parties. The

secret was that Mrs. Lee had artistic tendencies, and unless they

were checked in time, there was no knowing what might be the

consequence. But as yet they had done no harm; indeed, they

rather helped to give her that sort of atmosphere which belongs

only to certain women; as indescribable as the afterglow; as

impalpable as an Indian summer mist; and non-existent except to

people who feel rather than reason. Sybil had none of it. The

imagination gave up all attempts to soar where she came. A more

straightforward, downright, gay, sympathetic, shallow,

warm-hearted, sternly practical young woman has rarely touched

this planet. Her mind had room for neither grave-stones nor

guide-books; she could not have lived in the past or the future if

she had spent her days in churches and her nights in tombs. "She

was not clever, like Madeleine, thank Heaven." Madeleine was not

an orthodox member of the church; sermons bored her, and

clergymen never failed to irritate every nerve in her excitable

system. Sybil was a simple and devout worshipper at the ritualistic

altar; she bent humbly before the Paulist fathers. When she went to

a ball she always had the best partner in the room, and took it as a

matter of course; but then, she always prayed for one; somehow it

strengthened her faith. Her sister took care never to laugh at her on

this score, or to shock her religious opinions. "Time enough," said

she, "for her to forget religion when religion fails her." As for

regular attendance at church, Madeleine was able to reconcile their

habits without trouble. She herself had not entered a church for

years; she said it gave her unchristian feelings; but Sybil had a

voice of excellent quality, well trained and cultivated: Madeleine

insisted that she should sing in the choir, and by this little

manoeuvre, the divergence of their paths was made less evident.

Madeleine did not sing, and therefore could not go to church with

Sybil. This outrageous fallacy seemed perfectly to answer its

purpose, and Sybil accepted it, in good faith, as a fair working

principle which explained itself.

 

Madeleine was sober in her tastes. She wasted no money. She

made no display.

 

She walked rather than drove, and wore neither diamonds nor

brocades. But the general impression she made was nevertheless

one of luxury. On the other hand, her sister had her dresses from

Paris, and wore them and her ornaments according to all the

formulas; she was good-naturedly correct, and bent her round

white shoulders to whatever burden the Parisian autocrat chose to

put upon them. Madeleine never interfered, and always paid the

bills.

 

Before they had been ten days in Washington, they fell gently into

their place and were carried along without an effort on the stream

of social life.

 

Society was kind; there was no reason for its being otherwise. Mrs.

Lee and her sister had no enemies, held no offices, and did their

best to make themselves popular. Sybil had not passed summers at

Newport and winters in New York in vain; and neither her face nor

her figure, her voice nor her dancing, needed apology. Politics

were not her strong point. She was induced to go once to the

Capitol and to sit ten minutes in the gallery of the Senate. No one

ever knew what her impressions were; with feminine tact she

managed not to betray herself But, in truth, her notion of

legislative bodies was vague, floating between her experience at

church and at the opera, so that the idea of a performance of some

kind was never out of her head. To her mind the Senate was a

place where people went to recite speeches, and she naively

assumed that the speeches were useful and had a purpose, but as

they did not interest her she never went again. This is a very

common conception of Congress; many Congressmen share it.

 

Her sister was more patient and bolder. She went to the Capitol

nearly every day for at least two weeks. At the end of that time her

interest began to flag, and she thought it better to read the debates

every morning in the Congressional Record. Finding this a

laborious and not always an instructive task, she began to skip the

dull parts; and in the absence of any exciting question, she at last

resigned herself to skipping the whole. Nevertheless she still had

energy to visit the Senate gallery occasionally when she was told

that a splendid orator was about to speak on a question of deep

interest to his country. She listened with a little disposition to

admire, if she could; and, whenever she could, she did admire. She

said nothing, but she listened sharply. She wanted to learn how the

machinery of government worked, and what was the quality of the

men who controlled it. One by one, she passed them through her

crucibles, and tested them by acids and by fire.

 

A few survived her tests and came out alive, though more or less

disfigured, where she had found impurities. Of the whole number,

only one retained under this process enough character to interest

her.

 

In these early visits to Congress, Mrs. Lee sometimes had the

company of John Carrington, a Washington lawyer about forty

years old, who, by virtue of being a Virginian and a distant

connection of her husband, called himself a cousin, and took a

tone of semi-intimacy, which Mrs. Lee accepted because

Carrington was a man whom she liked, and because he was one

whom life had treated hardly. He was of that unfortunate

generation in the south which began existence with civil war, and

he was perhaps the more unfortunate because, like most educated

Virginians of the old Washington school, he had seen from the

first that, whatever issue the war took, Virginia and he must be

ruined. At twenty-two he had gone into the rebel army as a private

and carried his musket modestly through a campaign or two, after

which he slowly rose to the rank of senior captain in his regiment,

and closed his services on the staff of a major-general, always

doing scrupulously enough what he conceived to be his duty, and

never doing it with enthusiasm. When the rebel armies

surrendered, he rode away to his family plantation--not a difficult

thing to do, for it was only a few miles from Appomatox--and at

once began to study law; then, leaving his mother and sisters to do

what they could with the worn-out plantation, he began the

practice of law in Washington, hoping thus to support himself and

them. He had succeeded after a fashion, and for the first time the

future seemed not absolutely dark. Mrs. Lee's house was an oasis

to him, and he found himself, to his surprise, aimost gay in her

company. The gaiety was of a very qulet kind, and Sybil, while

friendly with him, averred that he was certainly dull; but this

dulness had a fascination for Madeleine, who, having tasted many

more kinds of the wine of life than Sybil, had learned to value

certain delicacies of age and flavour that were lost upon younger

and coarser palates. He talked rather slowly and almost with effort,

but he had something of the dignity--others call it stiffness--of the

old Virginia school, and twenty years of constant responsibility

and deferred hope had added a touch of care that bordered closely

on sadness. His great attraction was that he never talked or seemed

to think of himself. Mrs. Lee trusted in him by instinct. "He is a

type!" said she; "he is my idea of George Washington at thirty."

 

One morning in December, Carrington entered Mrs. Lee's parlour

towards noon, and asked if she cared to visit the Capitol.

 

"You will have a chance of hearing to-day what may be the last

great speech of our greatest statesman," said he; "you should

come."

 

"A splendid sample of our na-tive raw material, sir?" asked she,

fresh from a reading of Dickens, and his famous picture of

American statesmanship.

 

"Precisely so," said Carrington; "the Prairie Giant of Peonia, the

Favourite Son of Illinois; the man who came within three votes of

getting the party nomination for the Presidency last spring, and

was only defeated because ten small intriguers are sharper than

one big one. The Honourable Silas P.

 

Ratcliffe, Senator from Illinois; he will be run for the Presidency

yet."

 

"What does the P. stand for?" asked Sybil.

 

"I don't remember ever to have heard his middle name," said

Carrington.

 

"Perhaps it is Peonia or Prairie; I can't say."

 

"He is the man whose appearance struck me so much when we

were in the Senate last week, is he not? A great, ponderous man,

over six feet high, very senatorial and dignified, with a large head

and rather good features?" inquired Mrs. Lee.

 

"The same," replied Carrington. "By all means hear him speak. He

is the stumbling-block of the new President, who is to be allowed

no peace unless he makes terms with Ratcliffe; and so every one

thinks that the Prairie Giant of Peonia will have the choice of the

State or Treasury Department. If he takes either it will be the

Treasury, for he is a desperate political manager, and will want the

patronage for the next national convention."

 

Mrs. Lee was delighted to hear the debate, and Carrington was

delighted to sit through it by her side, and to exchange running

comments with her on the speeches and the speakers.

 

"Have you ever met the Senator?" asked she.

 

"I have acted several times as counsel before his committees. He is

an excellent chairman, always attentive and generally civil."

 

"Where was he born?"

 

"The family is a New England one, and I believe respectable. He

came, I think, from some place in the Connecticut Valley, but

whether Vermont, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, I don't

know."

 

"Is he an educated man?"

 

"He got a kind of classical education at one of the country colleges

there.

 

I suspect he has as much education as is good for him. But he went

West very soon after leaving college, and being then young and

fresh from that hot-bed of abolition, he threw himself into the

anti-slavery movement m Illinois, and after a long struggle he rose

with the wave. He would not do the same thing now."

 

"Why not?"

 

"He is older, more experienced, and not so wise. Besides, he has

no longer the time to wait. Can you see his eyes from here? I call

them Yankee eyes."

 

"Don't abuse the Yankees," said Mrs. Lee; "I am half Yankee

myself."

 

"Is that abuse? Do you mean to deny that they have eyes?"

 

"I concede that there may be eyes among them; but Virginians are

not fair judges of their expression."

 

"Cold eyes," he continued; "steel grey, rather small, not unpleasant

in good-humour, diabolic in a passion, but worst when a little

suspicious; then they watch you as though you were a young

rattle-snake, to be killed when convenient."

 

"Does he not look you in the face?"

 

"Yes; but not as though he liked you. His eyes only seem to ask the

possible uses you might be put to. Ah, the vice-president has given

him the floor; now we shall have it. Hard voice, is it not? like his

eyes. Hard manner, like his voice. Hard all through."

 

"What a pity he is so dreadfully senatorial!" said Mrs. Lee;

"otherwise I rather admire him."

 

"Now he is settling down to his work," continued Carrington. "See

how he dodges all the sharp issues. What a thing it is to be a

Yankee! What a genius the fellow has for leading a party! Do you

see how well it is all done? The new President flattered and

conciliated, the party united and given a strong lead. And now we

shall see how the President will deal with him. Ten to one on

Ratcliffe. Come, there is that stupid ass from Missouri getting up.

Let us go."

 

As they passed down the steps and out into the Avenue, Mrs. Lee

turned to Carrington as though she had been reflecting deeply and

had at length reached a decision.

 

"Mr. Carrington," said she, "I want to know Senator Ratcliffe."

 

"You will meet him to-morrow evening," replied Carrington, "at

your senatorial dinner."

 

The Senator from New York, the Honourable Schuyler Clinton,

was an old admirer of Mrs. Lee, and his wife was a cousin of hers,

more or less distant. They had lost no time in honouring the letter

of credit she thus had upon them, and invited her and her sister to a

solemn dinner, as imposing as political dignity could make it. Mr.

Carrington, as a connection of hers, was one of the party, and

almost the only one among the twenty persons at table who had

neither an office, nor a title, nor a constituency.

 

Senator Clinton received Mrs. Lee and her sister with tender

enthusiasm, for they were attractive specimens of his constituents.

He pressed their hands and evidently restrained himself only by an

effort from embracing them, for the Senator had a marked regard

for pretty women, and had made love to every girl with any

pretensions to beauty that had appeared in the State of New York

for fully half a century. At the same time he whispered an apology

in her ear; he regretted so much that he was obliged to forego the

pleasure of taking her to dinner; Washington was the only city in

America where this could have happened, but it was a fact that

ladies here were very great stickiers for etiquette; on the other

hand he had the sad consolation that she would be the gainer, for

he had allotted to her Lord Skye, the British Minister, "a most

agreeable man and not married, as I have the misfortune to be;"

and on the other side "I have ventured to place Senator Ratcliffe,

of Illinois, whose admirable speech I saw you listening to with

such rapt attention yesterday. I thought you might like to know

him. Did I do right?"

 

Madeleine assured him that he had divined her inmost wishes, and

he turned with even more warmth of affection to her sister: "As for

you, my dear--dear Sybil, what can I do to make your dinner

agreeable? If I give your sister a coronet, I am only sorry not to

have a diadem for you. But I have done everything in my power.

The first Secretary of the Russian Legation, Count Popoff, will

take you in; a charming young man, my dear Sybil; and on your

other side I have placed the Assistant Secretary of State, whom

you know."

 

And so, after the due delay, the party settled themselves at the

dinner-table, and Mrs. Lee found Senator Ratcliffe's grey eyes

resting on her face for a moment as they sat down.

 

Lord Skye was very agreeable, and, at almost any other moment of

her life, Mrs. Lee would have liked nothing better than to talk with

him from the beginning to the end of her dinner. Tall, slender,

bald-headed, awkward, and stammering with his elaborate British

stammer whenever it suited his convenience to do so; a sharp

observer who had wit which he commonly concealed; a humourist

who was satisfied to laugh silently at his own humour; a

diplomatist who used the mask of frankness with great effect; Lord

Skye was one of the most popular men in Washington. Every one

knew that he was a ruthless critic of American manners, but he had

the art to combine ridicule with good-humour, and he was all the

more popular accordingly. He was an outspoken admirer of

American women in everything except their voices, and he did not

even shrink from occasionally quizzing a little the national

peculiarities of his own countrywomen; a sure piece of flattery to

their American cousins. He would gladly have devoted himself to

Mrs. Lee, but decent civility required that he should pay some

attention to his hostess, and he was too good a diplomatist not to

be attentive to a hostess who was the wife of a Senator, and that

Senator the chairman of the committee of foreign relations.

 

The moment his head was turned, Mrs. Lee dashed at her Peonia

Giant, who was then consuming his fish, and wishing he

understood why the British Minister had worn no gloves, while he

himself had sacrificed his convictions by wearing the largest and

whitest pair of French kids that could be bought for money on

Pennsylvania Avenue. There was a little touch of mortification in

the idea that he was not quite at home among fashionable people,

and at this instant he felt that true happiness was only to be found

among the simple and honest sons and daughters of toil. A certain

secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the

breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for

democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by

the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger

that the British Minister may not understand this political principle

as he should. Lord Skye had run the risk of making two blunders;

of offending the Senator from New York by neglecting his wife,

and the Senator from Illinois by engrossing the attention of Mrs.

Lee. A young Englishman would have done both, but Lord Skye

had studied the American constitution. The wife of the Senator

from New York now thought him most agreeable, and at the same

moment the Senator from Illinois awoke to the conviction that

after all, even in frivolous and fashionable circles, true dignity is in

no danger of neglect; an American Senator represents a sovereign

state; the great state of Illinois is as big as England--with the

convenient omission of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, India,

Australia, and a few other continents and islands; and in short, it

was perfectly clear that Lord Skye was not formidable to him, even

in light society; had not Mrs. Lee herself as good as said that no

position equaHed that of an American Senator?

 

In ten minutes Mrs. Lee had this devoted statesman at her feet. She

had not studied the Senate without a purpose. She had read with

unerring instinct one general characteristic of all Senators, a

boundless and guileless thirst for flattery, engendered by daily

draughts from political friends or dependents, then becoming a

necessity like a dram, and swallowed with a heavy smile of

ineffable content. A single glance at Mr. Ratcliffe's face showed

Madeleine that she need not be afraid of flattering too grossly; her

own self-respect, not his, was the only restraint upon her use of

this feminine bait.

 

She opened upon him with an apparent simplicity and gravity, a

quiet repose of manner, and an evident consciousness of her own

strength, which meant that she was most dangerous.

 

"I heard your speech yesterday, Mr. Ratcliffe. I am glad to have a

chance of telling you how much I was impressed by it. It seemed

to me masterly. Do you not find that it has had a great effect?"

 

"I thank you, madam. I hope it will help to unite the party, but as

yet we have had no time to measure its results. That will require

several days more." The Senator spoke in his senatorial manner,

elaborate, condescending, and a little on his guard.

 

"Do you know," said Mrs. Lee, turning towards him as though he

were a valued friend, and looking deep into his eyes, "Do you

know that every one told me I should be shocked by the falling off

in political ability at Washington? I did not believe them, and since

hearing your speech I am sure they are mistaken. Do you yourself

think there is less ability in Congress than there used to be?"

 

"Well, madam, it is difficult to answer that question. Government

is not so easy now as it was formerly. There are different customs.

There are many men of fair abilities in public life; many more than

there used to be; and there is sharper criticism and more of it."

 

"Was I right in thinking that you have a strong resemblance to

Daniel Webster in your way of speaking? You come from the same

neighbourhood, do you not?"

 

Mrs. Lee here hit on Ratcliffe's weak point; the outline of his head

had, in fact, a certain resemblance to that of Webster, and he

prided himself upon it, and on a distant relationship to the

Expounder of the Constitution; he began to think that Mrs. Lee

was a very intelligent person. His modest admission of the

resemblance gave her the opportunity to talk of Webster 's oratory,

and the conversation soon spread to a discussion of the merits of

Clay and Calhoun. The Senator found that his neighbour--a

fashionable New York woman, exquisitely dressed, and with a

voice and manner seductively soft and gentle--had read the

speeches of Webster and Calhoun. She did not think it necessary to

tell him that she had persuaded the honest Carrington to bring her

the volumes and to mark such passages as were worth her reading;

but she took care to lead the conversation, and she criticised with

some skill and more humour the weak points in Websterian

oratory, saying with a little laugh and a glance into his delighted

eyes:

 

"My judgment may not be worth much, Mr. Senator, but it does

seem to me that our fathers thought too much of themselves, and

till you teach me better I shall continue to think that the passage in

your speech of yesterday which began with, 'Our strength lies in

this twisted and tangled mass of isolated principles, the hair of the

half-sleeping giant of Party,' is both for language and imagery

quite equal to anything of Webster's."

 

The Senator from Illinois rose to this gaudy fly like a huge,

two-hundred-pound salmon; his white waistcoat gave out a mild

silver reflection as he slowly came to the surface and gorged the

hook. He made not even a plunge, not one perceptible effort to tear

out the barbed weapon, but, floating gently to her feet, allowed

himself to be landed as though it were a pleasure. Only miserable

casuists will ask whether this was fair play on Madeleine's part;

whether flattery so gross cost her conscience no twinge, and

whether any woman can without self-abasement be guilty of such

shameless falsehood. She, however, scorned the idea of falsehood.

She would have defended herself by saying that she had not so

much praised Ratcliffe as depreciated Webster, and that she was

honest in her opinion of the old-fashioned American oratory. But

she could not deny that she had wilfully allowed the Senator to

draw conclusions very different from any she actually held. She

could not deny that she had intended to flatter him to the extent

necessary for her purpose, and that she was pleased at her success.

Before they rose from table the Senator had quite unbent himself;

he was talking naturally, shrewdly, and with some humour; he had

told her Illinois stories; spoken with extraordinary freedom about

his political situation; and expressed the wish to call upon Mrs.

Lee, if he could ever hope to find her at home.

 

"I am always at home on Sunday evenings," said she.

 

To her eyes he was the high-priest of American politics; he was

charged with the meaning of the mysteries, the clue to political

hieroglyphics. Through him she hoped to sound the depths of

statesmanship and to bring up from its oozy bed that pearl of

which she was in search; the mysterious gem which must lie

hidden somewhere in politics. She wanted to understand this man;

to turn him inside out; to experiment on him and use him as young

physiologists use frogs and kittens. If there was good or bad in

him, she meant to find its meaning.

 

And he was a western widower of fifty; his quarters in Washington

were in gaunt boarding-house rooms, furnished only with public

documents and enlivened by western politicians and

office-seekers. In the summer he retired to a solitary, white

framehouse with green blinds, surrounded by a few feet of

uncared-for grass and a white fence; its interior more dreary still,

with iron stoves, oil-cloth carpets, cold white walls, and one large

engraving of Abraham Lincoln in the parlour; all in Peonia,

Illinois! What equality was there between these two combatants?

what hope for him? what risk for her? And yet Madeleine Lee had

fully her match in Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe.

 

Chapter III

 

MRS. Lee soon became popular. Her parlour was a favourite haunt

of certain men and women who had the art of finding its mistress

at home; an art which seemed not to be within the powers of

everybody. Carrington was apt to be there more often than any one

else, so that he was looked on as almost a part of the family, and if

Madeleine wanted a book from the library, or an extra man at her

dinner-table, Carrington was pretty certain to help her to the one or

the other. Old Baron Jacobi, the Bulgarian minister, fell madly in

love with both sisters, as he commonly did with every pretty face

and neat figure. He was a witty, cynical, broken-down Parisian

roué, kept in Washington for years past by his debts and his

salary; always grumbling because there was no opera, and

mysteriously disappearing on visits to New York; a voracious

devourer of French and German literature, especially of novels; a

man who seemed to have met every noted or notorious personage

of the century, and whose mmd was a magazine of amusing

information; an excellent musical critic, who was not afraid to

criticise Sybil's singing; a connoisseur in bric-à-brac, who laughed

at Madeleine's display of odds and ends, and occasionally brought

her a Persian plate or a bit of embroidery, which he said was good

and would do her credit. This old sinner believed in everything

that was perverse and wicked, but he accepted the prejudices of

Anglo-Saxon society, and was too clever to obtrude his opinions

upon others.

 

He would have married both sisters at once more willingly than

either alone, but as he feelingly said, "If I were forty years

younger, mademoiselle, you should not sing to me so calmly." His

friend Popoff, an intelligent, vivacious Russian, with very

Calmuck features, susceptible as a girl, and passionately fond of

music, hung over Sybil's piano by the hour; he brought Russian

airs which he taught her to sing, and, if the truth were known, he

bored Madeleine desperately, for she undertook to act the part of

duenna to her younger sister.

 

A very different visitor was Mr. C. C. French, a young member of

Congress from Connecticut, who aspired to act the part of the

educated gentleman in politics, and to purify the public tone. He

had reform principles and an unfortunately conceited maimer; he

was rather wealthy, rather clever, rather well-educated, rather

honest, and rather vulgar. His allegiance was divided between Mrs.

Lee and her sister, whom he infuriated by addressing as "Miss

Sybil" with patronising familiarity. He was particularly strong in

what he called "badinaige," and his playful but ungainly attempts

at wit drove Mrs.

 

Lee beyond the bounds of patience. When in a solemn mood, he

talked as though he were practising for the ear of a college

debating society, and with a still worse effect on the patience; but

with all this he was useful, always bubbling with the latest

political gossip, and deeply interested in the fate of party stakes.

Quite another sort of person was Mr. Hartbeest Schneidekoupon, a

citizen of Philadelphia, though commonly resident in New York,

where he had fallen a victim to Sybil's charms, and made efforts to

win her young affections by instructing her in the mysteries of

currency and protection, to both which subjects he was devoted.

To forward these two interests and to watch over Miss Ross's

welfare, he made periodical visits to Washington, where he

closeted himself with committee-men and gave expensive dinners

to members of Congress. Mr. Schneidekoupon was rich, and about

thirty years old, tall and thin, with bright eyes and smooth face,

elaborate manners and much loquacity. He had the reputation of

turning rapid intellectual somersaults, partly to amuse himself and

partly to startle society. At one moment he was artistic, and

discoursed scientifically about his own paintings; at another he

was literary, and wrote a book on "Noble Living," with a

humanitarian purpose; at another he was devoted to sport, rode a

steeplechase, played polo, and set up a four-in-hand; his last

occupation was to establish in Philadelphia the Protective Review,

a periodical in the interests of American industry, which he edited

himself, as a stepping-stone to Congress, the Cabinet, and the

Presidency. At about the same time he bought a yacht, and heavy

bets were pending among his sporting friends whether he would

manage to sink first his Review or his yacht. But he was an

amiable and excellent fellow through all his eccentricities, and he

brought to Mrs. Lee the simple outpourings of the amateur

politician.

 

A much higher type of character was Mr. Nathan Gore, of

Massachusetts, a handsome man with a grey beard, a straight,

sharply cut nose, and a fine, penetrating eye; in his youth a

successful poet whose satires made a noise in their day, and are

still remembered for the pungency and wit of a few verses; then a

deep student in Europe for many years, until his famous "History

of Spain in America" placed him instantly at the head of American

historians, and made him minister at Madrid, where he remained

four years to his entire satisfaction, this being the nearest approach

to a patent of nobility and a government pension which the

American citizen can attain. A change of administration had

reduced him to private life again, and after some years of

retirement he was now in Washington, willing to be restored to his

old mission. Every President thinks it respectable to have at least

one literary man in his pay, and Mr. Gore's prospects were fair for

obtaining his object, as he had the active support of a majority of

the Massachusetts delegation. He was abominably selfish,

colossally egoistic, and not a little vain; but he was shrewd; he

knew how to hold his tongue; he could flatter dexterously, and he

had learned to eschew satire. Only in confidence and among

friends he would still talk freely, but Mrs. Lee was not yet on those

terms with him. These were all men, and there was no want of

women in Mrs.

 

Lee's parlour; but, after all, they are able to describe themselves

better than any poor novelist can describe them. Generally two

currents of conversation ran on together--one round Sybil, the

other about Madeleine.

 

"Mees Ross," said Count Popoff, leading in a handsome young

foreigner, "I have your permission to present to you my friend

Count Orsini, Secretary of the Italian Legation. Are you at home

this afternoon? Count Orsini sings also."

 

"We are charmed to see Count Orsini. It is well you came so late,

for I have this moment come in from making Cabinet calls. They

were so queer! I have been crying with laughter for an hour past."

"Do you find these calls amusing?" asked Popoff, gravely and

diplomatically. "Indeed I do! I went with Julia Schneidekoupon,

you know, Madeleine; the Schneidekoupons are descended from

all the Kings of Israel, and are prouder than Solomon in his glory.

And when we got into the house of some dreadful woman from

Heaven knows where, imagine my feelings at overhearing this

conversation: 'What may be your family name, ma'am?'

'Schneidekoupon is my name,' replies Julia, very tall and straight.

'Have you any friends whom I should likely know?' 'I think not,'

says Julia, severely. 'Wal! I don't seem to remember of ever having

heerd the name. But I s'pose it's all right. I like to know who calls.'

I almost had hysterics when we got into the street, but Julia could

not see the joke at all."

 

Count Orsini was not quite sure that he himself saw the joke, so he

only smiled becomingly and showed his teeth. For simple,

childlike vanity and self-consciousness nothing equals an Italian

Secretary of Legation at twenty-five. Yet conscious that the effect

of his personal beauty would perhaps be diminished by permanent

silence, he ventured to murmur presently:

 

"Do you not find it very strange, this society in America?"

 

"Society!" laughed Sybil with gay contempt. "There are no snakes

in America, any more than in Norway."

 

"Snakes, mademoiselle!" repeated Orsini, with the doubtful

expression of one who is not quite certain whether he shall risk

walking on thin ice, and decides to go softly: "Snakes! Indeed they

would rather be doves I would call them."

 

A kind laugh from Sybil strengthened into conviction his hope that

he had made a joke in this unknown tongue. His face brightened,

his confidence returned; once or twice he softly repeated to

himself: "Not snakes; they would be doves!" But Mrs. Lee's

sensitive ear had caught Sybil's remark, and detected in it a certain

tone of condescension which was not to her taste.

 

The impassive countenances of these bland young Secretaries of

Legation seemed to acquiesce far too much as a matter of course in

the idea that there was no society except in the old world. She

broke into the conversation with an emphasis that fluttered the

dove-cote:

 

"Society in America? Indeed there is society in America, and very

good society too; but it has a code of its own, and new-comers

seldom understand it. I will tell you what it is, Mr. Orsini, and you

will never be in danger of making any mistake. 'Society' in

America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant-voiced

women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the

Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city

and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each

to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her

fancy. To this rule there are no exceptions, and those who say

'Abraham is our father' will surely furnish food for that humour

which is the staple product of our country."

 

The alarmed youths, who did not in the least understand the

meaning of this demonstration, looked on with a feeble attempt at

acquiescence, while Mrs.

 

Lee brandished her sugar-tongs in the act of transferring a lump of

sugar to her cup, quite unconscious of the slight absurdity of the

gesture, while Sybil stared in amazement, for it was not often that

her sister waved the stars and stripes so energetically. Whatever

their silent criticisms might be, however, Mrs. Lee was too much

in earnest to be conscious of them, or, indeed, to care for anything

but what she was saying. There was a moment's pause when she

came to the end of her speech, and then the thread of talk was

quietly taken up again where Sybil's incipient sneer had broken it.

 

Carrington came in. "What have you been doing at the Capitol?"

asked Madeleine.

 

"Lobbying!" was the reply, given in the semi-serious tone of

Carrington's humour.

 

"So soon, and Congress only two days old?" exclaimed Mrs. Lee.

 

"Madam," rejoined Carrington, with his quietest malice,

"Congressmen are like birds of the air, which are caught only by

the early worm." "Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee. Miss Sybil, how do

you do again? Which of these gentlemen's hearts are you feeding

upon now?" This was the refined style of Mr. French, indulging in

what he was pleased to term "badinaige." He, too, was on his way

from the Capitol, and had come in for a cup of tea and a little

human society. Sybil made a face which plainly expressed a

longing to inflict on Mr. French some grievous personal wrong, but

she pretended not to hear. He sat down by Madeleine, and asked,

"Did you see Ratcliffe yesterday?"

 

"Yes," said Madeleine; "he was here last evening with Mr.

Carrington and one or two others."

 

"Did he say anything about politics?"

 

"Not a word. We talked mostly about books."

 

"Books! What does he know about books?"

 

"You must ask him."

 

"Well, this is the most ridiculous situation we are all in. No one

knows anything about the new President. You could take your oath

that everybody is in the dark. Ratcliffe says he knows as little as

the rest of us, but it can't be true; he is too old a politician not to

have wires in his hand; and only to-day one of the pages of the

Senate told my colleague Cutter that a letter sent off by him

yesterday was directed to Sam Grimes, of North Bend, who, as

every one knows, belongs to the President's particular crowd.

--Why, Mr. Schneidekoupon! How do you do? When did you come

on?"

 

"Thank you; this morning," replied Mr. Schneidekoupon, just

entering the room. "So glad to see you again, Mrs. Lee. How do

you and your sister like Washington? Do you know I have brought

Julia on for a visit? I thought I should find her here.

 

"She has just gone. She has been all the afternoon with Sybil,

making calls.

 

She says you want her here to lobby for you, Mr. Schneidekoupon.

Is it true?"

 

"So I did," replied he, with a laugh, "but she is precious little use.

So I've come to draft you into the service."

 

"Me!"

 

"Yes; you know we all expect Senator Ratcliffe to be Secretary of

the Treasury, and it is very important for us to keep him straight on

the currency and the tariff. So I have come on to establish more

intimate relations with him, as they say in diplomacy. I want to get

him to dine with me at Welckley's, but as I know he keeps very shy

of politics I thought my only chance was to make it a ladies'

dinner, so I brought on Julia. I shall try and get Mrs. Schuyler

Clinton, and I depend upon you and your sister to help Julia out."

 

"Me! at a lobby dinner! Is that proper?"

 

"Why not? You shall choose the guests."

 

"I never heard of such a thing; but it would certainly be amusing.

Sybil must not go, but I might." "Excuse me; Julia depends upon

Miss Ross, and will not go to table without her."

 

"Well," assented Mrs. Lee, hesitatingly, "perhaps if you get Mrs.

Clinton, and if your sister is there And who else?"

 

"Choose your own company."

 

"I know no one."

 

"Oh yes; here is French, not quite sound on the tariff, but good for

what we want just now. Then we can get Mr. Gore; he has his little

hatchet to grind too, and will be glad to help grind ours. We only

want two or three more, and I will have an extra man or so to fill

up."

 

"Do ask the Speaker. I want to know him."

 

"I will, and Carrington, and my Pennsylvania Senator. That will do

nobly.

 

Remember, Welckley's, Saturday at seven."

 

Meanwhile Sybil had been at the piano, and when she had sung for

a time, Orsini was induced to take her place, and show that it was

possible to sing without injury to one's beauty. Baron Jacobi came

in and found fault with them both. Little Miss Dare--commonly

known among her male friends as little Daredevil--who was

always absorbed in some flirtation with a Secretary of Legation,

came in, quite unaware that Popoff was present, and retired with

him into a corner, while Orsini and Jacobi bullied poor Sybil, and

fought with each other at the piano; everybody was talking with

very little reference to any reply, when at last Mrs. Lee drove them

all out of the room: "We are quiet people," said she, "and we dine

at half-past six."

 

Senator Ratcliffe had not failed to make his Sunday evening call

upon Mrs.

 

Lee. Perhaps it was not strictly correct to say that they had talked

books all the evening, but whatever the conversation was, it had

only confirmed Mr. Ratcliffe's admiration for Mrs. Lee, who,

without intending to do so, had acted a more dangerous part than if

she had been the most accomplished of coquettes. Nothing could

be more fascinating to the weary politician in his solitude than the

repose of Mrs. Lee's parlour, and when Sybil sang for him one or

two simple airs--she said they were foreign hymns, the Senator

being, or being considered, orthodox--Mr. Ratcliffe's heart yearned

toward the charming girl quite with the sensations of a father, or

even of an elder brother.

 

His brother senators very soon began to remark that the Prairie

Giant had acquired a trick of looking up to the ladies' gallery. One

day Mr. Jonathan Andrews, the special correspondent of the New

York Sidereal System, a very friendly organ, approached Senator

Schuyler Clinton with a puzzled look on his face.

 

"Can you tell me," said he, "what has happened to Silas P.

Ratcliffe? Only a moment ago I was talking with him at his seat on

a very important subject, about which I must send his opinions off

to New York to-night, when, in the middle of a sentence, he

stopped short, got up without looking at me, and left the Senate

Chamber, and now I see him in the gallery talking with a lady

whose face I don't know."

 

Senator Clinton slowly adjusted his gold eye-glasses and looked up

at the place indicated: "Ah! Mrs. Lightfoot Lee! I think I will say a

word to her myself;" and turning his back on the special

correspondent, he skipped away with youthful agility after the

Senator from Illinois.

 

"Devil!" muttered Mr. Andrews; "what has got into the old fools?"

and in a still less audible murmur as he looked up to Mrs. Lee,

then in close conversation with Ratcliffe: "Had I better make an

item of that?"

 

When young Mr. Schneidekoupon called upon Senator Ratcliffe to

invite him to the dinner at Welckley's, he found that gentleman

overwhelmed with work, as he averred, and very little disposed to

converse. No! he did not now go out to dinner. In the present

condition of the public business he found it impossible to spare the

time for such amusements. He regretted to decline Mr.

Schneidekoupon's civility, but there were imperative reasons why

he should abstain for the present from social entertainments; he

had made but one exception to his rule, and only at the pressing

request of his old friend Senator Clinton, and on a very special

occasion.

 

Mr. Schneidekoupon was deeply vexed--the more, he said, because

he had meant to beg Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to be of the party, as

well as a very charming lady who rarely went into society, but who

had almost consented to come.

 

"Who is that?" inquired the Senator.

 

"A Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, of New York. Probably you do not know

her well enough to admire her as I do; but I think her quite the

most intelligent woman I ever met."

 

The Senator's cold eyes rested for a moment on the young man's

open face with a peculiar expression of distrust. Then he solemnly

said, in his deepest senatorial tones:

 

"My young friend, at my time of life men have other things to

occupy them than women, however intelligent they may be. Who

else is to be of your party?"

 

Mr. Schneidekoupon named his list.

 

"And for Saturday evening at seven, did you say?"

 

"Saturday at seven."

 

"I fear there is little chance of my attending, but I will not

absolutely decline. Perhaps when the moment arrives, I may find

myself able to be there. But do not count upon me--do not count

upon me. Good day, Mr.

 

Schneidekoupon."

 

Schneidekoupon was rather a simple-minded young man, who saw

no deeper than his neighbours into the secrets of the universe, and

he went off swearing roundly at "the infernal airs these senators

give themselves." He told Mrs.

 

Lee all the conversation, as indeed he was compelled to do under

penalty of bringing her to his party under false pretences.

 

"Just my luck," said he; "here I am forced to ask no end of people

to meet a man, who at the same time says he shall probably not

come. Why, under the stars, couldn't he say, like other people,

whether he was coming or not?

 

I've known dozens of senators, Mrs. Lee, and they're all like that.

They never think of any one but themselves."

 

Mrs. Lee smiled rather a forced smile, and soothed his wounded

feelings; she had no doubt the dinner would be very agreeable

whether the Senator were there or not; at any rate she would do all

she could to carry it off well, and Sybil should wear her newest

dress. Still she was a little grave, and Mr. Schneidekoupon could

only declare that she was a trump; that he had told Ratcliffe she

was the cleverest woman he ever met, and he might have added

the most obliging, and Ratcliffe had only looked at him as though

he were a green ape. At all which Mrs. Lee laughed

good-naturedly, and sent him away as soon as she could.

 

When he was gone, she walked up and down the room and

thought. She saw the meaning of Ratcliffe's sudden change in tone.

She had no more doubt of his coming to the dinner than she had of

the reason why he came. And was it possible that she was being

drawn into something very near a flirtation with a man twenty

years her senior; a politician from Illinois; a huge, ponderous,

grey-eyed, bald senator, with a Websterian head, who lived in

Peonia? The idea was almost too absurd to be credited; but on the

whole the thing itself was rather amusing. "I suppose senators can

look out for themselves like other men," was her final conclusion.

She thought only of his danger, and she felt a sort of compassion

for him as she reflected on the possible consequences of a great,

absorbing love at his time of life.

 

Her conscience was a little uneasy; but of herself she never

thought. Yet it is a historical fact that elderly senators have had a

curious fascination for young and handsome women. Had they

looked out for themselves too? And which parties most needed to

be looked after?

 

When Madeleine and her sister arrived at Welckley's 's the next

Saturday evening, they found poor Schneidekoupon in a temper

very unbecoming a host.

 

"He won't come! I told you he wouldn't come!" said he to

Madeleine, as he handed her into the house. "If I ever turn

communist, it will be for the fun of murdering a senator."

 

Madeleine consoled him gently, but he continued to use, behind

Mr. Clinton's back, language the most offensive and improper

towards the Senate, and at last, ringing the bell, he sharply ordered

the head waiter to serve dinner.

 

At that very moment the door opened, and Senator Ratcliffe's

stately figure appeared on the threshold. His eye instantly caught

Madeleine's, and she almost laughed aloud, for she saw that the

Senator was dressed with very unsenatorial neatness; that he had

actually a flower in his burton-hole and no gloves!

 

After the enthusiastic description which Schneidekoupon had

given of Mrs.

 

Lee's charms, he could do no less than ask Senator Ratcliffe to take

her in to dinner, which he did without delay. Either this, or the

champagne, or some occult influence, had an extraordinary effect

upon him. He appeared ten years younger than usual; his face was

illuminated; his eyes glowed; he seemed bent on proving his

kinship to the immortal Webster by rivalling his convivial powers.

He dashed into the conversation; laughed, jested, and ridiculed;

told stories in Yankee and Western dialect; gave sharp little

sketches of amusing political experiences.

 

"Never was more surprised in my life," whispered Senator Krebs,

of Pennsylvania, across the table to Schneidekoupon. "Hadn't an

idea that Ratcliffe was so entertaining."

 

And Mr. Clinton, who sat by Madeleine on the other side,

whispered low into her ear: "I am afraid, my dear Mrs. Lee, that

you are responsible for this.

 

He never talks so to the Senate."

 

Nay, he even rose to a higher flight, and told the story of President

Lincoln's death-bed with a degree of feeling that brought tears into

their eyes. The other guests made no figure at all. The Speaker

consumed his solitary duck and his lonely champagne in a corner

without giving a sign.

 

Even Mr. Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind

of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded

with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour.

Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe

a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to

Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to every one at

the table: "How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation

he would make abroad!" And it was quite true, apart from the mere

momentary effect of dinner-table talk, that there was a certain

bigness about the man; a keen practical sagacity; a bold freedom

of self-assertion; a broad way of dealing with what he knew.

 

Carrington was the only person at table who looked on with a

perfectly cool head, and who criticised in a hostile spirit.

Carrington's impression of Ratcliffe was perhaps beginning to be

warped by a shade of jealousy, for he was in a peculiarly bad

temper this evening, and his irritation was not wholly concealed.

 

"If one only had any confidence in the man!" he muttered to

French, who sat by him.

 

This unlucky remark set French to thinking how he could draw

Ratcliffe out, and accordingly, with his usual happy manner,

combining self-conceit and high principles, he began to attack the

Senator with some "badinaige" on the delicate subject of Civil

Service Reform, a subject almost as dangerous in political

conversation at Washington as slavery itself in old days before the

war. French was a reformer, and lost no occasion of impressing his

views; but unluckily he was a very light weight, and his manner

was a little ridiculous, so that even Mrs. Lee, who was herself a

warm reformer, sometimes went over to the other side when he

talked. No sooner had he now shot his little arrow at the Senator,

than that astute man saw his opportunity, and promised himself the

pleasure of administering to Mr.

 

French punishment such as he knew would delight the company.

Reformer as Mrs. Lee was, and a little alarmed at the roughness of

Ratcliffe's treatment, she could not blame the Prairie Giant, as she

ought, who, after knocking poor French down, rolled him over and

over in the mud.

 

"Are you financier enough, Mr. French, to know what are the most

famous products of Connecticut?"

 

Mr. French modestly suggested that he thought its statesmen best

answered that description.

 

"No, sir! even there you're wrong. The showmen beat you on your

own ground.

 

But every child in the union knows that the most famous products

of Connecticut are Yankee notions, nutmegs made of wood and

clocks that won't go. Now, your Civil Service Reform is just such

another Yankee notion; it's a wooden nutmeg; it's a clock with a

show case and sham works. And you know it! You are precisely

the old-school Connecticut peddler. You have gone about peddling

your wooden nutmegs until you have got yourself into Congress,

and now you pull them out of your pockets and not only want us to

take them at your own price, but you lecture us on our sins if we

don't.

 

Well! we don't mind your doing that at home. Abuse us as much as

you like to your constituents. Get as many votes as you can. But

don't electioneer here, because we know you intimately, and we've

all been a little in the wooden nutmeg business ourselves."

 

Senator Clinton and Senator Krebs chuckied high approval over

this punishment of poor French, which was on the level of their

idea of wit. They were all in the nutmeg business, as Ratcliffe said.

The victim tried to make head against them; he protested that his

nutmegs were genuine; he sold no goods that he did not guarantee;

and that this particular article was actually guaranteed by the

national conventions of both political parties.

 

"Then what you want, Mr. French, is a common school education.

You need a little study of the alphabet. Or if you won't believe me,

ask my brother senators here what chance there is for your

Reforms so long as the American citizen is what he "You'll not get

much comfort in my State, Mr. French," growled the senator from

Pennsylvania, with a sneer; "suppose you come and try."

 

"Well, well!" said the benevolent Mr. Schuyler Clinton, gleaming

benignantly through his gold spectacles; "don't be too hard on

French. He means well.

 

Perhaps he's not very wise, but he does good. I know more about it

than any of you, and I don't deny that the thing is all bad. Only, as

Mr. Ratcliffe says, the difficulty is in the people, not in us. Go to

work on them, French, and let us alone."

 

French repented of his attack, and contented himself by muttering

to Carrington: "What a set of damned old reprobates they are!"

 

"They are right, though, in one thing," was Carrington's reply:

"their advice is good. Never ask one of them to reform anything; if

you do, you will be reformed yourself."

 

The dinner ended as brilliantly as it began, and Schneidekoupon

was delighted with his success. He had made himself particularly

agreeable to Sybil by confiding in her all his hopes and fears about

the tariff and the finances. When the ladies left the table, Ratcliffe

could not stay for a cigar; he must get back to his rooms, where he

knew several men were waiting for him; he would take his leave of

the ladies and hurry away. But when the gentlemen came up nearly

an hour afterwards they found Ratcliffe still taking his leave of the

ladies, who were delighted at his entertaining conversation; and

when at last he really departed, he said to Mrs. Lee, as though it

were quite a matter of course: "You are at home as usual

to-morrow evening?" Madeleine smiled, bowed, and he went his

way.

 

As the two sisters drove home that night, Madeleine was unusually

silent.

 

Sybil yawned convulsively and then apologized:

 

"Mr. Schneidekoupon is very nice and good-natured, but a whole

evening of him goes a long way; and that horrid Senator Krebs

would not say a word, and drank a great deal too much wine,

though it couldn't make him any more stupid than he is. I don't

think I care for senators." Then, wearily, after a pause: "Well,

Maude, I do hope you've got what you wanted. I'm sure you must

have had politics enough. Haven't you got to the heart of your great

American mystery yet?"

 

"Pretty near it, I think," said Madeleine, half to herself.

 

Chapter IV

 

SUNDAY evening was stormy, and some enthusiasm was required

to make one face its perils for the sake of society. Nevertheless, a

few intimates made their appearance as usual at Mrs. Lee's. The

faithful Popoff was there, and Miss Dare also ran in to pass an

hour with her dear Sybil; but as she passed the whole evening in a

corner with Popoff. she must have been disappointed in her object.

Carrington came, and Baron Jacobi. Schneidekoupon and his sister

dined with Mrs. Lee, and remained after dinner, while Sybil and

Julia Schneidekoupon compared conclusions about Washington

society. The happy idea also occurred to Mr. Gore that, inasmuch

as Mrs. Lee's house was but a step from his hotel, he might as well

take the chance of amusement there as the certainty of solitude in

his rooms. Finally, Senator Ratcliffe duly made his appearance,

and, having established himself with a cup of tea by Madeleine's

side, was soon left to enjoy a quiet talk with her, the rest of the

party by common consent occupying themselves with each other.

Under cover of the murmur of conversation in the room, Mr.

Ratcliffe quickiy became confidential.

 

"I came to suggest that, if you want to hear an interesting debate,

you should come up to the Senate to-morrow. I am told that

Garrard, of Louisiana, means to attack my last speech, and I shall

probably in that case have to answer him. With you for a critic I

shall speak better."

 

"Am I such an amiable critic?" asked Madeleine.

 

"I never heard that amiable critics were the best," said he; "justice

is the soul of good criticism, and it is only justice that I ask and

expect from you."

 

"What good does this speaking do?" inquired she. "Are you any

nearer the end of your difficulties by means of your speeches?"

 

"I hardly know yet. Just now we are in dead water; but this can't

last long.

 

In fact, I am not afraid to tell you, though of course you will not

repeat it to any human being, that we have taken measures to force

an issue.

 

Certain gentlemen, myself among the rest, have written letters

meant for the President's eye, though not addressed directly to him,

and intended to draw out an expression of some sort that will show

us what to expect."

 

"Oh!" laughed Madeleine, "I knew about that a week ago."

 

"About what?"

 

"About your letter to Sam Grimes, of North Bend."

 

"What have you heard about my letter to Sam Grimes, of North

Bend?"

 

ejaculated Ratcliffe, a little abruptly.

 

"Oh, you do not know how admirably I have organised my secret

service bureau," said she. "Representative Cutter cross-questioned

one of the Senate pages, and obliged him to confess that he had

received from you a letter to be posted, which letter was addressed

to Mr. Grimes, of North Bend."

 

"And, of course, he told this to French, and French told you," said

Ratcliffe; "I see. If I had known this I would not have let French

off so gently last night, for I prefer to tell you my own story

without his embellishments. But it was my fault. I should not have

trusted a page.

 

Nothing is a secret here long. But one thing that Mr. Cutter did not

find out was that several other gentlemen wrote letters at the same

time, for the same purpose. Your friend, Mr. Clinton, wrote; Krebs

wrote; and one or two members."

 

"I suppose I must not ask what you said?"

 

"You may. We agreed that it was best to be very mild and

conciliatory, and to urge the President only to give us some

indication of his intentions, in order that we might not run counter

to them. I drew a strong picture of the effect of the present

situation on the party, and hinted that I had no personal wishes to

gratify."

 

"And what do you think will be the result?"

 

"I think we shall somehow manage to straighten things out," said

Ratcliffe.

 

"The difficulty is only that the new President has little experience,

and is suspicious. He thinks we shall intrigue to tie his hands, and

he means to tie ours in advance. I don't know him personally, but

those who do, and who are fair judges, say that, though rather

narrow and obstinate, he is honest enough, and will come round. I

have no doubt I could settle it all with him in an hour's talk, but it

is out of the question for me to go to him unless I am asked, and to

ask me to come would be itself a settlement."

 

"What, then, is the danger you fear?"

 

"That he will offend all the important party leaders in order to

conciliate unimportant ones, perhaps sentimental ones, like your

friend French; that he will make foolish appointments without

taking advice. By the way, have you seen French to-day?"

 

"No," replied Madeleine; "I think he must be sore at your treatment

of him last evening. You were very rude to him."

 

"Not a bit," said Ratcliffe; "these reformers need it. His attack on

me was meant for a challenge. I saw it in his manner.

 

"But is reform really so impossible as you describe it? Is it quite

hopeless?"

 

"Reform such as he wants is utterly hopeless, and not even

desirable."

 

Mrs. Lee, with much earnestness of manner, still pressed her

question:

 

"Surely something can be done to check corruption. Are we for

ever to be at the mercy of thieves and ruffians? Is a respectable

government impossible in a democracy?"

 

Her warmth attracted Jacobi's attention, and he spoke across the

room. "What is that you say, Mrs. Lee? What is it about

corruption?"

 

All the gentlemen began to listen and gather about them.

 

"I am asking Senator Ratcliffe," said she, "what is to become of us

if corruption is allowed to go unchecked."

 

"And may I venture to ask permission to hear Mr. Ratcliffe's

reply?" asked the baron.

 

"My reply," said Ratcliffe, "is that no representative government

can long be much better or much worse than the society it

represents. Purify society and you purify the government. But try

to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate

failure."

 

"A very statesmanlike reply," said Baron Jacobi, with a formal

bow, but his tone had a shade of mockery. Carrington, who had

listened with a darkening face, suddenly turned to the baron and

asked him what conclusion he drew from the reply.

 

"Ah!" exclaimed the baron, with his wickedest leer, "what for is

my conclusion good? You Americans believe yourselves to be

excepted from the operation of general laws. You care not for

experience. I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the

midst of corruption. I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to

proclaim it, and you others have it not. Rome, Paris, Vienna,

Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure!

Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no

society which has had elements of corruption like the United

States. The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to

cheat me.

 

The cities are all corrupt, and also the towns and the counties and

the States' legislatures and the judges. Everywhere men betray

trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public

funds. Only in the Senate men take no money. And you gentlemen

in the Senate very well declare that your great United States,

which is the head of the civilized world, can never learn anything

from the example of corrupt Europe. You are right--quite right!

The great United States needs not an example. I do much regret

that I have not yet one hundred years to live. If I could then come

back to this city, I should find myself very content--much more

than now. I am always content where there is much corruption, and

ma parole d'honneur!"

 

broke out the old man with fire and gesture, "the United States will

then be more corrupt than Rome under Caligula; more corrupt than

the Church under Leo X.; more corrupt than France under the

Regent!"

 

As the baron closed his little harangue, which he delivered directly

at the senator sitting underneath him, he had the satisfaction to see

that every one was silent and listening with deep attention. He

seemed to enjoy annoying the senator, and he had the satisfaction

of seeing that the senator was visibly annoyed. Ratcliffe looked

sternly at the baron and said, with some curtness, that he saw no

reason to accept such conclusions.

 

Conversation flagged, and all except the baron were relieved when

Sybil, at Schneidekoupon's request, sat down at the piano to sing

what she called a hymn. So soon as the song was over, Ratcliffe,

who seemed to have been curiously thrown off his balance by

Jacobi's harangue, pleaded urgent duties at his rooms, and retired.

The others soon afterwards went off in a body, leaving only

Carrington and Gore, who had seated himself by Madeleine, and

was at once dragged by her into a discussion of the subject which

perplexed her, and for the moment threw over her mind a net of

irresistible fascination.

 

"The baron discomfited the senator," said Gore, with a certain

hesitation.

 

"Why did Ratcliffe let himself be trampled upon in that manner?"

 

"I wish you would explain why," replied Mrs. Lee; "tell me, Mr.

Gore--you who represent cultivation and literary taste

hereabouts--please tell me what to think about Baron Jacobi's

speech. Who and what is to be believed? Mr.

 

Ratcliffe seems honest and wise. Is he a corruptionist? He believes

in the people, or says he does. Is he telling the truth or not?"

 

Gore was too experienced in politics to be caught in such a trap as

this. He evaded the question. "Mr. Ratcliffe has a practical piece of

work to do; his business is to make laws and advise the President;

he does it extremely well. We have no other equally good practical

politician; it is unfair to require him to be a crusader besides."

 

"No!" interposed Carrington, curtly; "but he need not obstruct

crusades. He need not talk virtue and oppose the punishment of

vice."

 

"He is a shrewd practical politician," replied Gore, "and he feels

first the weak side of any proposed political tactics."

 

With a sigh of despair Madeleine went on: "Who, then, is right?

How can we all be right? Half of our wise men declare that the

world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast

becoming perfect. Both cannot be right. There is only one thing in

life," she went on, laughing, "that I must and will have before I die.

I must know whether America is right or wrong. Just now this

question is a very practical one, for I really want to know whether

to believe in Mr. Ratcliffe. If I throw him overboard, everything

must go, for he is only a specimen."

 

"Why not believe in Mr. Ratcliffe?" said Gore; "I believe in him

myself, and am not afraid to say so."

 

Carrington, to whom Ratcliffe now began to represent the spirit of

evil, interposed here, and observed that he imagined Mr. Gore had

other guides besides, and steadier ones than Ratcliffe, to believe

in; while Madeleine, with a certain feminine perspicacity, struck at

a much weaker point in Mr.

 

Gore's armour, and asked point-blank whether he believed also in

what Ratcliffe represented: "Do you yourself think democracy the

best government, and universal suffrage a success?"

 

Mr. Gore saw himself pinned to the wall, and he turned at bay with

almost the energy of despair:

 

"These are matters about which I rarely talk in society; they are

like the doctrine of a personal God; of a future life; of revealed

religion; subjects which one naturally reserves for private

reflection. But since you ask for my political creed, you shall have

it. I only condition that it shall be for you alone, never to be

repeated or quoted as mine. I believe in democracy. I accept it. I

will faithfully serve and defend it. I believe in it because it appears

to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.

 

Democracy asserts the fact that the masses are now raised to a

higher intelligence than formerly. All our civilisation aims at this

mark. We want to do what we can to help it. I myself want to see

the result. I grant it is an experiment, but it is the only direction

society can take that is worth its taking; the only conception of its

duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the only result that is

worth an effort or a risk. Every other possible step is backward,

and I do not care to repeat the past. I am glad to see society

grapple with issues in which no one can afford to be neutral."

 

"And supposing your experiment fails," said Mrs. Lee; "suppose

society destroys itself with universal suffrage, corruption, and

communism."

 

"I wish, Mrs. Lee, you would visit the Observatory with me some

evening, and look at Sirius. Did you ever make the acquaintance of

a fixed star? I believe astronomers reckon about twenty millions of

them in sight, and an infinite possibility of invisible millions, each

one of which is a sun, like ours, and may have satellites like our

planet. Suppose you see one of these fixed stars suddenly increase

in brightness, and are told that a satellite has fallen into it and is

burning up, its career finished, its capacities exhausted? Curious,

is it not; but what does it matter? Just as much as the burning up of

a moth at your candle."

 

Madeleine shuddered a little. "I cannot get to the height of your

philosophy," said she. "You are wandering among the infinites,

and I am finite."

 

"Not at all! But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in

the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the

survival of the fittest. Let us be true to our time, Mrs. Lee! If our

age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks. If it is to be victorious,

let us be first to lead the column. Anyway, let us not be skulkers or

grumblers. There! have I repeated my catechism correctly? You

would have it! Now oblige me by forgetting it. I should lose my

character at home if it got out. Good night!"

 

Mrs. Lee duly appeared at the Capitol the next day, as she could

not but do after Senator Ratcliffe's pointed request. She went

alone, for Sybil had positively refused to go near the Capitol again,

and Madeleine thought that on the whole this was not an occasion

for enrolling Carrington in her service. But Ratcliffe did not speak.

The debate was unexpectedly postponed.

 

He joined Mrs. Lee in the gallery, however, sat with her as long as

she would allow, and became still more confidential, telling her

that he had received the expected reply from Grimes, of North

Bend, and that it had enclosed a letter written by the

President-elect to Mr. Grimes in regard to the advances made by

Mr. Ratcliffe and his friends.

 

"It is not a handsome letter," said he; "indeed, a part of it is

positively insulting. I would like to read you one extract from it,

and hear your opinion as to how it should be treated." Taking the

letter from his pocket, he sought out the passage, and read as

follows: "'I cannot lose sight, too, of the consideration that these

three Senators' (he means Clinton, Krebs, and me) are popularly

considered to be the most influential members of that so-called

senatorial ring, which has acquired such general notoriety. While I

shall always receive their communications with all due respect, I

must continue to exercise complete freedom of action in

consulting other political advisers as well as these, and I must in

all cases make it my first object to follow the wishes of the people,

not always most truly represented by their nominal

representatives.' What say you to that precious piece of

presidential manners?"

 

"At least I like his courage," said Mrs. Lee.

 

"Courage is one thing; common sense is another. This letter is a

studied insult. He has knocked me off the track once. He means to

do it again. It is a declaration of war. What ought I to do?"

 

"Whatever is most for the public good." said Madeleine, gravely.

 

Ratcliffe looked into her face with such undisguised delight--there

was so little possibility of mistaking or ignoring the expression of

his eyes, that she shrank back with a certain shock. She was not

prepared for so open a demonstration. He hardened his features at

once, and went on:

 

"But what is most for the public good?"

 

"That you know better than I," said Madeleine; "only one thing is

clear to me. If you let yourself be ruled by your private feelings,

you will make a greater mistake than he. Now I must go, for I have

visits to make. The next time I come, Mr. Ratcliffe, you must keep

your word better."

 

When they next met, Ratcliffe read to her a part of his reply to Mr.

Grimes, which ran thus: "It is the lot of every party leader to suffer

from attacks and to commit errors. It is true, as the President says,

that I have been no exception to this law. Believing as I do that

great results can only be accomplished by great parties, I have

uniformly yielded my own personal opinions where they have

failed to obtain general assent. I shall continue to follow this

course, and the President may with perfect confidence count upon

my disinterested support of all party measures, even though I may

not be consulted in originating them."

 

Mrs. Lee listened attentively, and then said: "Have you never

refused to go with your party?"

 

"Never!" was Ratcliffe's firm reply.

 

Madeleine still more thoughtfully inquired again: "Is nothing more

powerful than party allegiance?"

 

"Nothing, except national allegiance," replied Ratcliffe, still more

firmly.

 

Chapter V

 

TO tie a prominent statesman to her train and to lead him about

like a tame bear, is for a young and vivacious woman a more

certain amusement than to tie herself to him and to be dragged

about like an Indian squaw. This fact was Madeleine Lee's first

great political discovery in Washington, and it was worth to her all

the German philosophy she had ever read, with even a complete

edition of Herbert Spencer's works into the bargain. There could be

no doubt that the honours and dignities of a public career were no

fair consideration for its pains. She made a little daily task for

herself of reading in succession the lives and letters of the

American Presidents, and of their wives, when she could find that

there was a trace of the latter's existence. What a melancholy

spectacle it was, from George Washington down to the last

incumbent; what vexations, what disappointments, what grievous

mistakes, what very objectionable manners! Not one of them, who

had aimed at high purpose, but had been thwarted, beaten, and

habitually insulted! What a gloom lay on the features of those

famous chieftains, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster; what varied

expression of defeat and unsatisfied desire; what a sense of

self-importance and senatorial magniloquence; what a craving for

flattery; what despair at the sentence of fate! And what did they

amount to, after all?

 

They were practical men, these! they had no great problems of

thought to settle, no questions that rose above the ordinary rules of

common morals and homely duty. How they had managed to befog

the subject! What elaborate show-structures they had built up, with

no result but to obscure the horizon! Would not the country have

done better without them? Could it have done worse? What deeper

abyss could have opened under the nation's feet, than that to whose

verge they brought it?

 

Madeleine's mind wearied with the monotony of the story. She

discussed the subject with Ratcliffe, who told her frankly that the

pleasure of politics lay in the possession of power. He agreed that

the country would do very well without him. "But here I am," said

he, "and here I mean to stay." He had very little sympathy for thin

moralising, and a statesmanlike contempt for philosophical

politics. He loved power, and he meant to be President.

 

That was enough.

 

So,metimes the tragic and sometimes the comic side was

uppermost in her mind, and sometimes she did not herself know

whether to cry or to laugh.

 

Washington more than any other city in the world swarms with

simple-minded exhibitions of human nature; men and women

curiously out of place, whom it would be cruel to ridicule and

ridiculous to weep over. The sadder exhibitions are fortunately

seldom seen by respectable people; only the little social accidents

come under their eyes. One evening Mrs. Lee went to the

President's first evening reception. As Sybil flatly refused to face

the crowd, and Carrington mildly said that he feared he was not

sufficiently reconstructed to appear at home in that august

presence, Mrs. Lee accepted Mr. French for an escort, and walked

across the Square with him to join the throng that was pouring into

the doors of the White House. They took their places in the line of

citizens and were at last able to enter the reception-room. There

Madeleine found herself before two seemingly mechanical figures,

which mlght be wood or wax, for any sign they showed of life.

These two figures were the President and his wife; they stood stiff

and awkward by the door, both their faces stripped of every sign of

intelligence, while the right hands of both extended themselves to

the column of visitors with the mechanical action of toy dolls.

Mrs. Lee for a moment began to laugh, but the laugh died on her

lips. To the President and his wife this was clearly no laughing

matter. There they stood, automata, representatives of the society

which streamed past them. Madeleine seized Mr. French by the

arm.

 

"Take me somewhere at once," said she, "where I can look at it.

Here! in the corner. I had no conception how shocking it was!"

 

Mr. French supposed she was thinking of the queer-looking men

and women who were swarming through the rooms, and he made,

after his own delicate notion of humour, some uncouth jests on

those who passed by. Mrs. Lee, however, was in no humour to

explain or even to listen. She stopped him short:--

 

"There, Mr. French! Now go away and leave me. I want to be

alone for half an hour. Please come for me then." And there she

stood, with her eyes fixed on the President and his wife, while the

endless stream of humanity passed them, shaking hands.

 

What a strange and solemn spectacle it was, and how the deadly

fascination of it burned the image in upon her mind! What a horrid

warning to ambition!

 

And in all that crowd there was no one besides herself who felt the

mockery of this exhibition. To all the others this task was a regular

part of the President's duty, and there was nothing ridiculous about

it. They thought it a democratic institution, this droll a ping of

monarchical forms. To them the deadly dulness of the show was as

natural and proper as ever to the courtiers of the Philips and

Charleses seemed the ceremonies of the Escurial. To her it had the

effect of a nightmare, or of an opium-eater's vision, She felt a

sudden conviction that this was to be the end of American society;

its realisation and dream at once. She groaned in spirit.

 

"Yes! at last I have reached the end! We shall grow to be wax

images, and our talk will be like the squeaking of toy dolls. We

shall all wander round and round the earth and shake hands. No

one will have any object in this world, and there will be no other.

It is worse than anything in the 'Inferno.' What an awful vision of

eternity!"

 

Suddenly, as through a mist, she saw the melancholy face of Lord

Skye approaching. He came to her side, and his voice recalled her

to reality.

 

"Does it amuse you, this sort of thing?" he asked in a vague way.

 

"We take our amusement sadly, after the manner of our people,"

she replied; "but it certainly interests me."

 

They stood for a time in silence, watching the slowly eddying

dance of Democracy, until he resumed:

 

"Whom do you take that man to be--the long, lean one, with a long

woman on each arm?"

 

"That man," she replied, "I take to be a Washington

department-clerk, or perhaps a member of Congress from Iowa,

with a wife and wife's sister. Do they shock your nobility?"

 

He looked at her with comical resignation. "You mean to tell me

that they are quite as good as dowager-countesses. I grant it. My

aristocratic spirit is broken, Mrs. Lee. I will even ask them to

dinner if you bid me, and if you will come to meet them. But the

last time I asked a member of Congress to dine, he sent me back a

note in pencil on my own envelope that he would bring two of his

friends with him, very respectable constituents from Yahoo city, or

some such place; nature's noblemen, he said."

 

"You should have welcomed them."

 

"I did. I wanted to see two of nature's noblemen, and I knew they

would probably be pleasanter company than their representative.

They came; very respectable persons, one with a blue necktie, the

other with a red one: both had diamond pins in their shirts, and

were carefully brushed in respect to their hair. They said nothing,

ate little, drank less, and were much better behaved than I am.

When they went away, they unanimously asked me to stay with

them when I visited Yahoo city."

 

"You will not want guests if you always do that."

 

"I don't know. I think it was pure ignorance on their part. They

knew no better, and they seemed modest enough. My only

complaint was that I could get nothing out of them. I wonder

whether their wives would have been more amusing."

 

"Would they be so in England, Lord Skye?"

 

He looked down at her with half-shut eyes, and drawled: "You

know my countrywomen?"

 

"Hardly at all."

 

"Then let us discuss some less serious subject."

 

"Willingly. I have waited for you to explain to me why you have

to-night an expression of such melancholy."

 

"Is that quite friendly, Mrs. Lee? Do I really look melancholy?"

 

"Unutterably, as I feel. I am consumed with curiosity to know the

reason."

 

The British minister coolly took a complete survey of the whole

room, ending with a prolonged stare at the President and his wife,

who were still mechanically shaking hands; then he looked back

into her face, and said never a word.

 

She insisted: "I must have this riddle answered. It suffocates me. I

should not be sad at seeing these same people at work or at play, if

they ever do play; or in a church or a lecture-room. Why do they

weigh on me like a horrid phantom here?"

 

"I see no riddle, Mrs. Lee. You have answered your own question;

they are neither at work nor at play."

 

"Then please take me home at once. I shall have hysterics. The

sight of those two suffering images at the door is too mournful to

be borne. I am dizzy with looking at these stalking figures. I don't

believe they're real.

 

I wish the house would take fire. I want an earthquake. I wish

some one would pinch the President, or pull his wife's hair."

 

Mrs. Lee did not repeat the experiment of visiting the White

House, and indeed for some time afterwards she spoke with little

enthusiasm of the presidential office. To Senator Ratcliffe she

expressed her opinions strongly. The Senator tried in vain to argue

that the people had a right to call upon their chief magistrate, and

that he was bound to receive them; this being so, there was no less

objectionable way of proceeding than the one which had been

chosen. "Who gave the people any such right?" asked Mrs.

 

Lee. "Where does it come from? What do they want it for? You

know better, Mr. Ratcliffe! Our chief magistrate is a citizen like

any one else. What puts it into his foolish head to cease being a

citizen and to ape royalty?

 

Our governors never make themselves ridiculous. Why cannot the

wretched being content himself with living like the rest of us, and

minding his own business? Does he know what a figure of fun he

is?" And Mrs. Lee went so far as to declare that she would like to

be the President's wife only to put an end to this folly; nothing

should ever induce her to go through such a performance; and if

the public did not approve of this, Congress might impeach her,

and remove her from office; all she demanded was the right to be

heard before the Senate in her own defence.

 

Nevertheless, there was a very general impression in Washington

that Mrs.

 

Lee would like nothing better than to be in the White House.

Known to comparatively few people, and rarely discussing even

with them the subjects which deeply interested her, Madeleine

passed for a clever, intriguing woman who had her own objects to

gain. True it is, beyond peradventure, that all residents of

Washington may be assumed to be in office or candidates for

office; unless they avow their object, they are guilty of an

attempt--and a stupid one--to deceive; yet there is a small class of

apparent exceptions destined at last to fall within the rule. Mrs.

Lee was properly assumed to be a candidate for office. To the

Washingtonians it was a matter of course that Mrs. Lee should

marry Silas P. Ratcliffe. That he should be glad to get a

fashionable and intelligent wife, with twenty or thirty thousand

dollars a year, was not surprising. That she should accept the first

public man of the day, with a flattering chance for the

Presidency--a man still comparatively young and not without good

looks--was perfectly natural, and in her undertaking she had the

sympathy of all well-regulated Washington women who were not

possible rivals; for to them the President's wife is of more

consequence than the President; and, indeed, if America only

knew it, they are not very far from the truth.

 

Some there were, however, who did not assent to this good-natured

though worldly view of the proposed match. These ladies were

severe in their comments upon Mrs. Lee's conduct, and did not

hesitate to declare their opinion that she was the calmest and most

ambitious minx who had ever come within their observation.

Unfortunately it happened that the respectable and proper Mrs.

Schuyler Clinton took this view of the case, and made little

attempt to conceal her opinion. She was justly indignant at her

cousin's gross worldliness, and possible promotion in rank.

 

"If Madeleine Ross marries that coarse, horrid old Illinois

politician,"

 

said she to her husband, "I never will forgive her so long as I live."

 

Mr. Clinton tried to excuse Madeleine, and even went so far as to

suggest that the difference of age was no greater than in their own

case; but his wife trampled ruthlessly on his argument.

 

"At any rate," said she, "I never came to Washington as a widow

on purpose to set my cap for the first candidate for the Presidency,

and I never made a public spectacle of my indecent eagerness in

the very galleries of the Senate; and Mrs. Lee ought to be ashamed

of herself. She is a cold-blooded, heartless, unfeminine cat."

 

Little Victoria Dare, who babbled like the winds and streams, with

utter indifference as to what she said or whom she addressed, used

to bring choice bits of this gossip to Mrs. Lee. She always affected

a little stammer when she said anything uncommonly impudent,

and put on a manner of languid simplicity. She felt keenly the

satisfaction of seeing Madeleine charged with her own besetting

sins. For years all Washington had agreed that Victoria was little

better than one of the wicked; she had done nothing but violate

every rule of propriety and scandalise every well-regulated family

in the city, and there was no good in her. Yet it could not be

denied that Victoria was amusing, and had a sort of irregular

fascination; consequently she was universally tolerated. To see

Mrs. Lee thrust down to her own level was an unmixed pleasure to

her, and she carefully repeated to Madeleine the choice bits of

dialogue which she picked up in her wanderings.

 

"Your cousin, Mrs. Clinton, says you are a ca-ca-cat, Mrs. Lee."

 

"I don't believe it, Victoria. Mrs. Clinton never said anything of the

sort."

 

"Mrs. Marston says it is because you have caught a ra-ra-rat, and

Senator Clinton was only a m-m-mouse!"

 

Naturally all this unexpected publicity irritated Mrs. Lee not a

little, especially when short and vague paragraphs, soon followed

by longer and more positive ones, in regard to Senator Ratcliffe's

matrimonial prospects, began to appear in newspapers, along with

descriptions of herself from the pens of enterprising female

correspondents for the press, who had never so much as seen her.

At the first sight of one of these newspaper articles, Madeleine

fairly cried with mortification and anger. She wanted to leave

Washington the next day, and she hated the very thought of

Ratcliffe. There was something in the newspaper style so

inscrutably vulgar, something so inexplicably revolting to the

sense of feminine decency, that she shrank under it as though it

were a poisonous spider. But after the first acute shame had

passed, her temper was roused, and she vowed that she would

pursue her own path just as she had begun, without regard to all

the malignity and vulgarity in the wide United States. She did not

care to marry Senator Ratcliffe; she liked his society and was

flattered by his confidence; she rather hoped to prevent him from

ever making a formal offer, and if not, she would at least push it

off to the last possible moment; but she was not to be frightened

from marrying him by any amount of spitefulness or gossip, and

she did not mean to refuse him except for stronger reasons than

these. She even went so far in her desperate courage as to laugh at

her cousin, Mrs.

 

Clinton, whose venerable husband she allowed and even

encouraged to pay her such public attention and to express

sentiments of such youthful ardour as she well knew would

inflame and exasperate the excellent lady his wife.

 

Carrington was the person most unpleasantly affected by the

course which this affair had taken. He could no longer conceal

from himself the fact that he was as much m love as a dignified

Virginian could be. With him, at all events, she had shown no

coquetry, nor had she ever either flattered or encouraged him. But

Carrington, m his solitary struggle against fate, had found her a

warm friend; always ready to assist where assistance was needed,

generous with her money in any cause which he was willing to

vouch for, full of sympathy where sympathy was more than

money, and full of resource and suggestion where money and

sympathy failed. Carrington knew her better than she knew herself.

He selected her books; he brought the last speech or the last report

from the Capitol or the departments; he knew her doubts and her

vagaries, and as far as he understood them at all, helped her to

solve them.

 

Carrington was too modest, and perhaps too shy, to act the part of

a declared lover, and he was too proud to let it be thought that he

wanted to exchange his poverty for her wealth. But he was all the

more anxious when he saw the evident attraction which Ratcliffe's

strong will and unscrupulous energy exercised over her. He saw

that Ratcliffe was steadily pushing his advances; that he flattered

all Mrs. Lee's weaknesses by the confidence and deference with

which he treated her; and that in a very short time, Madeleine must

either marry him or find herself looked upon as a heartless

coquette. He had his own reasons for thinking ill of Senator

Ratcliffe, and he meant to prevent a marriage; but he had an

enemy to deal with not easily driven from the path, and quite

capable of routing any number of rivals.

 

Ratcliffe was afraid of no one. He had not fought his own way in

life for nothing, and he knew all the value of a cold head and

dogged self-assurance.

 

Nothing but this robust Americanism and his strong will carried

him safely through the snares and pitfalls of Mrs. Lee's society,

where rivals and enemies beset him on every hand. He was little

better than a schoolboy, when he ventured on their ground, but

when he could draw them over upon his own territory of practical

life he rarely failed to trample on his assailants.

 

It was this practical sense and cool will that won over Mrs. Lee,

who was woman enough to assume that all the graces were well

enough employed in decorating her, and it was enough if the other

sex felt her superiority. Men were valuable only in proportion to

their strength and their appreciation of women. If the senator had

only been strong enough always to control his temper, he would

have done very well, but his temper was under a great strain in

these times, and his incessant effort to control it in politics made

him less watchful in private life. Mrs. Lee's tacit assumption of

superior refinement irritated him, and sometimes made him show

his teeth like a bull-dog, at the cost of receiving from Mrs. Lee a

quick stroke in return such as a well-bred tortoise-shell cat

administers to check over-familiarity; innocent to the eye, but

drawing blood. One evening when he was more than commonly

out of sorts, after sitting some time in moody silence, he roused

himself, and, taking up a book that lay on her table, he glanced at

its title and turned over the leaves. It happened by ill luck to be a

volume of Darwin that Mrs. Lee had just borrowed from the

library of Congress.

 

"Do you understand this sort of thing?" asked the Senator abruptly,

in a tone that suggested a sneer.

 

"Not very well," replied Mrs. Lee, rather curtly.

 

"Why do you want to understand it?" persisted the Senator. "What

good will it do you?"

 

"Perhaps it will teach us to be modest," answered Madeleine, quite

equal to the occasion.

 

"Because it says we descend from monkeys?" rejoined the Senator,

roughly.

 

"Do you think you are descended from monkeys?"

 

"Why not?" said Madeleine.

 

"Why not?" repeated Ratcliffe, laughing harshly. "I don't like the

connection. Do you mean to introduce your distant relations into

society?"

 

"They would bring more amusement into it than most of its present

members,"

 

rejoined Mrs. Lee, with a gentle smile that threatened mischief.

But Ratcliffe would not be warned; on the contrary, the only effect

of Mrs.

 

Lee's defiance was to exasperate his ill-temper, and whenever he

lost his temper he became senatorial and Websterian. "Such

books," he began, "disgrace our civilization; they degrade and

stultify our divine nature; they are only suited for Asiatic

despotisms where men are reduced to the level of brutes; that they

should be accepted by a man like Baron Jacobi, I can understand;

he and his masters have nothing to do in the world but to trample

on human rights. Mr. Carrington, of course, would approve those

ideas; he believes in the divine doctrine of flogging negroes; but

that you, who profess philanthropy and free principles, should go

with them, is astonishing; it is incredible; it is unworthy of you."

 

"You are very hard on the monkeys," replied Madeleine, rather

sternly, when the Senator's oration was ended. "The monkeys

never did you any harm; they are not in public life; they are not

even voters; if they were, you would be enthusiastic about their

intelligence and virtue. After all, we ought to be grateful to them,

for what would men do in this melancholy world if they had not

inherited gaiety from the monkeys--as well as oratory."

 

Ratcliffe, to do him justice, took punishment well, at least when it

came from Mrs. Lee's hands, and his occasional outbursts of

insubordination were sure to be followed by improved discipline;

but if he allowed Mrs. Lee to correct his faults, he had no notion of

letting himself be instructed by her friends, and he lost no chance

of telling them so. But to do this was not always enough. Whether

it were that he had few ideas outside of his own experience, or that

he would not trust himself on doubtful ground, he seemed

compelled to bring every discussion down to his own level.

Madeleine puzzled herself in vain to find out whether he did this

because he knew no better, or because he meant to cover his own

ignorance.

 

"The Baron has amused me very much with his account of

Bucharest society,"

 

Mrs. Lee would say: "I had no idea it was so gay."

 

"I would like to show him our society in Peonia," was Ratcliffe's

reply; "he would find a very brilliant circle there of nature's true

noblemen."

 

"The Baron says their politicians are precious sharp chaps," added

Mr.

 

French.

 

"Oh, there are politicians in Bulgaria, are there?" asked the

Senator, whose ideas of the Roumanian and Bulgarian

neighbourhood were vague, and who had a general notion that all

such people lived in tents, wore sheepskins with the wool inside,

and ate curds: "Oh, they have politicians there! I would like to see

them try their sharpness in the west."

 

"Really!" said Mrs. Lee. "Think of Attila and his hordes running an

Indiana caucus?"

 

"Anyhow," cried French with a loud laugh, "the Baron said that a

set of bigger political scoundrels than his friends couldn't be found

in all Illinois."

 

"Did he say that?" exclaimed Ratcliffe angrily.

 

"Didn't he, Mrs. Lee? but I don't believe it; do you? What's your

candid opinion, Ratcliffe? What you don't know about Illinois

politics isn't worth knowing; do you really think those Bulgrascals

couldn't run an Illinois state convention?"

 

Ratcliffe did not like to be chaffed, especially on this subject, but

he could not resent French's liberty which was only a moderate

return for the wooden nutmeg. To get the conversation away from

Europe, from literature, from art, was his great object, and chaff

was a way of escape.

 

Carrington was very well aware that the weak side of the Senator

lay in his blind ignorance of morals. He flattered himself that Mrs.

Lee must see this and be shocked by it sooner or later, so that

nothing more was necessary than to let Ratcliffe expose himself.

Without talking very much, Carrington always aimed at drawing

him out. He soon found, however, that Ratcliffe understood such

tactics perfectly, and instead of injuring, he rather improved his

position. At times the man's audacity was startling, and even when

Carrington thought him hopelessly entangled, he would sweep

away all the hunter's nets with a sheer effort of strength, and walk

off bolder and more dangerous than ever.

 

When Mrs. Lee pressed him too closely, he frankly admitted her

charges.

 

"What you say is in great part true. There is much in politics that

disgusts and disheartens; much that is coarse and bad. I grant you

there is dishonesty and corruption. We must try to make the

amount as small as possible."

 

"You should be able to tell Mrs. Lee how she must go to work,"

said Carrington; "you have had experience. I have heard, it seems

to me, that you were once driven to very hard measures against

corruption."

 

Ratcliffe looked ill-pleased at this compliment, and gave

Carrington one of his cold glances that meant mischief. But he

took up the challenge on the spot:--

 

"Yes, I was, and am very sorry for it. The story is this, Mrs. Lee;

and it is well-known to every man, woman, and child in the State

of Illinois, so that I have no reason for softening it. In the worst

days of the war there was almost a certainty that my State would

be carried by the peace party, by fraud, as we thought, although,

fraud or not, we were bound to save it. Had Illinois been lost then,

we should certainly have lost the Presidential election, and with it

probably the Union. At any rate, I believed the fate of the war to

depend on the result. I was then Governor, and upon me the

responsibility rested. We had entire control of the northern

counties and of their returns. We ordered the returning officers in a

certain number of counties to make no returns until they heard

from us, and when we had received the votes of all the southern

counties and learned the precise number of votes we needed to

give us a majority, we telegraphed to our northern returning

officers to make the vote of their districts such and such, thereby

overbalancing the adverse returns and giving the State to us.

 

This was done, and as I am now senator I have a right to suppose

that what I did was approved. I am not proud of the transaction,

but I would do it again, and worse than that, if I thought it would

save this country from disunion. But of course I did not expect Mr.

Carrington to approve it. I believe he was then carrying out his

reform principles by bearing arms against the government."

 

"Yes!" said Carrington drily; "you got the better of me, too. Like

the old Scotchman, you didn't care who made the people's wars

provided you made its ballots.

 

Carrington had missed his point. The man who has committed a

murder for his country, is a patriot and not an assassin, even when

he receives a seat in the Senate as his share of the plunder. Women

cannot be expected to go behind the motives of that patriot who

saves his country and his election in times of revolution.

 

Carrington's hostility to Ratcliffe was, however, mild, when

compared with that felt by old Baron Jacobi. Why the baron should

have taken so violent a prejudice it is not easy to explain, but a

diplomatist and a senator are natural enemies, and Jacobi, as an

avowed admirer of Mrs. Lee, found Ratcliffe in his way. This

prejudiced and immoral old diplomatist despised and loathed an

American senator as the type which, to his bleared European eyes,

combined the utmost pragmatical self-assurance and overbearing

temper with the narrowest education and the meanest personal

experience that ever existed in any considerable government. As

Baron Jacobi's country had no special relations with that of the

United States, and its Legation at Washington was a mere job to

create a place for Jacobi to fill, he had no occasion to disguise his

personal antipathies, and he considered himself in some degree as

having a mission to express that diplomatic contempt for the

Senate which his colleagues, if they felt it, were obliged to

conceal. He performed his duties with conscientious precision. He

never missed an opportunity to thrust the sharp point of his

dialectic rapier through the joints of the clumsy and hide-bound

senatorial self-esteem. He delighted in skilfully exposing to

Madeleine's eyes some new side of Ratcliffe's ignorance. His

conversation at such times sparkled with historical allusions,

quotations in half a dozen different languages, references to

well-known facts which an old man's memory could not recall

with precision in all their details, but with which the Honourable

Senator was familiarly acquainted, and which he could readily

supply. And his Voltairian face leered politely as he listened to

Ratcliffe's reply, which showed invariable ignorance of common

literature, art, and history. The climax of his triumph came one

evening when Ratcliffe unluckily, tempted by some allusion to

Molière which he thought he understood, made reference to the

unfortunate influence of that great man on the religious opinions

of his time. Jacobi, by a flash of inspiration, divined that he had

confused Molière with Voltaire, and assuming a manner of

extreme suavity, he put his victim on the rack, and tortured him

with affected explanations and interrogations, until Madeleine was

in a manner forced to interrupt and end the scene. But even when

the senator was not to be lured into a trap, he could not escape

assault. The baron in such a case would cross the lines and attack

him on his own ground, as on one occasion, when Ratcliffe was

defending his doctrine of party allegiance, Jacobi silenced him by

sneering somewhat thus:

 

"Your principle is quite correct, Mr. Senator. I, too, like yourself,

was once a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was

ultramontane.

 

Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your

National Convention is our OEcumenic Council; you abdicate

reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself, Mr.

Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal. They are able men, those cardinals; I

have known many; they were our best friends, but they were not

reformers. Are you a reformer, Mr. Senator?"

 

Ratcliffe grew to dread and hate the old man, but all his ordinary

tactics were powerless against this impenetrable eighteenth

century cynic. If he resorted to his Congressional practise of

browbeating and dogmatism, the Baron only smiled and turned his

back, or made some remark in French which galled his enemy all

the more, because, while he did not understand it, he knew well

that Madeleine did, and that she tried to repress her smile.

 

Ratcliffe's grey eyes grew colder and stonier than ever as he

gradually perceived that Baron Jacobi was carrying on a set

scheme with malignant ingenuity, to drive him out of Madeleine's

house, and he swore a terrible oath that he would not be beaten by

that monkey-faced foreigner. On the other hand Jacobi had little

hope of success: "What can an old man do?" said he with perfect

sincerity to Carrington; "If I were forty years younger, that great

oaf should not have his own way. Ah! I wish I were young again

and we were in Vienna!" From which it was rightly inferred by

Carrington that the venerable diplomatist would, if such acts were

still in fashion, have coolly insulted the Senator, and put a bullet

through his heart.

 

Chapter VI

 

IN February the weather became warmer and summer-like. In

Virginia there comes often at this season a deceptive gleam of

summer, slipping in between heavy storm-clouds of sleet and

snow; days and sometimes weeks when the temperature is like

June; when the earliest plants begin to show their hardy flowers,

and when the bare branches of the forest trees alone protest against

the conduct of the seasons. Then men and women are languid; life,

seems, as in Italy, sensuous and glowing with colour; one is

conscious of walking in an atmosphere that is warm, palpable,

radiant with possibilities; a delicate haze hangs over Arlington,

and softens even the harsh white glare of the Capitol; the struggle

of existence seems to abate; Lent throws its calm shadow over

society; and youthful diplomatists, unconscious of their danger, are

lured into asking foolish girls to marry them; the blood thaws in

the heart and flows out into the veins, like the rills of sparkling

water that trickle from every lump of ice or snow, as though all the

ice and snow on earth, and all the hardness of heart, all the heresy

and schism, all the works of the devil, had yielded to the force of

love and to the fresh warmth of innocent, lamb-like, confiding

virtue. In such a world there should be no guile--but there is a great

deal of it notwithstanding. Indeed, at no other season is there so

much. This is the moment when the two whited sepulchres at

either end of the Avenue reek with the thick atmosphere of bargain

and sale. The old is going; the new is coming. Wealth, office,

power are at auction. Who bids highest? who hates with most

venom? who intrigues with most skill? who has done the dirtiest,

the meanest, the darkest, and the most, political work? He shall

have his reward.

 

Senator Ratcliffe was absorbed and ill at ease. A swarm of

applicants for office dogged his steps and beleaguered his rooms in

quest of his endorsement of their paper characters. The new

President was to arrive on Monday. Intrigues and combinations, of

which the Senator was the soul, were all alive, awaiting this

arrival. Newspaper correspondents pestered him with questions.

Brother senators called him to conferences. His mind was

pre-occupied with his own interests. One might have supposed

that, at this instant, nothing could have drawn him away from the

political gaming-table, and yet when Mrs. Lee remarked that she

was going to Mount Vernon on Saturday with a little party,

including the British Minister and an Irish gentleman staying as a

guest at the British Legation, the Senator surprised her by

expressing a strong wish to join them. He explained that, as the

political lead was no longer in his hands, the chances were nine in

ten that if he stirred at all he should make a blunder; that his

friends expected him to do something when, in fact, nothing could

be done; that every preparation had already been made, and that

for him to go on an excursion to Mount Vernon, at this moment,

with the British Minister, was, on the whole, about the best use he

could make of his time, since it would hide him for one day at

least.

 

Lord Skye had fallen into the habit of consulting Mrs. Lee when

his own social resources were low, and it was she who had

suggested this party to Mount Vernon, with Carrington for a guide

and Mr. Gore for variety, to occupy the time of the Irish friend

whom Lord Skye was bravely entertaining.

 

This gentleman, who bore the title of Dunbeg, was a dilapidated

peer, neither wealthy nor famous. Lord Skye brought him to call

on Mrs. Lee, and in some sort put him under her care. He was

young, not ill-looking, quite intelligent, rather too fond of facts,

and not quick at humour. He was given to smiling in a deprecatory

way, and when he talked, he was either absent or excited; he made

vague blunders, and then smiled in deprecation of offence, or his

words blocked their own path in their rush. Perhaps his manner

was a little ridiculous, but he had a good heart, a good head, and a

title. He found favour in the eyes of Sybil and Victoria Dare, who

declined to admit other women to the party, although they offered

no objection to Mr.

 

Ratcliffe's admission. As for Lord Dunbeg, he was an enthusiastic

admirer of General Washington, and, as he privately intimated,

eager to study phases of American society. He was delighted to go

with a small party, and Miss Dare secretly promised herself that

she would show him a phase.

 

The morning was warm, the sky soft, the little steamer lay at the

quiet wharf with a few negroes lazily watching her preparations for

departure.

 

Carrington, with Mrs. Lee and the young ladies, arrived first, and

stood leaning against the rail, waiting the arrival of their

companions. Then came Mr. Gore, neatly attired and gloved, with

a light spring overcoat; for Mr.

 

Gore was very careful of his personal appearance, and not a little

vain of his good looks. Then a pretty woman, with blue eyes and

blonde hair, dressed in black, and leading a little girl by the hand,

came on board, and Carrington went to shake hands with her. On

his return to Mrs. Lee's side, she asked about his new

acquaintance, and he replied with a half-laugh, as though he were

not proud of her, that she was a client, a pretty widow, well known

in Washington. "Any one at the Capitol would tell you all about

her.

 

She was the wife of a noted lobbyist, who died about two years

ago.

 

Congressmen can refuse nothing to a pretty face, and she was their

idea of feminine perfection. Yet she is a silly little woman, too.

Her husband died after a very short illness, and, to my great

surprise, made me executor under his will. I think he had an idea

that he could trust me with his papers, which were important and

compromising, for he seems to have had no time to go over them

and destroy what were best out of the way. So, you see, I am left

with his widow and child to look after. Luckily, they are well

provided for."

 

"Still you have not told me her name." "Her name is Baker--Mrs.

Sam Baker. But they are casting off, and Mr.

 

Ratcliffe will be left behind. I'll ask the captain to wait." About a

dozen passengers had arrived, among them the two Earls, with a

footman carrying a promising lunch-basket, and the planks were

actually hauled in when a carriage dashed up to the whatf, and Mr.

Ratcliffe leaped out and hurried on board. "Off with you as quick

as you can!" said he to the negro-hands, and in another moment the

little steamer had begun her journey, pounding the muddy waters

of the Potomac and sending up its small column of smoke as

though it were a newly invented incense-burner approaching the

temple of the national deity. Ratcliffe explained in great glee how

he had barely managed to escape his visitors by telling them that

the British Minister was waiting for him, and that he would be

back again presently. "If they had known where I was going," said

he, "you would have seen the boat swamped with office-seekers.

Illinois alone would have brought you to a watery grave." He was

in high spirits, bent upon enjoying his holiday, and as they passed

the arsenal with its solitary sentry, and the navy-yard, with its one

unseaworthy wooden war-steamer, he pointed out these evidences

of national grandeur to Lord Skye, threatening, as the last terror of

diplomacy, to send him home in an American frigate. They were

thus indulging in senatorial humour on one side of the boat, while

Sybil and Victoria, with the aid of Mr. Gore and Carrington, were

improving Lord Dunbeg's mind on the other.

 

Miss Dare, finding for herself at last a convenient seat where she

could repose and be mistress of the situation, put on a more than

usually demure expression and waited with gravity until her noble

neighbour should give her an opportunity to show those powers

which, as she believed, would supply a phase in his existence.

Miss Dare was one of those young persons, sometimes to be found

in America, who seem to have no object in life, and while

apparently devoted to men, care nothing about them, but find

happiness only in violating rules; she made no parade of whatever

virtues she had, and her chief pleasure was to make fun of all the

world and herself.

 

"What a noble river!" remarked Lord Dunbeg, as the boat passed

out upon the wide stream; "I suppose you often sail on it?"

 

"I never was here in my life till now," replied the untruthful Miss

Dare; "we don't think much of it; it s too small; we're used to so

much larger rivers."

 

"I am afraid you would not like our English rivers then; they are

mere brooks compared with this."

 

"Are they indeed?" said Victoria, with an appearance of vague

surprise; "how curious! I don't think I care to be an Englishwoman

then. I could not live without big rivers."

 

Lord Dunbeg stared, and hinted that this was almost unreasonable.

 

"Unless I were a Countess!" continued Victoria, meditatively,

looking at Alexandria, and paying no attention to his lordship; "I

think I could manage if I were a C-c-countess. It is such a pretty

title!"

 

"Duchess is commonly thought a prettier one," stammered

Dunbeg, much embarrassed. The young man was not used to chaff

from women.

 

"I should be satisfied with Countess. It sounds well. I am surprised

that you don't like it." Dunbeg looked about him uneasily for some

means of escape but he was barred in. "I should think you would

feel an awful responsibility in selecting a Countess. How do you

do it?"

 

Lord Dunbeg nervously joined in the general laughter as Sybil

ejaculated:

 

"Oh, Victoria!" but Miss Dare continued without a smile or any

elevation of her monotonous voice:

 

"Now, Sybil, don't interrupt me, please. I am deeply interested in

Lord Dunbeg's conversation. He understands that my interest is

purely scientific, but my happiness requires that I should know

how Countesses are selected.

 

Lord Dunbeg, how would you recommend a friend to choose a

Countess?"

 

Lord Dunbeg began to be amused by her impudence, and he even

tried to lay down for her satisfaction one or two rules for selecting

Countesses, but long before he had invented his first rule, Victoria

had darted off to a new subject.

 

"Which would you rather be, Lord Dunbeg? an Earl or George

Washington?"

 

"George Washington, certainly," was the Earl's courteous though

rather bewildered reply.

 

"Really?" she asked with a languid affectation of surprise; "it is

awfully kind of you to say so, but of course you can't mean it.

 

"Indeed I do mean it."

 

"Is it possible? I never should have thought it."

 

"Why not, Miss Dare?"

 

"You have not the air of wishing to be George Washington."

 

"May I again ask, why not?"

 

"Certainly. Did you ever see George Washington?"

 

"Of course not. He died fifty years before I was born."

 

"I thought so. You see you don't know him. Now, will you give us

an idea of what you imagine General Washington to have looked

like?"

 

Dunbeg gave accordingly a flattering description of General

Washington, compounded of Stuart's portrait and Greenough's

statue of Olympian Jove with Washington's features, in the Capitol

Square. Miss Dare listened with an expression of superiority not

unmlxed with patience, and then she enlightened him as follows:

 

"All you have been saying is perfect stuff--excuse the vulgarity of

the expression. When I am a Countess I will correct my language.

The truth is that General Washington was a raw-boned country

farmer, very hard-featured, very awkward, very illiterate and very

dull; very bad tempered, very profane, and generally tipsy after

dinner."

 

"You shock me, Miss Dare!" exclaimed Dunbeg.

 

"Oh! I know all about General Washington. My grandfather knew

him intimately, and often stayed at Mount Vernon for weeks

together. You must not believe what you read, and not a word of

what Mr. Carrington will say.

 

He is a Virginian and will tell you no end of fine stories and not a

syllable of truth in one of them. We are all patriotic about

Washington and like to hide his faults. If I weren't quite sure you

would never repeat it, I would not tell you this. The truth is that

even when George Washington was a small boy, his temper was so

violent that no one could do anything with him. He once cut down

all his father's fruit-trees in a fit of passion, and then, just because

they wanted to flog him, he threatened to brain his father with the

hatchet. His aged wife suffered agonies from him. My grandfather

often told me how he had seen the General pinch and swear at her

till the poor creature left the room in tears; and how once at Mount

Vernon he saw Washington, when quite an old man, suddenly rush

at an unoffending visitor, and chase him off the place, beating him

all the time over the head with a great stick with knots in it, and all

just because he heard the poor man stammer; he never could abide

s-s-stammering."

 

Carrington and Gore burst into shouts of laughter over this

description of the Father of his country, but Victoria continued in

her gentle drawl to enlighten Lord Dunbeg in regard to other

subjects with information equally mendacious, until he decided

that she was quite the most eccentric person he had ever met. The

boat arrived at Mount Vernon while she was still engaged in a

description of the society and manners of America, and especially

of the rules which made an offer of marriage necessary. According

to her, Lord Dunbeg was in imminent peril; gentlemen, and

especially foreigners, were expected, in all the States south of the

Potomac, to offer themselves to at least one young lady in every

city: "and I had only yesterday," said Victoria, "a letter from a

lovely girl in North Carolina, a dear friend of mine, who wrote me

that she was right put out because her brothers had called on a

young English visitor with shot guns, and she was afraid he

wouldn't recover, and, after all, she says she should have refused

him."

 

Meanwhile Madeleine, on the other side of the boat, undisturbed

by the laughter that surrounded Miss Dare, chatted soberly and

seriously with Lord Skye and Senator Ratcliffe. Lord Skye, too, a

little intoxicated by the brilliancy of the morning, broke out into

admiration of the noble river, and accused Americans of not

appreciating the beauties of their own country.

 

"Your national mind," said he, "has no eyelids. It requires a broad

glare and a beaten road. It prefers shadows which you can cut out

with a knife. It doesn't know the beauty of this Virginia winter

softness."

 

Mrs. Lee resented the charge. America, she maintained, had not

worn her feelings threadbare like Europe. She had still her story to

tell; she was waiting for her Burns and Scott, her Wordsworth and

Byron, her Hogarth and Turner. "You want peaches in spring," said

she. "Give us our thousand years of summer, and then complain, if

you please, that our peach is not as mellow as yours. Even our

voices may be soft then," she added, with a significant look at Lord

Skye.

 

"We are at a disadvantage in arguing with Mrs. Lee," said he to

Ratcliffe; "when she ends as counsel, she begins as witness. The

famous Duchess of Devonshire's lips were not half as convincing

as Mrs. Lee's voice."

 

Ratcliffe listened carefully, assenting whenever he saw that Mrs.

Lee wished it. He wished he understood precisely what tones and

half-tones, colours and harmonies, were.

 

They arrived and strolled up the sunny path. At the tomb they

halted, as all good Americans do, and Mr. Gore, in a tone of

subdued sorrow, delivered a short address--

 

"It might be much worse if they improved it," he said, surveying its

proportions with the ?sthetic eye of a cultured Bostonian. "As it

stands, this tomb is a simple misfortune which might befall any of

us; we should not grieve over it too much. What would our

feelings be if a Congressional committee reconstructed it of white

marble with Gothic pepper-pots, and gilded it inside on

machine-moulded stucco!"

 

Madeleine, however, insisted that the tomb, as it stood, was the

only restless spot about the quiet landscape, and that it

contradicted all her ideas about repose in the grave. Ratcliffe

wondered what she meant.

 

They passed on, wandering across the lawn, and through the house.

Their eyes, weary of the harsh colours and forms of the city, took

pleasure in the worn wainscots and the stained walls. Some of the

rooms were still occupied; fires were burning in the wide

fire-places. All were tolerably furnished, and there was no

uncomfortable sense of repair or newness. They mounted the

stairs, and Mrs. Lee fairly laughed when she was shown the room

in which General Washington slept, and where he died.

 

Carrington smiled too. "Our old Virginia houses were mostly like

this," said he; "suites of great halls below, and these gaunt barracks

above. The Virginia house was a sort of hotel. When there was a

race or a wedding, or a dance, and the house was full, they thought

nothing of packing half a dozen people in one room, and if the

room was large, they stretched a sheet a cross to separate the men

from the women. As for toilet, those were not the mornings of cold

baths. With our ancestors a little washing went a long way."

 

"Do you still live so in Virginia?" asked Madeleine.

 

"Oh no, it is quite gone. We live now like other country people,

and try to pay our debts, which that generation never did. They

lived from hand to mouth. They kept a stable-full of horses. The

young men were always riding about the country, betting on

horse-races, gambling, drinking, fighting, and making love. No one

knew exactly what he was worth until the crash came about fifty

years ago, and the whole thing ran out."

 

"Just what happened in Ireland!" said Lord Dunbeg, much

interested and full of his article in the Quarterly; "the resemblance

is perfect, even down to the houses."

 

Mrs. Lee asked Carrington bluntly whether he regretted the

destruction of this old social arrangement.

 

"One can't help regretting," said he, "whatever it was that produced

George Washington, and a crowd of other men like him. But I

think we might produce the men still if we had the same field for

them."

 

"And would you bring the old society back again if you could?"

asked she.

 

"What for? It could not hold itself up. General Washington himself

could not save it. Before he died he had lost his hold on Virginia,

and his power was gone."

 

The party for a while separated, and Mrs. Lee found herself alone

in the great drawing-room. Presently the blonde Mrs. Baker

entered, with her child, who ran about making more noise than

Mrs. Washington would have permitted.

 

Madeleine, who had the usual feminine love of children, called the

girl to her and pointed out the shepherds and shepherdesses carved

on the white Italian marble of the fireplace; she invented a little

story about them to amuse the child, while the mother stood by and

at the end thanked the story-teller with more enthusiasm than

seemed called for. Mrs. Lee did not fancy her effusive manner, or

her complexion, and was glad when Dunbeg appeared at the

doorway.

 

"How do you like General Washington at home?" asked she.

 

"Really, I assure you I feel quite at home myself," replied Dunbeg,

with a more beaming smile than ever. "I am sure General

Washington was an Irishman.

 

I know it from the look of the place. I mean to look it up and write

an article about it."

 

"Then if you have disposed of him," said Madeleine, "I think we

will have luncheon, and I have taken the liberty to order it to be

served outside."

 

There a table had been improvised, and Miss Dare was inspecting

the lunch, and making comments upon Lord Skye's cuisine and

cellar.

 

"I hope it is very dry champagne," said she, "the taste for sweet

champagne is quite awfully shocking."

 

The young woman knew no more about dry and sweet champagne

than of the wine of Ulysses, except that she drank both with equal

satisfaction, but she was mimicking a Secretary of the British

Legation who had provided her with supper at her last evening

party. Lord Skye begged her to try it, which she did, and with great

gravity remarked that it was about five per cent. she presumed.

This, too, was caught from her Secretary, though she knew no

more what it meant than if she had been a parrot.

 

The luncheon was very lively and very good. When it was over, the

gentlemen were allowed to smoke, and conversation fell into a

sober strain, which at last threatened to become serious.

 

"You want half-tones!" said Madeleine to Lord Skye: "are there not

half-tones enough to suit you on the walls of this house?"

 

Lord Skye suggested that this was probably owing to the fact that

Washington, belonging, as he did, to the universe, was in his taste

an exception to local rules.

 

"Is not the sense of rest here captivating?" she continued. "Look at

that quaint garden, and this ragged lawn, and the great river in

front, and the superannuated fort beyond the river! Everything is

peaceful, even down to the poor old General's little bed-room. One

would like to lie down in it and sleep a century or two. And yet

that dreadful Capitol and its office-seekers are only ten miles off."

 

"No! that is more than I can bear!" broke in Miss Victoria in a

stage whisper, "that dreadful Capitol! Why, not one of us would be

here without that dreadful Capitol! except, perhaps, myself."

 

"You would appear very well as Mrs. Washington, Victoria."

 

"Miss Dare has been so very obliging as to give us her views of

General Washington's character this morning," said Dunbeg, "but I

have not yet had time to ask Mr. Carrington for his."

 

"Whatever Miss Dare says is valuable," replied Carrington, "but

her strong point is facts."

 

"Never flatter! Mr. Carrington," drawled Miss Dare; "I do not need

it, and it does not become your style. Tell me, Lord Dunbeg, is not

Mr. Carrington a little your idea of General Washington restored to

us in his prime?"

 

"After your account of General Washington, Miss Dare, how can I

agree with you?"

 

"After all," said Lord Skye, "I think we must agree that Miss Dare

is in the main right about the charms of Mount Vernon. Even Mrs.

Lee, on the way up, agreed that the General, who is the only

permanent resident here, has the air of being confoundedly bored

in his tomb. I don't myself love your dreadful Capitol yonder, but I

prefer it to a bucolic life here. And I account in this way for my

want of enthusiasm for your great General. He liked no kind of life

but this. He seems to have been greater in the character of a

home-sick Virginia planter than as General or President. I forgive

him his inordinate dulness, for he was not a diplomatist and it was

not his business to lie, but he might once in a way have forgotten

Mount Vernon."

 

Dunbeg here burst in with an excited protest; all his words seemed

to shove each other aside in their haste to escape first. "All our

greatest Englishmen have been home-sick country squires. I am a

home-sick country squire myself."

 

"How interesting!" said Miss Dare under her breath.

 

Mr. Gore here joined in: "It is all very well for you gentlemen to

measure General Washington according to your own private

twelve-inch carpenter's rule. But what will you say to us New

Englanders who never were country gentlemen at all, and never

had any liking for Virginia? What did Washington ever do for us?

He never even pretended to like us. He never was more than barely

civil to us. I'm not finding fault with him; everybody knows that he

never cared for anything but Mount Vernon. For all that, we

idolize him. To us he is Morality, Justice, Duty, Truth; half a

dozen Roman gods with capital letters. He is austere, solitary,

grand; he ought to be deified. I hardly feel easy, eating, drinking,

smoking here on his portico without his permission, taking

liberties with his house, criticising his bedrooms in his absence.

Suppose I heard his horse now trotting up on the other side, and he

suddenly appeared at this door and looked at us. I should abandon

you to his indignation. I should run away and hide myself on the

steamer. The mere thought unmans me."

 

Ratcliffe seemed amused at Gore's half-serious notions. "You

recall to me,"

 

said he, "my own feelings when I was a boy and was made by my

father to learn the Farewell Address by heart. In those days

General Washington was a sort of American Jehovah. But the

West is a poor school for Reverence. Since coming to Congress I

have learned more about General Washington, and have been

surprised to find what a narrow base his reputation rests on. A fair

military officer, who made many blunders, and who never had

more men than would make a full army-corps under his command,

he got an enormous reputation in Europe because he did not make

himself king, as though he ever had a chance of doing it. A

respectable, painstaking President, he was treated by the

Opposition with an amount of deference that would have made

government easy to a baby, but it worried him to death. His official

papers are fairly done, and contain good average sense such as a

hundred thousand men in the United States would now write. I

suspect that half of his attachment to this spot rose from his

consciousness of inferior powers and his dread of responsibility.

This government can show to-day a dozen men of equal abilities,

but we don't deify them. What I most wonder at in him is not his

military or political genius at all, for I doubt whether he had much,

but a curious Yankee shrewdness in money matters. He thought

himself a very rich man, yet he never spent a dollar foolishly. He

was almost the only Virginian I ever heard of, in public life, who

did not die insolvent."

 

During this long speech, Carrington glanced across at Madeleine,

and caught her eye. Ratcliffe's criticism was not to her taste.

Carrington could see that she thought it unworthy of him, and he

knew that it would irritate her.

 

"I will lay a little trap for Mr. Ratcliffe," thought he to himself;

"we will see whether he gets out of it." So Carrington began, and

all listened closely, for, as a Virginian, he was supposed to know

much about the subject, and his family had been deep in the

confidence of Washington himself.

 

"The neighbours hereabout had for many years, and may have still,

some curious stories about General Washington's closeness in

money matters. They said he never bought anything by weight but

he had it weighed over again, nor by tale but he had it counted, and

if the weight or number were not exact, he sent it back. Once,

during his absence, his steward had a room plastered, and paid the

plasterer's bill. On the General's return, he measured the room, and

found that the plasterer had charged fifteen shillings too much.

Meanwhile the man had died, and the General made a claim of

fifteen shillings on his estate, which was paid. Again, one of his

tenants brought him the rent. The exact change of fourpence was

required.

 

The man tendered a dollar, and asked the General to credit him

with the balance against the next year's rent. The General refused

and made him ride nine miles to Alexandria and back for the

fourpence. On the other hand, he sent to a shoemaker in

Alexandria to come and measure him for shoes. The man returned

word that he did not go to any one's house to take measures, and

the General mounted his horse and rode the nine miles to him. One

of his rules was to pay at taverns the same sum for his servants'

meals as for his own. An inn-keeper brought him a bill of

three-and-ninepence for his own breakfast, and three shillings for

his servant. He insisted upon adding the extra ninepence, as he did

not doubt that the servant had eaten as much as he. What do you

say to these anecdotes? Was this meanness or not?"

 

Ratcliffe was amused. "The stories are new to me," he said. "It is

just as I thought. These are signs of a man who thinks much of

trifles; one who fusses over small matters. We don't do things in

that way now that we no longer have to get crops from granite, as

they used to do in New Hampshire when I was a boy."

 

Carrington replied that it was unlucky for Virginians that they had

not done things in that way then: if they had, they would not have

gone to the dogs.

 

Gore shook his head seriously; "Did I not tell you so?" said he.

"Was not this man an abstract virtue? I give you my word I stand in

awe before him, and I feel ashamed to pry into these details of his

life. What is it to us how he thought proper to apply his principles

to nightcaps and feather dusters? We are not his body servants, and

we care nothing about his infirmities. It is enough for us to know

that he carried his rules of virtue down to a pin's point, and that we

ought, one and all, to be on our knees before his tomb."

 

Dunbeg, pondering deeply, at length asked Carrington whether all

this did not make rather a clumsy politician of the father of his

country.

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe knows more about politics than I. Ask him," said

Carrington.

 

"Washington was no politician at all, as we understand the word,"

replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outside of politics. The thing

couldn't be done to-day. The people don't like that sort of royal

airs."

 

"I don't understand!" said Mrs. Lee. "Why could you not do it

now?"

 

"Because I should make a fool of myself;" replied Ratcliffe,

pleased to think that Mrs. Lee should put him on a level with

Washington. She had only meant to ask why the thing could not be

done, and this little touch of Ratcliffe's vanity was inimitable.

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe means that Washington was too respectable for our

time,"

 

interposed Carrington.

 

This was deliberately meant to irritate Ratcliffe, and it did so all

the more because Mrs. Lee turned to Carrington, and said, with

some bitterness:

 

"Was he then the only honest public man we ever had?"

 

"Oh no!" replied Carrington cheerfully; "there have been one or

two others."

 

"If the rest of our Presidents had been like him," said Gore, "we

should have had fewer ugly blots on our short history."

 

Ratcliffe was exasperated at Carrington's habit of drawing

discussion to this point. He felt the remark as a personal insult, and

he knew it to be intended. "Public men," he broke out, "cannot be

dressing themselves to-day in Washington's old clothes. If

Washington were President now, he would have to learn our ways

or lose his next election. Only fools and theorists imagine that our

society can be handled with gloves or long poles. One must make

one's self a part of it. If virtue won't answer our purpose, we must

use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as

true in Washington's day as it is now, and always will be."

 

"Come," said Lord Skye, who was beginning to fear an open

quarrel; "the conversation verges on treason, and I am accredited

to this government. Why not examine the grounds?"

 

A kind of natural sympathy led Lord Dunbeg to wander by the side

of Miss Dare through the quaint old garden. His mind being much

occupied by the effort of stowing away the impressions he had just

received, he was more than usually absent in his manner, and this

want of attention irritated the young lady. She made some

comments on flowers; she invented some new species with

startling names; she asked whether these were known in Ireland;

but Lord Dunbeg was for the moment so vague in his answers that

she saw her case was perilous.

 

"Here is an old sun-dial. Do you have sun-dials in Ireland, Lord

Dunbeg?"

 

"Yes; oh, certainly! What! sun-dials? Oh, yes! I assure you there

are a great many sun-dials in Ireland, Miss Dare."

 

"I am so glad. But I suppose they are only for ornament. Here it is

just the other way. Look at this one! they all behave like that. The

wear and tear of our sun is too much for them; they don't last. My

uncle, who has a place at Long Branch, had five sun-dials in ten

years."

 

"How very odd! But really now, Miss Dare, I don't see how a

sun--dial could wear out."

 

"Don't you? How strange! Don't you see, they get soaked with

sunshine so that they can't hold shadow. It's like me, you know. I

have such a good time all the time that I can't be unhappy. Do you

ever read the Burlington Hawkeye, Lord Dunbeg?"

 

"I don't remember; I think not. Is it an American serial?" gasped

Dunbeg, trying hard to keep pace with Miss Dare in her reckless

dashes across country.

 

"No, not serial at all!" replied Virginia; "but I am afraid you would

find it very hard reading. I shouldn't try."

 

"Do you read it much, Miss Dare?"

 

"Oh, always! I am not really as light as I seem. But then I have an

advantage over you because I know the language."

 

By this time Dunbeg was awake again, and Miss Dare, satisfied

with her success, allowed herself to become more reasonable, until

a slight shade of sentiment began to flicker about their path.

 

The scattered party, however, soon had to unite again. The boat

rang its bell for return, they filed down the paths and settled

themselves in their old places. As they steamed away, Mrs. Lee

watched the sunny hill-side and the peaceful house above, until she

could see them no more, and the longer she looked, the less she

was pleased with herself. Was it true, as Victoria Dare said, that

she could not live in so pure an air? Did she really need the denser

fumes of the city? Was she, unknown to herself; gradually

becoming tainted with the life about her? or was Ratcliffe right in

accepting the good and the bad together, and in being of his time

since he was in it? Why was it, she said bitterly to herself; that

everything Washington touched, he purified, even down to the

associations of his house?

 

and why is it that everything we touch seems soiled? Why do I feel

unclean when I look at Mount Vernon? In spite of Mr. Ratcliffe, is

it not better to be a child and to cry for the moon and stars?

 

The little Baker girl came up to her where she stood, and began

playing with her parasol.

 

"Who is your little friend?" asked Ratcliffe.

 

Mrs. Lee rather vaguely replied that she was the daughter of that

pretty woman in black; she believed her name was Baker.

 

"Baker, did you say?" repeated Ratcliffe.

 

"Baker--Mrs. Sam Baker; at least so Mr. Carrington told me; he

said she was a client of his."

 

In fact Ratcliffe soon saw Carrington go up to her and remain by

her side during the rest of the trip. Ratcliffe watched them sharply

and grew more and more absorbed in his own thoughts as the boat

drew nearer and nearer the shore.

 

Carrington was in high spirits. He thought he had played his cards

with unusual success. Even Miss Dare deigned to acknowledge his

charms that day.

 

She declared herself to be the moral image of Martha Washington,

and she started a discussion whether Carrington or Lord Dunbeg

would best suit her in the r?le of the General.

 

"Mr. Carrington is exemplary," she said, "but oh, what joy to be

Martha Washington and a Countess too!"

 

Chapter VII

 

WHEN he reached his rooms that afternoon, Senator Ratcliffe

found there, as he expected, a choice company of friends and

admirers, who had beguiled their leisure hours since noon by

cursing him in every variety of profane language that experience

could suggest and impatience stimulate. On his part, had he

consulted his own feelings only, he would then and there have

turned them out, and locked the doors behind them. So far as silent

maledictions were concerned, no profanity of theirs could hold its

own against the intensity and deliberation with which, as he found

himself approaching his own door, he expressed between his teeth

his views in respect to their eternal interests. Nothing could be less

suited to his present humour than the society which awaited him in

his rooms. He groaned in spirit as he sat down at his writing-table

and looked about him. Dozens of office-seekers were besieging the

house; men whose patriotic services in the last election called

loudly for recognition from a grateful country.

 

They brought their applications to the Senator with an entreaty that

he would endorse and take charge of them. Several members and

senators who felt that Ratcliffe had no reason for existence except

to fight their battle for patronage, were lounging about his room,

reading newspapers, or beguiling their time with tobacco in

various forms; at long intervals making dull remarks, as though

they were more weary than their constituents of the atmosphere

that surrounds the grandest government the sun ever shone upon.

 

Several newspaper correspondents, eager to barter their news for

Ratcliffe's hints or suggestions, appeared from time to time on the

scene, and, dropping into a chair by Ratcliffe's desk, whispered

with him in mysterious tones.

 

Thus the Senator worked on, hour after hour, mechanically doing

what was required of him, signing papers without reading them,

answering remarks without hearing them, hardly looking up from

his desk, and appearing immersed in labour. This was his

protection against curiosity and garrulity.

 

The pretence of work was the curtain he drew between himself and

the world.

 

Behind this curtain his mental operations went on, undisturbed by

what was about him, while he heard all that was said, and said

little or nothing himself. His followers respected this privacy, and

left him alone. He was their prophet, and had a right to seclusion.

He was their chieftain, and while he sat in his monosyllabic

solitude, his ragged tail reclined in various attitudes about him,

and occasionally one man spoke, or another swore. Newspapers

and tobacco were their resource in periods of absolute silence.

 

A shade of depression rested on the faces and the voices of Clan

Ratcliffe that evening, as is not unusual with forces on the eve of

battle. Their remarks came at longer intervals, and were more

pointless and random than usual. There was a want of elasticity in

their bearing and tone, partly coming from sympathy with the

evident depression of their chief; partly from the portents of the

time. The President was to arrive within forty-eight hours, and as

yet there was no sign that he properly appreciated their services;

there were signs only too unmistakeable that he was painfully

misled and deluded, that his countenance was turned wholly in

another direction, and that all their sacrifices were counted as

worthless. There was reason to believe that he came with a

deliberate purpose of making war upon Ratcliffe and breaking him

down; of refusing to bestow patronage on them, and of bestowing

it wherever it would injure them most deeply. At the thought that

their honestly earned harvest of foreign missions and consulates,

department-bureaus, custom-house and revenue offices,

postmasterships, Indian agencies, and army and navy contracts,

might now be wrung from their grasp by the selfish greed of a

mere accidental intruder--a man whom nobody wanted and every

one ridiculed--their natures rebelled, and they felt that such things

must not be; that there could be no more hope for democratic

government if such things were possible. At this point they

invariably became excited, lost their equanimity, and swore. Then

they fell back on their faith in Ratcliffe: if any man could pull

them through, he could; after all, the President must first reckon

with him, and he was an uncommon tough customer to tackle.

 

Perhaps, however, even their faith in Ratcliffe might have been

shaken, could they at that moment have looked into his mind and

understood what was passing there. Ratcliffe was a man vastly

their superior, and he knew it. He lived in a world of his own and

had instincts of refinement. Whenever his affairs went

unfavourably, these instincts revived, and for the time swept all his

nature with them. He was now filled with disgust and cynical

contempt for every form of politics. During long years he had done

his best for his party; he had sold himself to the devil, coined his

heart's blood, toiled with a dogged persistence that no day-labourer

ever conceived; and all for what? To be rejected as its candidate;

to be put under the harrow of a small Indiana farmer who made no

secret of the intention to "corral" him, and, as he elegantly

expressed it, to "take his hide and tallow." Ratcliffe had no great

fear of losing his hide, but he felt aggrieved that he should be

called upon to defend it, and that this should be the result of

twenty years' devotion. Like most men in the same place, he did

not stop to cast up both columns of his account with the party, nor

to ask himself the question that lay at the heart of his grievance:

How far had he served his party and how far himself? He was in no

humour for self-analysis: this requires more repose of mind than he

could then command. As for the President, from whom he had not

heard a whisper since the insolent letter to Grimes, which he had

taken care not to show, the Senator felt only a strong impulse to

teach him better sense and better manners. But as for political life,

the events of the last six months were calculated to make any man

doubt its value. He was quite out of sympathy with it. He hated the

sight of his tobacco-chewing, newspaper-reading satellites, with

their hats tipped at every angle except the right one, and their feet

everywhere except on the floor. Their conversation bored him and

their presence was a nuisance. He would not submit to this slavery

longer. He would have given his Senatorship for a civilized house

like Mrs. Lee's, with a woman like Mrs. Lee at its head, and twenty

thousand a year for life. He smiled his only smile that evening

when he thought how rapidly she would rout every man Jack of his

political following out of her parlours, and how meekly they would

submit to banishment into a back-office with an oil-cloth carpet

and two cane chairs.

 

He felt that Mrs. Lee was more necessary to him than the

Presidency itself; he could not go on without her; he needed

human companionship; some Christian comfort for his old age;

some avenue of communication with that social world, which

made his present surroundings look cold and foul; some touch of

that refinement of mind and morals beside which his own seemed

coarse. He felt unutterably lonely. He wished Mrs. Lee had asked

him home to dinner; but Mrs. Lee had gone to bed with a

headache. He should not see her again for a week. Then his mind

turned back upon their morning at Mount Vernon, and bethinking

himself of Mrs. Sam Baker, he took a sheet of note-paper, and

wrote a line to Wilson Keen, Esq., at Georgetown, requesting him

to call, if possible, the next morning towards one o'clock at the

Senator's rooms on a matter of business. Wilson Keen was chief of

the Secret Service Bureau in the Treasury Department, and, as the

depositary of all secrets, was often called upon for assistance

which he was very good-natured in furnishing to senators,

especially if they were likely to be Secretaries of the Treasury.

 

This note despatched, Mr. Ratcliffe fell back into his reflective

mood, which led him apparently into still lower depths of

discontent until, with a muttered oath, he swore he could "stand no

more of this," and, suddenly rising, he informed his visitors that he

was sorry to leave them, but he felt rather poorly and was going to

bed; and to bed he went, while his guests departed, each as his

business or desires might point him, some to drink whiskey and

some to repose.

 

On Sunday morning Mr. Ratcliffe, as usual, went to church. He

always attended morning service--at the Methodist Episcopal

Church--not wholly on the ground of religious conviction, but

because a large number of his constituents were church-going

people and he would not willingly shock their principles so long as

he needed their votes. In church, he kept his eyes closely fixed

upon the clergyman, and at the end of the sermon he could say

with truth that he had not heard a word of it, although the

respectable minister was gratified by the attention his discourse

had received from the Senator from Illinois, an attention all the

more praiseworthy because of the engrossing public cares which

must at that moment have distracted the Senator's mind. In this last

idea, the minister was right. Mr. Ratcliffe's mind was greatly

distracted by public cares, and one of his strongest reasons for

going to church at all was that he might get an hour or two of

undisturbed reflection. During the entire service he was absorbed

in carrying on a series of imaginary conversations with the new

President. He brought up in succession every form of proposition

which the President might make to him; every trap which could be

laid for him; every sort of treatment he might expect, so that he

could not be taken by surprise, and his frank, simple nature could

never be at a loss. One object, however, long escaped him.

Supposing, what was more than probable, that the President's

opposition to Ratcliffe's declared friends made it impossible to

force any of them into office; it would then be necessary to try

some new man, not obnoxious to the President, as a candidate for

the Cabinet. Who should this be? Ratcliffe pondered long and

deeply, searching out a man who combined the most powerful

interests, with the fewest enmities. This subject was still

uppermost at the moment when service ended. Ratcliffe pondered

over it as he walked back to his rooms. Not until he reached his

own door did he come to a conclusion:

 

Carson would do; Carson of Pennsylvania; the President had

probably never heard of him.

 

Mr. Wilson Keen was waiting the Senator's return, a heavy man

with a square face, and good-natured, active blue eyes; a man of

few words and those well-considered. The interview was brief.

After apologising for breaking in upon Sunday with business, Mr.

Ratcliffe excused himself on the ground that so little time was left

before the close of the session. A bill now before one of his

Committees, on which a report must soon be made, involved

matters to which it was believed that the late Samuel Baker,

formerly a well-known lobby-agent in Washington, held the only

clue. He being dead, Mr. Ratcliffe wished to know whether he had

left any papers behind him, and in whose hands these papers were,

or whether any partner or associate of his was acquainted with his

affairs.

 

Mr. Keen made a note of the request, merely remarking that he had

been very well acquainted with Baker, and also a little with his

wife, who was supposed to know his affairs as well as he knew

them himself; and who was still in Washington. He thought he

could bring the information in a day or two. As he then rose to go,

Mr. Ratcliffe added that entire secrecy was necessary, as the

interests involved in obstructing the search were considerable, and

it was not well to wake them up. Mr. Keen assented and went his

way.

 

All this was natural enough and entirely proper, at least so far as

appeared on the surface. Had Mr. Keen been so curious in other

people's affairs as to look for the particular legislative measure

which lay at the bottom of Mr.

 

Ratcliffe's inquiries, he might have searched among the papers of

Congress a very long time and found himself greatly puzzled at

last. In fact there was no measure of the kind. The whole story was

a fiction. Mr. Ratcliffe had scarcely thought of Baker since his

death, until the day before, when he had seen his widow on the

Mount Vernon steamer and had found her in relations with

Carrington. Something in Carrington's habitual attitude and

manner towards himself had long struck him as peculiar, and this

connection with Mrs. Baker had suggested to the Senator the idea

that it might be well to have an eye on both. Mrs. Baker was a silly

woman, as he knew, and there were old transactions between

Ratcliffe and Baker of which she might be informed, but which

Ratcliffe had no wish to see brought within Mrs. Lee's ken. As for

the fiction invented to set Keen in motion, it was an innocent one.

It harmed nobody. Ratcliffe selected this particular method of

inquiry because it was the easiest, safest, and most effectual. If he

were always to wait until he could afford to tell the precise truth,

business would very soon be at a standstill, and his career at an

end.

 

This little matter disposed of; the Senator from Illinois passed his

afternoon in calling upon some of his brother senators, and the

first of those whom he honoured with a visit was Mr. Krebs, of

Pennsylvania. There were many reasons which now made the

co-operation of that high-minded statesman essential to Mr.

Ratcliffe. The strongest of them was that the Pennsylvania

delegation in Congress was well disciplined and could be used

with peculiar advantage for purposes of "pressure." Ratcliffe's

success in his contest with the new President depended on the

amount of "pressure" he could employ. To keep himself in the

background, and to fling over the head of the raw Chief Magistrate

a web of intertwined influences, any one of which alone would be

useless, but which taken together were not to be broken through; to

revive the lost art of the Roman retiarius, who from a safe distance

threw his net over his adversary, before attacking with the dagger;

this was Ratcliffe's intention and towards this he had been

directing all his manipulation for weeks past. How much

bargaining and how many promises he found it necessary to make,

was known to himself alone. About this time Mrs. Lee was a little

surprised to find Mr. Gore speaking with entire confidence of

having Ratcliffe's support in his application for the Spanish

mission, for she had rather imagined that Gore was not a favourite

with Ratcliffe. She noticed too that Schneidekoupon had come

back again and spoke mysteriously of interviews with Ratcliffe; of

attempts to unite the interests of New York and Pennsylvania; and

his countenance took on a dark and dramatic expression as he

proclaimed that no sacrifice of the principle of protection should

be tolerated. Schneidekoupon disappeared as suddenly as he came,

and from Sybil's innocent complaints of his spirits and temper,

Mrs. Lee jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Ratcliffe, Mr. Clinton,

and Mr.

 

Krebs had for the moment combined to sit heavily upon poor

Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the

scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These

were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's

observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but

she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington,

when she spoke to him about it, only laughed and shook his head:

 

"Those matters are private, my dear Mrs. Lee; you and I are not

meant to know such things."

 

This Sunday afternoon Mr. Ratcliffe's object was to arrange the

little manoeuvre about Carson of Pennsylvania, which had

disturbed him in church.

 

His efforts were crowned with success. Krebs accepted Carson and

promised to bring him forward at ten minutes' notice, should the

emergency arise.

 

Ratcliffe was a great statesman. The smoothness of his

manipulation was marvellous. No other man in politics, indeed no

other man who had ever been in politics in this country, could--his

admirers said--have brought together so many hostile interests and

made so fantastic a combination. Some men went so far as to

maintain that he would "rope in the President himself before the

old man had time to swap knives with him." The beauty of his

work consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of

principle. As he wisely said, the issue now involved was not one of

principle but of power.

 

The fate of that noble party to which they all belonged, and which

had a record that could never be forgotten, depended on their

letting principle alone. Their principle must be the want of

principles. There were indeed individuals who said in reply that

Ratcliffe had made promises which never could be carried out, and

there were almost superhuman elements of discord in the

combination, but as Ratcliffe shrewdly rejoined, he only wanted it

to last a week, and he guessed his promises would hold it up for

that time.

 

Such was the situation when on Monday afternoon the

President-elect arrived in Washington, and the comedy began. The

new President was, almost as much as Abraham Lincoln or

Franklin Pierce, an unknown quantity in political mathematics. In

the national convention of the party, nine months before, after

some dozens of fruitless ballots in which Ratcliffe wanted but

three votes of a majority, his opponents had done what he was now

doing; they had laid aside their principles and set up for their

candidate a plain Indiana farmer, whose political experience was

limited to stump-speaking in his native State, and to one term as

Governor. They had pitched upon him, not because they thought

him competent, but because they hoped by doing so to detach

Indiana from Ratcliffe's following, and they were so successful

that within fifteen minutes Ratcliffe's friends were routed, and the

Presidency had fallen upon this new political Buddha.

 

He had begun his career as a stone-cutter in a quarry, and was, not

unreasonably, proud of the fact. During the campaign this incident

had, of course, filled a large space in the public mind, or, more

exactly, in the public eye. "The Stone-cutter of the Wabash," he

was sometimes called; at others "the Hoosier Quarryman," but his

favourite appellation was "Old Granite," although this last

endearing name, owing to an unfortunate similarity of sound, was

seized upon by his opponents, and distorted into "Old Granny." He

had been painted on many thousand yards of cotton sheeting,

either with a terrific sledge-hammer, smashing the skulls (which

figured as paving-stones) of his political opponents, or splitting by

gigantic blows a huge rock typical of the opposing party. His

opponents in their turn had paraded illuminations representing the

Quarryman in the garb of a State's-prison convict breaking the

heads of Ratcliffe and other well-known political leaders with a

very feeble hammer, or as "Old Granny" in pauper's rags,

hopelessly repairing with the same heads the impossible roads

which typified the ill-conditioned and miry ways of his party. But

these violations of decency and good sense were universally

reproved by the virtuous; and it was remarked with satisfaction

that the purest and most highly cultivated newspaper editors on his

side, without excepting those of Boston itself; agreed with one

voice that the Stone-cutter was a noble type of man, perhaps the

very noblest that had appeared to adorn this country since the

incomparable Washington.

 

That he was honest, all admitted; that is to say, all who voted for

him.

 

This is a general characteristic of all new presidents. He himself

took great pride in his home-spun honesty, which is a quality

peculiar to nature's noblemen. Owing nothing, as he conceived, to

politicians, but sympathising through every fibre of his unselfish

nature with the impulses and aspirations of the people, he affirmed

it to be his first duty to protect the people from those vultures, as

he called them, those wolves in sheep's clothing, those harpies,

those hyenas, the politicians; epithets which, as generally

interpreted, meant Ratcliffe and Ratcliffe's friends.

 

His cardinal principle in politics was hostility to Ratcliffe, yet he

was not vindictive. He came to Washington determined to be the

Father of his country; to gain a proud immortality and a

re-election.

 

Upon this gentleman Ratcliffe had let loose all the forms of

"pressure"

 

which could be set in motion either in or out of Washington. From

the moment when he had left his humble cottage in Southern

Indiana, he had been captured by Ratcliffe's friends, and smothered

in demonstrations of affection. They had never allowed him to

suggest the possibility of ill-feeling. They had assumed as a matter

of course that the most cordial attachment existed between him

and his party. On his arrival in Washington they systematically cut

him off from contact with any influences but their own. This was

not a very difficult thing to do, for great as he was, he liked to be

told of his greatness, and they made him feel himself a colossus.

Even the few personal friends in his company were manipulated

with the utmost care, and their weaknesses put to use before they

had been in Washington a single day.

 

Not that Ratcliffe had anything to do with all this underhand and

grovelling intrigue. Mr. Ratcliffe was a man of dignity and

self-respect, who left details to his subordinates. He waited calmly

until the President, recovered from the fatigues of his journey,

should begin to feel the effect of a Washington atmosphere. Then

on Wednesday morning, Mr. Ratcliffe left his rooms an hour

earlier than usual on his way to the Senate, and called at the

President's Hotel: he was ushered into a large apartment in which

the new Chief Magistrate was holding court, although at sight of

Ratcliffe, the other visitors edged away or took their hats and left

the room. The President proved to be a hard-featured man of sixty,

with a hooked nose and thin, straight, iron-gray hair. His voice was

rougher than his features and he received Ratcliffe awkwardly. He

had suffered since his departure from Indiana. Out there it had

seemed a mere flea-bite, as he expressed it, to brush Ratcliffe

aside, but in Washington the thing was somehow different.

 

Even his own Indiana friends looked grave when he talked of it,

and shook their heads. They advised him to be cautious and gain

time; to lead Ratcliffe on, and if possible to throw on him the

responsibility of a quarrel. He was, therefore, like a brown bear

undergoing the process of taming; very ill-tempered, very rough,

and at the same time very much bewildered and a little frightened.

Ratcliffe sat ten minutes with him, and obtained information in

regard to pains which the President had suffered during the

previous night, in consequence, as he believed, of an

over-indulgence in fresh lobster, a luxury in which he had found a

diversion from the cares of state. So soon as this matter was

explained and condoled upon, Ratcliffe rose and took leave.

 

Every device known to politicians was now in full play against the

Hoosier Quarryman. State delegations with contradictory requests

were poured in upon him, among which that of Massachusetts

presented as its only prayer the appointment of Mr. Gore to the

Spanish mission. Difficulties were invented to embarrass and

worry him. False leads were suggested, and false information

carefully mingled with true. A wild dance was kept up under his

eyes from daylight to midnight, until his brain reeled with the

effort to follow it. Means were also found to convert one of his

personal, confidential friends, who had come with him from

Indiana and who had more brains or less principle than the others;

from him every word of the President was brought directly to

Ratcliffe's ear.

 

Early on Friday morning, Mr. Thomas Lord, a rival of the late

Samuel Baker, and heir to his triumphs, appeared in Ratcliffe's

rooms while the Senator was consuming his lonely egg and chop.

Mr. Lord had been chosen to take general charge of the

presidential party and to direct all matters connected with

Ratcliffe's interests. Some people might consider this the work of a

spy; he looked on it as a public duty. He reported that "Old

Granny" had at last shown signs of weakness. Late the previous

evening when, according to his custom, he was smoking his pipe

in company with his kitchen-cabinet of followers, he had again

fallen upon the subject of Ratcliffe, and with a volley of oaths had

sworn that he would show him his place yet, and that he meant to

offer him a seat in the Cabinet that would make him "sicker than a

stuck hog." From this remark and some explanatory hints that

followed, it seemed that the Quarryman had abandoned his scheme

of putting Ratcliffe to immediate political death, and had now

undertaken to invite him into a Cabinet which was to be specially

constructed to thwart and humiliate him.

 

The President, it appeared, warmly applauded the remark of one

counsellor, that Ratcliffe was safer in the Cabinet than in the

Senate, and that it would be easy to kick him out when t,he time

came.

 

Ratcliffe smiled grimly as Mr. Lord, with much clever mimicry,

described the President's peculiarities of language and manner, but

he said nothing and waited for the event. The same evening came a

note from the President's private secretary requesting his

attendance, if possible, to-morrow, Saturday morning, at ten

o'clock. The note was curt and cool. Ratcliffe merely sent back

word that he would come, and felt a little regret that the President

should not know enough etiquette to understand that this verbal

answer was intended as a hint to improve his manners. He did

come accordingly, and found the President looking blacker than

before. This time there was no avoiding of tender subjects. The

President meant to show Ratcliffe by the decision of his course,

that he was master of the situation. He broke at once into the

middle of the matter: "I sent for you,"

 

said he, "to consult with you about my Cabinet. Here is a list of the

gentlemen I intend to invite into it. You will see that I have got

you down for the Treasury. Will you look at the list and say what

you think of it?"

 

Ratcliffe took the paper, but laid it at once on the table without

looking at it. "I can have no objection," said he, "to any Cabinet

you may appoint, provided I am not included in it. My wish is to

remain where I am. There I can serve your administration better

than in the Cabinet."

 

"Then you refuse?" growled the President.

 

"By no means. I only decline to offer any advice or even to hear

the names of my proposed colleagues until it is decided that my

services are necessary. If they are, I shall accept without caring

with whom I serve."

 

The President glared at him with an uneasy look. What was to be

done next?

 

He wanted time to think, but Ratcliffe was there and must be

disposed of. He involuntarily became more civil: "Mr. Ratcliffe,

your refusal would knock everything on the head. I thought that

matter was all fixed. What more can I do?"

 

But Ratcliffe had no mind to let the President out of his clutches

so easily, and a long conversation followed, during which he

forced his antagonist into the position of urging him to take the

Treasury in order to prevent some undefined but portentous

mischief in the Senate. All that could be agreed upon was that

Ratcliffe should give a positive answer within two days, and on

that agreement he took his leave.

 

As he passed through the corridor, a number of gentlemen were

waiting for interviews with the President, and among them was the

whole Pennsylvania delegation, "ready for biz," as Mr. Tom Lord

remarked, with a wink.

 

Ratcliffe drew Krebs aside and they exchanged a few words as he

passed out.

 

Ten minutes afterwards the delegation was admitted, and some of

its members were a little surprised to hear their spokesman,

Senator Krebs, press with extreme earnestness and in their names,

the appointment of Josiah B. Carson to a place in the Cabinet,

when they had been given to understand that they came to

recommend Jared Caldwell as postmaster of Philadelphia. But

Pennsylvania is a great and virtuous State, whose representatives

have entire confidence in their chief. Not one of them so much as

winked.

 

The dance of democracy round the President now began again with

wilder energy. Ratcliffe launched his last bolts. His two-days' delay

was a mere cover for bringing new influences to bear. He needed

no delay. He wanted no time for reflection. The President had

undertaken to put him on the horns of a dilemma; either to force

him into a hostile and treacherous Cabinet, or to throw on him the

blame of a refusal and a quarrel. He meant to embrace one of the

horns and to impale the President on it, and he felt perfect

confidence in his own success. He meant to accept the Treasury

and he was ready to back himself with a heavy wager to get the

government entirely into his own hands within six weeks. His

contempt for the Hoosier Stone-cutter was unbounded, and his

confidence in himself more absolute than ever.

 

Busy as he was, the Senator made his appearance the next evening

at Mrs.

 

Lee's, and finding her alone with Sybil, who was occupied with her

own little devices, Ratcliffe told Madeleine the story of his week's

experience.

 

He did not dwell on his exploits. On the contrary he quite ignored

those elaborate arrangements which had taken from the President

his power of volition. His picture presented himself; solitary and

unprotected, in the character of that honest beast who was invited

to dine with the lion and saw that all the footmarks of his

predecessors led into the lion's cave, and none away from it. He

described in humorous detail his interviews with the Indiana lion,

and the particulars of the surfeit of lobster as given in the

President's dialect; he even repeated to her the story told him by

Mr. Tom Lord, without omitting oaths or gestures; he told her how

matters stood at the moment, and how the President had laid a trap

for him which he could not escape; he must either enter a Cabinet

constructed on purpose to thwart him and with the certainty of

ignominious dismissal at the first opportunity, or he must refuse an

offer of friendship which would throw on him the blame of a

quarrel, and enable the President to charge all future difficulties to

the account of Ratcliffe's "insatiable ambition." "And now, Mrs.

Lee," he continued, with increasing seriousness of tone; "I want

your advice; what shall I do?"

 

Even this half revelation of the meanness which distorted politics;

this one-sided view of human nature in its naked deformity playing

pranks with the interests of forty million people, disgusted and

depressed Madeleine's mind. Ratclife spared her nothing except

the exposure of his own moral sores. He carefully called her

attention to every leprous taint upon his neighbours' persons, to

every rag in their foul clothing, to every slimy and fetid pool that

lay beside their path. It was his way of bringing his own qualities

into relief. He meant that she should go hand in hand with him

through the brimstone lake, and the more repulsive it seemed to

her, the more overwhelming would his superiority become. He

meant to destroy those doubts of his character which Carrington

was so carefully fostering, to rouse her sympathy, to stimulate her

feminine sense of self-sacrifice.

 

When he asked this question she looked up at him with an

expression of indignant pride, as she spoke:

 

"I say again, Mr. Ratcliffe, what I said once before. Do whatever is

most for the public good."

 

"And what is most for the public good?"

 

Madeleine half opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated, and

stared silently into the fire before her. What was indeed most for

the public good?

 

Where did the public good enter at all into this maze of personal

intrigue, this wilderness of stunted natures where no straight road

was to be found, but only the tortuous and aimless tracks of beasts

and things that crawl?

 

Where was she to look for a principle to guide, an ideal to set up

and to point at?

 

Ratcliffe resumed his appeal, and his manner was more serious

than ever.

 

"I am hard pressed, Mrs. Lee. My enemies encompass me about.

They mean to ruin me. I honestly wish to do my duty. You once

said that personal considerations should have no weight. Very

well! throw them away! And now tell me what I should do."

 

For the first time, Mrs. Lee began to feel his power. He was

simple, straightforward, earnest. His words moved her. How

should she imagine that he was playing upon her sensitive nature

precisely as he played upon the President's coarse one, and that this

heavy western politician had the instincts of a wild Indian in their

sharpness and quickness of perception; that he divined her

character and read it as he read the faces and tones of thousands

from day to day? She was uneasy under his eye. She began a

sentence, hesitated in the middle, and broke down. She lost her

command of thought, and sat dumb-founded. He had to draw her

out of the confusion he had himself made.

 

"I see your meaning in your face. You say that I should accept the

duty and disregard the consequences."

 

"I don't know," said Madeleine, hesitatingly; "Yes, I think that

would be my feeling."

 

"And when I fall a sacrifice to that man's envy and intrigue, what

will you think then, Mrs. Lee? Will you not join the rest of the

world and say that I overreached myself; and walked into this trap

with my eyes open, and for my own objects? Do you think I shall

ever be thought better of; for getting caught here? I don't parade

high moral views like our friend French. I won't cant about virtue.

But I do claim that in my public life I have tried to do right. Will

you do me the justice to think so?"

 

Madeleine still struggled to prevent herself from being drawn into

indefinite promises of sympathy with this man. She would keep

him at arm's length whatever her sympathies might be. She would

not pledge herself to espouse his cause. She turned upon him with

an effort, and said that her thoughts, now or at any time, were folly

and nonsense, and that the consciousness of right-doing was the

only reward any public man had a right to expect.

 

"And yet you are a hard critic, Mrs. Lee. If your thoughts are what

you say, your words are not. You judge with the judgment of

abstract principles, and you wield the bolts of divine justice. You

look on and condemn, but you refuse to acquit. When I come to

you on the verge of what is likely to be the fatal plunge of my life,

and ask you only for some clue to the moral principle that ought to

guide me, you look on and say that virtue is its own reward. And

you do not even say where virtue lies."

 

"I confess my sins," said Madeleine, meekly and despondently;

"life is more complicated than I thought."

 

"I shall be guided by your advice," said Ratcliffe; "I shall walk into

that den of wild beasts, since you think I ought. But I shall hold

you to your responsibility. You cannot refuse to see me through

dangers you have helped to bring me into."

 

"No, no!" cried Madeleine, earnestly; "no responsibility. You ask

more than I can give."

 

Ratcliffe looked at her a moment with a troubled and careworn

face. His eyes seemed deep sunk in their dark circles, and his voice

was pathetic in its intensity. "Duty is duty, for you as well as for

me. I have a right to the help of all pure minds. You have no right

to refuse it. How can you reject your own responsibility and hold

me to mine?"

 

Almost as he spoke, he rose and took his departure, leaving her no

time to do more than murmur again her ineffectual protest. After

he was gone, Mrs.

 

Lee sat long, with her eyes fixed on the fire, reflecting upon what

he had said. Her mind was bewildered by the new suggestions

which Ratcliffe had thrown out. What woman of thirty, with

aspirations for the infinite, could resist an attack like this? What

woman with a soul could see before her the most powerful public

man of her time, appealing--with a face furrowed by anxieties, and

a voice vibrating with only half-suppressed affection--to her for

counsel and sympathy, without yielding some response? and what

woman could have helped bowing her head to that rebuke of her

over-confident judgment, coming as it did from one who in the

same breath appealed to that judgment as final? Ratcliffe, too, had

a curious instinct for human weaknesses. No magnetic needle was

ever truer than his finger when he touched the vulnerable spot in

an opponent's mind. Mrs. Lee was not to be reached by an appeal

to religious sentiment, to ambition, or to affection.

 

Any such appeal would have fallen flat on her ears and destroyed

its own hopes. But she was a woman to the very last drop of her

blood. She could not be induced to love Ratcliffe, but she might be

deluded into sacrificing herself for him. She atoned for want of

devotion to God, by devotion to man.

 

She had a woman's natural tendency towards asceticism,

self-extinction, self-abnegation. All through life she had made

painful efforts to understand and follow out her duty. Ratcliffe

knew her weak point when he attacked her from this side. Like all

great orators and advocates, he was an actor; the more effective

because of a certain dignified air that forbade familiarity.

 

He had appealed to her sympathy, her sense of right and of duty, to

her courage, her loyalty, her whole higher nature; and while he

made this appeal he felt more than half convinced that he was all

he pretended to be, and that he really had a right to her devotion.

What wonder that she in her turn was more than half inclined to

admit that right. She knew him now better than Carrington or

Jacobi knew him. Surely a man who spoke as he spoke, had noble

instincts and lofty aims? Was not his career a thousand times more

important than hers? If he, in his isolation and his cares, needed

her assistance, had she an excuse for refusing it? What was there

in her aimless and useless life which made it so precious that she

could not afford to fling it into the gutter, if need be, on the bare

chance of enriching some fuller existence?

 

Chapter VIII

 

OF all titles ever assumed by prince or potentate, the proudest is

that of the Roman pontiffs: "Servus servorum Dei"--"Servant of the

servants of God."

 

In former days it was not admitted that the devil's servants could

by right have any share in government. They were to be shut out,

punished, exiled, maimed, and burned. The devil has no servants

now; only the people have servants. There may be some mistake

about a doctrine which makes the wicked, when a majority, the

mouthpiece of God against the virtuous, but the hopes of mankind

are staked on it; and if the weak in faith sometimes quail when

they see humanity floating in a shoreless ocean, on this plank,

which experience and religion long since condemned as rotten,

mistake or not, men have thus far floated better by its aid, than the

popes ever did with their prettier principle; so that it will be a long

time yet before society repents.

 

Whether the new President and his chief rival, Mr. Silas P.

Ratcliffe, were or were not servants of the servants of God, is not

material here. Servants they were to some one. No doubt many of

those who call themselves servants of the people are no better than

wolves in sheep's clothing, or asses in lions' skins. One may see

scores of them any day in the Capitol when Congress is in session,

making noisy demonstrations, or more usefully doing nothing. A

wiser generation will employ them in manual labour; as it is, they

serve only themselves. But there are two officers, at least, whose

service is real--the President and his Secretary of the Treasury. The

Hoosier Quarryman had not been a week in Washington before he

was heartily home-sick for Indiana. No maid-of-all-work in a

cheap boarding-house was ever more harassed. Everyone

conspired against him. His enemies gave him no peace. All

Washington was laughing at his blunders, and ribald sheets,

published on a Sunday, took delight in printing the new Chief

Magistrate's sayings and doings, chronicled with outrageous

humour, and placed by malicious hands where the President could

not but see them. He was sensitive to ridicule, and it mortified him

to the heart to find that remarks and acts, which to him seemed

sensible enough, should be capable of such perversion. Then he

was overwhelmed with public business. It came upon him in a

deluge, and he now, in his despair, no longer tried to control it. He

let it pass over him like a wave. His mind was muddied by the

innumerable visitors to whom he had to listen. But his greatest

anxiety was the Inaugural Address which, distracted as he was, he

could not finish, although in another week it must be delivered. He

was nervous about his Cabinet; it seemed to him that he could do

nothing until he had disposed of Ratcliffe.

 

Already, thanks to the President's friends, Ratcliffe had become

indispensable; still an enemy, of course, but one whose hands must

be tied; a sort of Sampson, to be kept in bonds until the time came

for putting him out of the way, but in the meanwhile, to be

utilized. This point being settled, the President had in imagination

begun to lean upon him; for the last few days he had postponed

everything till next week, "when I get my Cabinet arranged;"

which meant, when he got Ratcliffe's assistance; and he fell into a

panic whenever he thought of the chance that Ratcliffe might

refuse.

 

He was pacing his room impatiently on Monday mormng, an hour

before the time fixed for Ratcliffe's visit. His feelings still

fluctuated violently, and if he recognized the necessity of using

Ratcliffe, he was not the less determined to tie Ratcliffe's hands.

He must be made to come into a Cabinet where every other voice

would be against him. He must be prevented from having any

patronage to dispose of. He must be induced to accept these

conditions at the start. How present this to him in such a way as

not to repel him at once? All this was needless, if the President had

only known it, but he thought himself a profound statesman, and

that his hand was guiding the destinies of America to his own

re-election. When at length, on the stroke of ten o'clock, Ratcliffe

entered the room, the President turned to him with nervous

eagerness, and almost before offering his hand, said that he hoped

Mr. Ratcliffe had come prepared to begin work at once. The

Senator replied that, if such was the President's decided wish, he

would offer no further opposition. Then the President drew himself

up in the attitude of an American Cato, and delivered a prepared

address, in which he said that he had chosen the members ot his

Cabinet with a careful regard to the public interests; that Mr.

Ratcliffe was essential to the combination; that he expected no

disagreement on principles, for there was but one principle which

he should consider fundamental, namely, that there should be no

removals from office except for cause; and that under these

circumstances he counted upon Mr. Ratcliffe's assistance as a

matter of patriotic duty.

 

To all this Ratcliffe assented without a word of objection, and the

President, more convinced than ever of his own masterly

statesmanship, breathed more freely than for a week past. Within

ten minutes they were actively at work together, clearing away the

mass of accumulated business.

 

The relief of the Quarryman surprised himself. Ratcliffe lifted the

weight of affairs from his shoulders with hardly an effort. He knew

everybody and everything. He took most of the President's visitors

at once into his own hands and dismissed them with great rapidity.

He knew what they wanted; he knew what recommendations were

strong and what were weak; who was to be treated with deference

and who was to be sent away abruptly; where a blunt refusal was

safe, and where a pledge was allowable. The President even

trusted him with the unfinished manuscript of the Inaugural

Address, which Ratcliffe returned to him the next day with such

notes and suggestions as left nothing to be done beyond copying

them out in a fair hand. With all this, he proved himself a very

agreeable companion. He talked well and enlivened the work; he

was not a hard taskmaster, and when he saw that the President was

tired, he boldly asserted that there was no more business that could

not as well wait a day, and so took the weary Stone-cutter out to

drive for a couple of hours, and let him go peacefully to sleep in

the carriage. They dined together and Ratcliffe took care to send

for Tom Lord to amuse them, for Tom was a wit and a humourist,

and kept the President in a laugh. Mr. Lord ordered the dinner and

chose the wines. He could be coarse enough to suit even the

President's palate, and Ratcliffe was not behindhand. When the

new Secretary went away at ten o'clock that night, his chief; who

was in high good humour with his dinner, his champagne, and his

conversation, swore with some unnecessary granite oaths, that

Ratcliffe was "a clever fellow anyhow," and he was glad "that job

was fixed."

 

The truth was that Ratcliffe had now precisely ten days before the

new Cabinet could be set in motion, and in these ten days he must

establish his authority over the President so firmly that nothing

could shake it. He was diligent in good works. Very soon the court

began to feel his hand. If a business letter or a written memorial

came in, the President found it easy to endorse: "Referred to the

Secretary of the Treasury." If a visitor wanted anything for himself

or another, the invariable reply came to be: "Just mention it to Mr.

Ratcliffe;" or, "I guess Ratcliffe will see to that."

 

Before long he even made jokes in a Catonian manner; jokes that

were not peculiarly witty, but somewhat gruff and boorish, yet

significant of a resigned and self-contented mind. One morning he

ordered Ratcliffe to take an iron-clad ship of war and attack the

Sioux in Montana, seeing that he was in charge of the army and

navy and Indians at once, and Jack of all trades; and again he told

a naval officer who wanted a court-martial that he had better get

Ratcliffe to sit on him for he was a whole court-martial by himself.

That Ratcliffe held his chief in no less contempt than before, was

probable but not certain, for he kept silence on the subject before

the world, and looked solemn whenever the President was

mentioned.

 

Before three days were over, the President, with a little more than

his usual abruptness, suddenly asked him what he knew about this

fellow Carson, whom the Pennsylvanians were bothering him to

put in his Cabinet. Ratcliffe was guarded: he scarcely knew the

man; Mr. Carson was not in politics, he believed, but was pretty

respectable--for a Pennsylvanian. The President returned to the

subject several times; got out his list of Cabinet officers and

figured industriously upon it with a rather perplexed face; called

Ratcliffe to help him; and at last the "slate" was fairly broken, and

Ratcliffe's eyes gleamed when the President caused his list of

nominations to be sent to the Senate on the 5th March, and Josiah

B. Carson, of Pennsylvania, was promptly confirmed as Secretary

of the Interior.

 

But his eyes gleamed still more humorously when, a few days

afterwards, the President gave him a long list of some two score

names, and asked him to find places for them. He assented

good-naturedly, with a remark that it might be necessary to make a

few removals to provide for these cases.

 

"Oh, well," said the President, "I guess there's just about as many

as that had ought to go out anyway. These are friends of mine; got

to be looked after. Just stuff 'em in somewhere."

 

Even he felt a little awkward about it, and, to do him justice, this

was the last that was heard about the fundamental rule of his

administration.

 

Removals were fast and furious, until all Indiana became easy in

circumstances. And it was not to be denied that, by one means or

another, Ratcliffe's friends did come into their fair share of the

public money.

 

Perhaps the President thought it best to wink at such use of the

Treasury patronage for the present, or was already a little

overawed by his Secretary.

 

Ratcliffe's work was done. The public had, with the help of some

clever intrigue, driven its servants into the traces. Even an Indiana

stone-cutter could be taught that his personal prejudices must yield

to the public service. What mischief the selfishness, the ambition,

or the ignorance of these men might do, was another matter. As the

affair stood, the President was the victim of his own schemes. It

remained to be seen whether, at some future day, Mr. Ratcliffe

would think it worth his while to strangle his chief by some quiet

Eastern intrigue, but the time had gone by when the President

could make use of either the bow-string or the axe upon him.

 

All this passed while Mrs. Lee was quietly puzzling her poor little

brain about her duty and her responsibility to Ratcliffe, who,

meanwhile, rarely failed to find himself on Sunday evenings by her

side in her parlour, where his rights were now so well established

that no one presumed to contest his seat, unless it were old Jacobi,

who from time to time reminded him that he was fallible and

mortal. Occasionally, though not often, Mr. Ratcliffe came at other

times, as when he persuaded Mrs. Lee to be present at the

Inauguration, and to call on the President's wife. Madeleine and

Sybil went to the Capitol and had the best places to see and hear

the Inauguration, as well as a cold March wind would allow. Mrs.

Lee found fault with the ceremony; it was of the earth, earthy, she

said. An elderly western farmer, with silver spectacles, new and

glossy evening clothes, bony features, and stiff; thin, gray hair,

trying to address a large crowd of people, under the drawbacks of a

piercing wind and a cold in his head, was not a hero. Sybil's mind

was lost in wondering whether the President would not soon die of

pneumonia. Even this experience, however, was happy when

compared with that of the call upon the President's wife, after

which Madeleine decided to leave the new dynasty alone in future.

The lady, who was somewhat stout and coarse-featured, and whom

Mrs. Lee declared she wouldn't engage as a cook, showed qualities

which, seen under that fierce light which beats upon a throne,

seemed ungracious. Her antipathy to Ratcliffe was more violent

than her husband's, and was even more openly expressed, until the

President was quite put out of countenance by it. She extended her

hostility to every one who could be supposed to be Ratcliffe's

friend, and the newspapers, as well as private gossip, had marked

out Mrs. Lee as one who, by an alliance with Ratcliffe, was aiming

at supplanting her own rule over the White House.

 

Hence, when Mrs. Lightfoot Lee was announced, and the two

sisters were ushered into the presidential parlour, she put on a

coldly patronizing air, and in reply to Madeleine's hope that she

found Washington agreeable, she intimated that there was much in

Washington which struck her as awful wicked, especially the

women; and, looking at Sybil, she spoke of the style of dress in

this city which she said she meant to do what she could to put a

stop to. She'd heard tell that people sent to Paris for their gowns,

just as though America wasn't good enough to make one's clothes!

Jacob (all Presidents' wives speak of their husbands by their first

names) had promised her to get a law passed against it. In her town

in Indiana, a young woman who was seen on the street in such

clothes wouldn't be spoken to. At these remarks, made with an air

and in a temper quite unmistakable, Madeleine became

exasperated beyond measure, and said that "Washington would be

pleased to see the President do something in regard to

dress-reform--or any other reform;" and with this allusion to the

President's ante-election reform speeches, Mrs. Lee turned her

back and left the room, followed by Sybil in convulsions of

suppressed laughter, which would not have been suppressed had

she seen the face of their hostess as the door shut behind them, and

the energy with which she shook her head and said: "See if I don't

reform you yet, you--jade!"

 

Mrs. Lee gave Ratcliffe a lively account of this interview, and he

laughed nearly as convulsively as Sybil over it, though he tried to

pacify her by saying that the President's most intimate friends

openly declared his wife to be insane, and that he himself was the

person most afraid of her. But Mrs. Lee declared that the President

was as bad as his wife; that an equally good President and

President's wife could be picked up in any corner-grocery between

the Lakes and the Ohio; and that no inducement should ever make

her go near that coarse washerwoman again.

 

Ratcliffe did not attempt to change Mrs. Lee's opinion. Indeed he

knew better than any man how Presidents were made, and he had

his own opinions in regard to the process as well as the fabric

produced. Nothing Mrs. Lee could say now affected him. He threw

off his responsibility and she found it suddenly resting on her own

shoulders. When she spoke with indignation of the wholesale

removals from office with which the new administration marked

its advent to power, he told her the story of the President's

fundamental principle, and asked her what she would have him do.

"He meant to tie my hands," said Ratcliffe, "and to leave his own

free, and I accepted the condition. Can I resign now on such a

ground as this?" And Madeleine was obliged to agree that he could

not. She had no means of knowing how many removals he made in

his own interest, or how far he had outwitted the President at his

own game. He stood before her a victim and a patriot. Every step

he had taken had been taken with her approval. He was now in

office to prevent what evil he could, not to be responsible for the

evil that was done; and he honestly assured her that much worse

men would come in when he went out, as the President would

certainly take good care that he did go out when the moment

arrived.

 

Mrs. Lee had the chance now to carry out her scheme in coming to

Washington, for she was already deep in the mire of politics and

could see with every advantage how the great machine floundered

about, bespattering with mud even her own pure garments.

Ratcliffe himself, since entering the Treasury, had begun to talk

with a sneer of the way in which laws were made, and openly said

that he wondered how government got on at all. Yet he declared

still that this particular government was the highest expression of

political thought. Mrs. Lee stared at him and wondered whether he

knew what thought was. To her the government seemed to have

less thought in it than one of Sybil's gowns, for if they, like the

government, were monstrously costly, they were at least adapted to

their purpose, the parts fitted together, and they were neither

awkward nor unwieldy.

 

There was nothing very encouraging in all this, but it was better

than New York. At least it gave her something to look at, and to

think about. Even Lord Dunbeg preached practical philanthropy to

her by the hour. Ratcliffe, too, was compelled to drag himself out

of the rut of machine politics, and to justify his right of admission

to her house. There Mr. French discoursed at great length, until the

fourth of March sent him home to Connecticut; and he brought

more than one intelligent member of Congress to Mrs. Lee's

parlour. Underneath the scum floating, on the surface of politics,

Madeleine felt that there was a sort of healthy ocean current of

honest purpose, which swept the scum before it, and kept the mass

pure.

 

This was enough to draw her on. She reconciled herself to

accepting the Ratcliffian morals, for she could see no choice. She

herself had approved every step she had seen him take. She could

not deny that there must be something wrong in a double standard

of morality, but where was it? Mr.

 

Ratcliffe seemed to her to be doing good work with as pure means

as he had at hand. He ought to be encouraged, not reviled. What

was she that she should stand in judgment?

 

Others watched her progress with less satisfaction. Mr. Nathan

Gore was one of these, for he came in one evening, looking much

out of temper, and, sitting down by her side he said he had come to

bid good-bye and to thank her for the kindness she had shown him;

he was to leave Washington the next morning. She too expressed

her warm regret, but added that she hoped he was only going in

order to take his passage to Madrid.

 

He shook his head. "I am going to take my passage," said he, "but

not to Madrid. The fates have cut that thread. The President does

not want my services, and I can't blame him, for if our situations

were reversed, I should certainly not want his. He has an Indiana

friend, who, I am told, wanted to be postmaster at Indianapolis, but

as this did not suit the politicians, he was bought off at the

exorbitant price of the Spanish mission. But I should have no

chance even if he were out of the way. The President does not

approve of me. He objects to the cut of my overcoat which is

unfortunately an English one. He also objects to the cut of my hair.

I am afraid that his wife objects to me because I am so happy as to

be thought a friend of yours."

 

Madeleine could only acknowledge that Mr. Gore's case was a bad

one. "But after all," said she, "why should politicians be expected

to love you literary gentlemen who write history. Other criminal

classes are not expected to love their judges."

 

"No, but they have sense enough to fear them," replied Gore

vindictively; "not one politician living has the brains or the art to

defend his own cause. The ocean of history is foul with the

carcases of such statesmen, dead and forgotten except when some

historian fishes one of them up to gibbet it."

 

Mr. Gore was so much out of temper that after this piece of

extravagance he was forced to pause a moment to recover himself.

Then he went on:-- "You are perfectly right, and so is the

President. I have no business to be meddling in politics. It is not

my place. The next time you hear of me, I promise it shall not be

as an office-seeker."

 

Then he rapidly changed the subject, saying that he hoped Mrs.

Lee was soon going northward again, and that they might meet at

Newport.

 

"I don't know," replied Madeleine; "the spring is pleasant here, and

we shall stay till the warm weather, I think."

 

Mr. Gore looked grave. "And your politics!" said he; "are you

satisfied with what you have seen?"

 

"I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and

wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?"

 

Mr. Gore had no mind even for serious jesting. He broke out into a

long lecture which sounded like a chapter of some future history:

"But Mrs. Lee, is it possible that you don't see what a wrong path

you are on. If you want to know what the world is really doing to

any good purpose, pass a winter at Samarcand, at Timbuctoo, but

not at Washington. Be a bank-clerk, or a journeyman printer, but

not a Congressman. Here you will find nothing but wasted effort

and clumsy intrigue."

 

"Do you think it a pity for me to learn that?" asked Madeleine

when his long essay was ended.

 

"No!" replied Gore, hesitating; "not if you do learn it. But many

people never get so far, or only when too late. I shall be glad to

hear that you are mistress of it and have given up reforming

politics. The Spaniards have a proverb that smells of the stable, but

applies to people like you and me:

 

The man who washes his donkey's head, loses time and soap."

 

Gore took his leave before Madeleine had time to grasp all the

impudence of this last speech. Not until she was fairly in bed that

night did it suddenly flash on her mind that Mr. Gore had dared to

caricature her as wasting time and soap on Mr. Ratcliffe. At first

she was violently angry and then she laughed in spite of herself;

there was truth in the portrait. In secret, too, she was the less

offended because she half thought that it had depended only on

herself to make of Mr. Gore something more than a friend. If she

had overheard his parting words to Carrington, she would have had

still more reason to think that a little jealousy of Ratcliffe's success

sharpened the barb of Gore's enmity.

 

"Take care of Ratcliffe!" was his farewell; "he is a clever dog. He

has set his mark on Mrs. Lee. Look out that he doesn't walk off

with her!"

 

A little startled by this sudden confidence, Carrington could only

ask what he could do to prevent it.

 

"Cats that go ratting, don't wear gloves," replied Gore, who always

carried a Spanish proverb in his pocket. Carrington, after painful

reflection, could only guess that he wanted Ratcliffe's enemies to

show their claws. But how?

 

Mrs. Lee not long afterwards spoke to Ratcliffe of her regret at

Gore's disappointment and hinted at his disgust. Ratcliffe replied

that he had done what he could for Gore, and had introduced him

to the President, who, after seeing him, had sworn his usual

granitic oath that he would sooner send his nigger farm-hand Jake

to Spain than that man-milliner. "You know how I stand;" added

Ratcliffe; "what more could I do?" And Mrs. Lee's implied

reproach was silenced.

 

If Gore was little pleased with Ratcliffe's conduct, poor

Schneidekoupon was still less so. He turned up again at

Washington not long after the Inauguration and had a private

interview with the Secretary of the Treasury.

 

What passed at it was known only to themselves, but, whatever it

was, Schneidekoupon's temper was none the better for it. From his

conversations with Sybil, it seemed that there was some question

about appointments in which his protectionist friends were

interested, and he talked very openly about Ratcliffe's want of

good faith, and how he had promised everything to everybody and

had failed to keep a single pledge; if Schneidekoupon's advice had

been taken, this wouldn't have happened. Mrs. Lee told Ratcliffe

that Schneidekoupon seemed out of temper, and asked the reason.

He only laughed and evaded the question, remarking that cattle of

this kind were always complaining unless they were allowed to run

the whole government; Schneidekoupon had nothing to grumble

about; no one had ever made any promises to him. But

nevertheless Schneidekoupon confided to Sybil his antipathy to

Ratcliffe and solemnly begged her not to let Mrs. Lee fall into his

hands, to which Sybil answered tartly that she only wished Mr.

 

Schneidekoupon would tell her how to help it.

 

The reformer French had also been one of Ratcliffe's backers in

the fight over the Treasury. He remained in Washington a few days

after the Inauguration, and then disappeared, leaving cards with

P.P.C. in the corner, at Mrs. Lee's door. Rumour said that he too

was disappointed, but he kept his own counsel, and, if he really

wanted the mission to Belgium, he contented himself with waiting

for it. A respectable stage-coach proprietor from Oregon got the

place.

 

As for Jacobi, who was not disappointed, and who had nothing to

ask for, he was bitterest of all. He formally offered his

congratulations to Ratcliffe on his appointment. This little scene

occurred in Mrs. Lee's parlour. The old Baron, with his most suave

manner, and his most Voltairean leer, said that in all his

experience, and he had seen a great many court intrigues, he had

never seen anything better managed than that about the Treasury.

 

Ratcliffe was furiously angry, and told the Baron outright that

foreign ministers who insulted the governments to which they

were accredited ran a risk of being sent home.

 

"Ce serait toujours un pis aller," said Jacobi, seating himself with

calmness in Ratcliffe's favourite chair by Mrs. Lee's side.

 

Madeleine, alarmed as she was, could not help interposing, and

hastily asked whether that remark was translatable.

 

"Ah!" said the Baron; "I can do nothing with your language. You

would only say that it was a choice of evils, to go, or to stay."

 

"We might translate it by saying: 'One may go farther and fare

worse,'"

 

rejoined Madeleine; and so the storm blew over for the time, and

Ratcliffe sulkily let the subject drop. Nevertheless the two men

never met in Mrs.

 

Lee's parlour without her dreading a personal altercation. Little by

little, what with Jacobi's sarcasms and Ratcliffe's roughness, they

nearly ceased to speak, and glared at each other like quarrelsome

dogs. Madeleine was driven to all kinds of expedients to keep the

peace, yet at the same time she could not but be greatly amused by

their behaviour, and as their hatred of each other only stimulated

their devotion to her, she was content to hold an even balance

between them.

 

Nor were these all the awkward consequences of Ratcliffe's

attentions. Now that he was distinctly recognized as an intimate

friend of Mrs. Lee's, and possibly her future husband, no one

ventured any longer to attack him in her presence, but nevertheless

she was conscious in a thousand ways that the atmosphere became

more and more dense under the shadow of the Secretary of the

Treasury. In spite of herself she sometimes felt uneasy, as though

there were conspiracy in the air. One March afternoon she was

sitting by her fire, with an English Review in her hand, trying to

read the last Symposium on the sympathies of Eternal Punishment,

when her servant brought in a card, and Mrs. Lee had barely time

to read the name of Mrs. Samuel Baker when that lady followed

the servant into the room, forcing the countersign in so effective

style that for once Madeleine was fairly disconcerted. Her manner

when thus intruded upon, was cool, but in this case, on

Carrington's account, she tried to smile courteously and asked her

visitor to sit down, which Mrs. Baker was doing without an

invitation, very soon putting her hostess entirely at her ease. She

was, when seen without her veil, a showy woman verging on forty,

decidedly large, tall, over-dressed even in mourning, and with a

complexion rather fresher than nature had made it.

 

There was a geniality in her address, savouring of easy Washington

ways, a fruitiness of smile, and a rich southern accent, that

explained on the spot her success in the lobby. She looked about

her with fine self-possession, and approved Mrs. Lee's

surroundings with a cordiality so different from the northern

stinginess of praise, that Madeleine was rather pleased than

offended. Yet when her eye rested on the Corot, Madeleine's only

pride, she was evidently perplexed, and resorted to eye-glasses, in

order, as it seemed, to gain time for reflection. But she was not to

be disconcerted even by Corot's masterpiece:

 

"How pretty! Japanese, isn't it? Sea-weeds seen through a fog. I

went to an auction yesterday, and do you know I bought a tea-pot

with a picture just like that."

 

Madeleine inquired with extreme interest about the auction, but

after learning all that Mrs. Baker had to tell, she was on the point

of being reduced to silence, when she bethought herself to mention

Carrington. Mrs.

 

Baker brightened up at once, if she could be said to brighten where

there was no sign of dimness:

 

"Dear Mr. Carrington! Isn't he sweet? I think he's a delicious man.

I don't know what I should do without him. Since poor Mr. Baker

left me, we have been together all the time. You know my poor

husband left directions that all his papers should be burned, and

though I would not say so unless you were such a friend of Mr.

Carrington's, I reckon it's just as well for some people that he did. I

never could tell you what quantities of papers Mr.

 

Carrington and I have put in the fire; and we read them all too."

 

Madeleine asked whether this was not dull work.

 

"Oh, dear, no! You see I know all about it, and told Mr. Carrington

the story of every paper as we went on. It was quite amusing, I

assure you."

 

Mrs. Lee then boldly said she had got from Mr. Carrington an idea

that Mrs.

 

Baker was a very skilful diplomatist.

 

"Diplomatist!" echoed the widow with her genial laugh; "Well! it

was as much that as anything, but there's not many diplomatists'

wives in this city ever did as much work as I used to do. Why, I

knew half the members of Congress intimately, and all of them by

sight. I knew where they came from and what they liked best. I

could get round the greater part of them, sooner or later."

 

Mrs. Lee asked what she did with all this knowledge. Mrs. Baker

shook her pink-and-white countenance, and almost paralysed her

opposite neighbour by a sort of Grande Duchesse wink:

 

"Oh, my dear! you are new here. If you had seen Washington in

war-times and for a few years afterwards, you wouldn't ask that.

We had more congressional business than all the other agents put

together. Every one came to us then, to get his bill through, or his

appropriation watched. We were hard at work all the time. You

see, one can't keep the run of three hundred men without some

trouble. My husband used to make lists of them in books with a

history of each man and all he could learn about him, but I carried

it all in my head."

 

"Do you mean that you could get them all to vote as you pleased?"

asked Madeleine.

 

"Well! we got our bills through," replied Mrs. Baker.

 

"But how did you do it? did they take bribes?"

 

"Some of them did. Some of them liked suppers and cards and

theatres and all sorts of things. Some of them could be led, and

some had to be driven like Paddy's pig who thought he was going

the other way. Some of them had wives who could talk to them,

and some--hadn't," said Mrs. Baker, with a queer intonation in her

abrupt ending.

 

"But surely," said Mrs. Lee, "many of them must have been

above--I mean, they must have had nothing to get hold of; so that

you could manage them."

 

Mrs. Baker laughed cheerfully and remarked that they were very

much of a muchness.

 

"But I can't understand how you did it," urged Madeleine; "now,

how would you have gone to work to get a respectable senator's

vote--a man like Mr.

 

Ratcliffe, for instance?"

 

"Ratcliffe!" repeated Mrs. Baker with a slight elevation of voice

that gave way to a patronising laugh. "Oh, my dear! don't mention

names. I should get into trouble. Senator Ratcliffe was a good

friend of my husband's. I guess Mr. Carrington could have told you

that. But you see, what we generally wanted was all right enough.

We had to know where our bills were, and jog people's elbows to

get them reported in time. Sometimes we had to convince them

that our bill was a proper one, and they ought to vote for it. Only

now and then, when there was a great deal of money and the vote

was close, we had to find out what votes were worth. It was mostly

dining and talking, calling them out into the lobby or asking them

to supper. I wish I could tell you things I have seen, but I don't

dare. It wouldn't be safe. I've told you already more than I ever said

to any one else; but then you are so intimate with Mr. Carrington,

that I always think of you as an old friend."

 

Thus Mrs. Baker rippled on, while Mrs. Lee listened with more

and more doubt and disgust. The woman was showy, handsome in

a coarse style, and perfectly presentable. Mrs. Lee had seen

Duchesses as vulgar. She knew more about the practical working

of government than Mrs. Lee could ever expect or hope to know.

Why then draw back from this interesting lobbyist with such

babyish repulsion?

 

When, after a long, and, as she declared, a most charming call,

Mrs. Baker wended her way elsewhere and Madeleine had given

the strictest order that she should never be admitted again,

Carrington entered, and Madeleine showed him Mrs. Baker's card

and gave a lively account of the interview.

 

"What shall I do with the woman?" she asked; "must I return her

card?" But Carrington declined to offer advice on this interesting

point. "And she says that Mr. Ratcliffe was a friend of her

husband's and that you could tell me about that."

 

"Did she say so?" remarked Carrington vaguely.

 

"Yes! and that she knew every one's weak points and could get all

their votes."

 

Carrington expressed no surprise, and so evidently preferred to

change the subject, that Mrs. Lee desisted and said no more.

 

But she determined to try the same experiment on Mr. Ratcliffe,

and chose the very next chance that offered. In her most indifferent

manner she remarked that Mrs. Sam Baker had called upon her

and had initiated her into the mysteries of the lobby till she had

become quite ambitious to start on that career.

 

"She said you were a friend of her husband's," added Madeleine

softly.

 

Ratcliffe's face betrayed no sign.

 

"If you believe what those people tell you," said he drily, "you will

be wiser than the Queen of Sheba."

 

Chapter IX

 

WHENEVER a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his

enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and

exacting. Among the many dangers of this sort which now

threatened Ratcliffe, there was one that, had he known it, might

have made him more uneasy than any of those which were the

work of senators and congressmen. Carrington entered into an

alliance, offensive and defensive, with Sybil. It came about in this

wise. Sybil was fond of riding. and occasionally, when Carrington

could spare the time, he went as her guide and protector in these

country excursions; for every Virginian, however out at elbows,

has a horse, as he has shoes or a shirt.

 

In a thoughtless moment Carrington had been drawn into a

promise that he would take Sybil to Arlington. The promise was

one that he did not hurry to keep, for there were reasons which

made a visit to Arlington anything but a pleasure to him; but Sybil

would listen to no excuses, and so it came about that, one lovely

March morning, when the shrubs and the trees in the square before

the house were just beginning, under the warmer sun, to show

signs of their coming wantonness, Sybil stood at the open window

waiting for him, while her new Kentucky horse before the door

showed what he thought of the delay by curving his neck, tossing

his head, and pawing the pavement.

 

Carrington was late and kept her waiting so long, that the

mignonette and geraniums, which adorned the window, suffered

for his slowness, and the curtain tassels showed signs of wilful

damage. Nevertheless he arrived at length, and they set out

together, choosing the streets least enlivened by horse-cars and

provision-carts, until they had crept through the great metropolis

of Georgetown and come upon the bridge which crosses the noble

river just where its bold banks open out to clasp the city of

Washington in their easy embrace. Then reaching the Virginia side

they cantered gaily up the laurel-margined road, with glimpses of

woody defiles, each carrying its trickling stream and rich in

promise of summer flowers, while from point to point they caught

glorious glimpses of the distant city and river. They passed the

small military station on the heights, still dignified by the name of

fort, though Sybil silently wondered how a fort was possible

without fortifications, and complained that there was nothing more

warlike than a "nursery of telegraph poles." The day was blue and

gold; everything smiled and sparkled in the crisp freshness of the

morning. Sybil was in bounding spirits. and not at all pleased to

find that her companion became moody and abstracted as they

went on. "Poor Mr. Carrington!" thought she to herself, "he is so

nice; but when he puts on that solemn air, one might as well go to

sleep. I am quite certain no nice woman will ever marry him if he

looks like that;" and her practical mind ran off among all the girls

of her acquaintance, in search of one who would put up with

Carrington's melancholy face. She knew his devotion to her sister,

but had long ago rejected this as a hopeless chance. There was a

simplicity about Sybil's way of dealing with life, which had its own

charm. She never troubled herself about the impossible or the

unthinkable. She had feelings, and was rather quick in her

sympathies and sorrows, but she was equally quick in getting over

them, and she expected other people to do likewise. Madeleine

dissected her own feelings and was always wondering whether

they were real or not; she had a habit of taking off her mental

clothing, as she might take off a dress, and looking at it as though

it belonged to some one else, and as though sensations were

manufactured like clothes. This seems to be one of the easier ways

of deadening sorrow, as though the mind could teach itself to lop

off its feelers. Sybil particularly disliked this self-inspection. In the

first place she did not understand it, and in the second her mind

was all feelers, and amputation was death. She could no more

analyse a feeling than doubt its existence, both which were habits

of her sister.

 

How was Sybil to know what was passing in Carrington's mind?

He was thinking of nothing in which she supposed herself

interested. He was troubled with memories of civil war and of

associations still earlier, belonging to an age already vanishing or

vanished; but what could she know about civil war who had been

almost an infant at the time? At this moment, she happened to be

interested in the baffle of Waterloo, for she was reading "Vanity

Fair," and had cried as she ought for poor little Emmy, when her

husband, George Osborne, lay dead on the field there, with a bullet

through his heart. But how was she to know that here, only a few

rods before her, lay scores and hundreds of George Osbornes, or

his betters, and in their graves the love and hope of many Emmys,

not creatures of the imagination, but flesh and blood, like herself?

To her, there was no more in those associations which made

Carrington groan in the silence of his thoughts, than if he had been

old Kaspar, and she the little Wilhelmine. What was a skull more

or less to her? What concern had she in the famous victory?

 

Yet even Sybil was startled as she rode through the gate and found

herself suddenly met by the long white ranks of head-stones,

stretching up and down the hill-sides by thousands, in order of

baffle; as though Cadmus had reversed his myth, and had sown

living men, to come up dragons' teeth. She drew in her horse with

a shiver and a sudden impulse to cry. Here was something new to

her. This was war--wounds, disease, death. She dropped her voice

and with a look almost as serious as Carrington's, asked what all

these graves meant. When Carrington told her, she began for the

first time to catch some dim notion why his face was not quite as

gay as her own. Even now this idea was not very precise, for he

said little about himself, but at least she grappled with the fact that

he had actually, year after year, carried arms against these men

who lay at her feet and who had given their lives for her cause. It

suddenly occurred to her as a new thought that perhaps he himself

might have killed one of them with his own hand. There was a

strange shock in this idea. She felt that Carrington was further

from her. He gained dignity in his rebel isolation. She wanted to

ask him how he could have been a traitor, and she did not dare.

Carrington a traitor!

 

Carrington killing her friends! The idea was too large to grasp. She

fell back on the simpler task of wondering how he had looked in

his rebel uniform.

 

They rode slowly round to the door of the house and dismounted,

after he had with some difficulty found a man to hold their horses.

From the heavy brick porch they looked across the superb river to

the raw and incoherent ugliness of the city, idealised into dreamy

beauty by the atmosphere, and the soft background of purple hills

behind. Opposite them, with its crude "thus saith the law" stamped

on white dome and fortress-like walls, rose the Capitol.

 

Carrington stood with her a short time while they looked at the

view; then said he would rather not go into the house himself, and

sat down on the steps while she strolled alone through the rooms.

These were bare and gaunt, so that she, with her feminine sense of

fitness, of course considered what she would do to make them

habitable. She had a neat fancy for furniture, and distributed her

tones and half tones and bits of colour freely about the walls and

ceilings, with a high-backed chair here, a spindle-legged sofa

there, and a claw-footed table in the centre, until her eye was

caught by a very dirty deal desk, on which stood an open book,

with an inkstand and some pens. On the leaf she read the last

entry: "Eli M. Grow and lady, Thermopyle Centre." Not even the

graves outside had brought the horrors of war so near.

 

What a scourge it was! This respectable family turned out of such

a lovely house, and all the pretty old furniture swept away before a

horde of coarse invaders "with ladies." Did the hosts of Attila write

their names on visiting books in the temple of Vesta and the house

of Sallust? What a new terror they would have added to the name

of the scourge of God! Sybil returned to the portico and sat down

by Carrington on the steps.

 

"How awfully sad it is!" said she; "I suppose the house was prettily

furnished when the Lees lived here? Did you ever see it then?"

 

Sybil was not very profound, but she had sympathy, and at this

moment Carrington felt sorely in need of comfort. He wanted

some one to share his feelings, and he turned towards her hungry

for companionship.

 

"The Lees were old family friends of mine," said he. "I used to stay

here when I was a boy, even as late as the spring of 1861. The last

time I sat here, it was with them. We were wild about disunion and

talked of nothing else. I have been trying to recall what was said

then. We never thought there would be war, and as for coercion, it

was nonsense. Coercion, indeed!

 

The idea was ridiculous. I thought so, too, though I was a Union

man and did not want the State to go out. But though I felt sure

that Virginia must suffer, I never thought we could be beaten. Yet

now I am sitting here a pardoned rebel, and the poor Lees are

driven away and their place is a grave-yard."

 

Sybil became at once absorbed in the Lees and asked many

questions, all which Carrington gladly answered. He told her how

he had admired and followed General Lee through the war. "We

thought he was to be our Washington, you know; and perhaps he

had some such idea himself;" and then, when Sybil wanted to hear

about the baffles and the fighting, he drew a rough map on the

gravel path to show her how the two lines had run, only a few

miles away; then he told her how he had carried his musket day

after day over all this country, and where he had seen his battles.

Sybil had everything to learn; the story came to her with all the

animation of real life, for here under her eyes were the graves of

her own champions, and by her side was a rebel who had stood

under our fire at Malvern Hill and at South Mountain, and who

was telling her how men looked and what they thought in face of

death. She listened with breathless interest, and at last summoned

courage to ask in an awestruck tone whether Carrington had ever

killed any one himself. She was relieved, although a little

disappointed, when he said that he believed not; he hoped not;

though no private who has discharged a musket in baffle can be

quite sure where the bullet went. "I never tried to kill any one,"

said he, "though they tried to kill me incessantly." Then Sybil

begged to know how they had tried to kill him, and he told her one

or two of those experiences, such as most soldiers have had, when

he had been fired upon and the balls had torn his clothes or drawn

blood. Poor Sybil was quite overcome, and found a deadly

fascination in the horror. As they sat together on the steps with the

glorious view spread before them, her attention was so closely

fixed on his story that she saw neither the view nor even the

carriages of tourists who drove up, looked about, and departed,

envying Carrington his occupation with the lovely girl.

 

She was in imagination rushing with him down the valley of

Virginia on the heels of our flying army, or gloomily toiling back

to the Potomac after the bloody days at Gettysburg, or watching

the last grand debacle on the road from Richmond to Appomattox.

They would have sat there till sunset if Carrington had not at

length insisted that they must go, and then she rose slowly with a

deep sigh and undisguised regret.

 

As they rode away, Carrington, whose thoughts were not devoted

to his companion so entirely as they should have been, ventured to

say that he wished her sister had come with them, but he found

that his hint was not well received.

 

Sybil emphatically rejected the idea: "I'm very glad she didn't

come. If she had, you would have talked with her all the time, and

I should have been left to amuse myself. You would have been

discussing things, and I hate discussions. She would have been

hunting for first principles, and you would have been running

about, trying to catch some for her. Besides, she is coming herself

some Sunday with that tiresome Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't see what she

finds in that man to amuse her. Her taste is getting to be

demoralised in Washington. Do you know, Mr. Carrington, I'm not

clever or serious, like Madeleine, and I can't read laws, and hate

politics, but I've more common sense than she has, and she makes

me cross with her. I unders,tand now why young widows are

dangerous, and why they're bumed at their husband's funerals in

India. Not that I want to have Madeleine burned, for she's a dear,

good creature, and I love her better than anything in the world; but

she will certainly do herself some dreadful mischief one of these

days; she has the most extravagant notions about self-sacrifice and

duty; if she hadn't luckily thought of taking charge of me, she

would have done some awful thing long ago, and if I could only be

a little wicked, she would be quite happy all the rest of her life in

reforming me; but now she has got hold of that Mr. Ratcliffe, and

he is trying to make her think she can reform him, and if he does,

it's all up with us. Madeleine will just go and break her heart over

that odious, great, coarse brute, who only wants her money."

 

Sybil delivered this little oration with a degree of energy that went

to Carrington's heart. She did not often make such sustained

efforts, and it was clear that on this subject she had exhausted her

whole mind. Carrington was delighted, and urged her on. "I dislike

Mr. Ratcliffe as much as you do;--more perhaps. So does every

one who knows much about him. But we shall only make the

matter worse if we interfere. What can we do?"

 

"That is just what I tell everybody," resumed Sybil. "There is

Victoria Dare always telling me I ought to do something; and Mr.

Schneidekoupon too; just as though I could do anything.

Madeleine has done nothing but get into mischief here. Half the

people think her worldly and ambitious. Only last night that

spiteful old woman, Mrs. Clinton, said to me: 'Your sister is quite

spoiled by Washington. She is more wild for power than any

human being I ever saw.' I was dreadfully angry and told her she

was quite mistaken--Madeleine was not the least spoiled. But I

couldn't say that she was not fond of power, for she is; but not in

the way Mrs. Clinton meant.

 

You should have seen her the other evening when Mr. Ratcliffe

said about some matter of public business that he would do

whatever she thought right; she spoke up quite sharply for her,

with a scornful little laugh, and said that he had better do what he

thought right. He looked for a moment almost angry, and muttered

something about women's being incomprehensible. He is always

trying to tempt her with power. She might have had long ago all

the power he could give her, but I can see, and he sees too, that she

always keeps him at arm's length. He doesn't like it, but he expects

one of these days to find a bribe that will answer. I wish we had

never come to Washington. New York is so much nicer and the

people there are much more amusing; they dance ever so much

better and send one flowers all the time, and then they never talk

about first principles. Maude had her hospitals and paupers and

training school, and got along very well. It was so safe. But when I

say so to her, she only smiles in a patronising kind of way, and

tells me that I shall have as much of Newport as I want; just as

though I were a child, and not a woman of twenty-five. Poor

Maude! I can't stay with her if she marries Mr. Ratcliffe, and it

would break my heart to leave her with that man. Do you think he

would beat her? Does he drink? I would almost rather be beaten a

little, if I cared for a man, than be taken out to Peonia. Oh, Mr.

Carrington! you are our only hope. She will listen to you.

 

Don't let her marry that dreadful politician."

 

To all this pathetic appeal, some parts of which were as liffle

calculated to please Carrington as Ratcliffe himself, Carrington

answered that he was ready to do all in his power but that Sybil

must tell him when and how to act.

 

"Then, it's a bargain," said she; "whenever I want you, I shall call

on you for help, and you shall prevent the marriage."

 

"Alliance offensive and defensive," said he, laughing; "war to the

knife on Ratcliffe. We will have his scalp if necessary, but I rather

think he will soon commit hari-kari himself if we leave him

alone."

 

"Madeleine will like him all the better if he does anything

Japanese,"

 

replied Sybil, with great seriousness; "I wish there was more

Japanese bric-à-brac here, or any kind of old pots and pans to talk

about. A little art would be good for her. What a strange place this

is, and how people do stand on their heads in it! Nobody thinks

like anyone else. Victoria Dare says she is trying on principle not

to be good, because she wants to keep some new excitements for

the next world. I'm sure she practices as she preaches. Did you see

her at Mrs. Clinton's last night. She behaved more outrageously

than ever. She sat on the stairs all through supper, looking like a

demure yellow cat with two bouquets in her paws--and I know

Lord Dunbeg sent one of them;--and she actually let Mr. French

feed her with ice-cream from a spoon. She says she was showing

Lord Dunbeg a phase, and that he is going to put it into his article

on American Manners and Customs in the Quarterly, but I don't

think it's nice, do you, Mr. Carrington? I wish Madeleine had her

to take care of. She would have enough to do then, I can tell her."

 

And so, gently prattling, Miss Sybil returned to the city, her

alliance with Carrington completed; and it was a singular fact that

she never again called him dull. There was henceforward a look of

more positive pleasure and cordiality on her face when he made

his appearance wherever she might be; and the next time he

suggested a horseback excursion she instantly agreed to go,

although aware that she had promised a younger gentleman of the

diplomatic body to be at home that same afternoon, and the good

fellow swore polyglot oaths on being turned away from her door.

 

Mr. Ratcliffe knew nothing of this conspiracy against his peace

and prospects. Even if he had known it, he might only have

laughed, and pursued his own path without a second thought. Yet

it was certain that he did not think Carrington's enmity a thing to

be overlooked, and from the moment of his obtaining a clue to its

cause, he had begun to take precautions against it. Even in the

middle of the contest for the Treasury, he had found time to listen

to Mr. Wilson Keens report on the affairs of the late Samuel

Baker.

 

Mr. Keen came to him with a copy of Baker's will and with

memoranda of remarks made by the unsuspecting Mrs. Baker;

"from which it appears," said he, "that Baker, having no time to

put his affairs in order, left special directions that his executors

should carefully destroy all papers that might be likely to

compromise individuals."

 

"What is the executor's name?" interrupted Ratcliffe.

 

"The executor's name is--John Carrington," said Keen,

methodically referring to his copy of the will.

 

Ratcliffe's face was impassive, but the inevitable, "I knew it,"

almost sprang to his lips. He was rather pleased at the instinct

which had led him so directly to the right trail.

 

Keen went on to say that from Mrs. Baker's conversation it was

certain that the testator's directions had been carried out, and that

the great bulk of these papers had been burned.

 

"Then it will be useless to press the inquiry further," said Ratcliffe;

"I am much obliged to you for your assistance," and he turned the

conversation to the condition of Mr. Keen's bureau in the Treasury

department.

 

The next time Ratcliffe saw Mrs. Lee, after his appointment to the

Treasury was confirmed, he asked her whether she did not think

Carrington very well suited for public service, and when she

warmly assented, he said it had occurred to him to offer the place

of Solicitor of the Treasury to Mr.

 

Carrington, for although the actual salary might not be very much

more than he earned by his private practice, the incidental

advantages to a Washington lawyer were considerable; and to the

Secretary it was especially necessary to have a solicitor in whom

he could place entire confidence. Mrs. Lee was pleased by this

motion of Ratcliffe's, the more because she had supposed that

Ratcliffe had no liking for Carrington. She doubted whether

Carrington would accept the place, but she hoped that it might

modify his dislike for Ratcliffe, and she agreed to sound him on

the subject. There was something a little compromising in thus

allowing herself to appear as the dispenser of Mr. Ratcliffe's

patronage, but she dismissed this objection on the ground that

Carrington's interests were involved, and that it was for him to

judge whether he should take the place or not. Perhaps the world

would not be so charitable if the appointment were made. What

then? Mrs. Lee asked herself the question and did not feel quite at

ease.

 

So far as Carrington was concerned, she might have dismissed her

doubts.

 

There was not a chance of his taking the place, as very soon

appeared. When she spoke to him on the subject, and repeated

what Ratcliffe had said, his face flushed, and he sat for some

moments in silence. He never thought very rapidly, but now the

ideas seemed to come so fast as to bewilder his mind.

 

The situation flashed before his eyes like electric sparks. His first

impression was that Ratcliffe wanted to buy him; to tie his tongue;

to make him run, like a fastened dog, under the waggon of the

Secretary of the Treasury. His second notion was that Ratcliffe

wanted to put Mrs. Lee under obligations, in order to win her

regard; and, again, that he wanted to raise himself in her esteem by

posing as a friend of honest administration and unassisted virtue.

Then suddenly it occurred to him that the scheme was to make him

appear jealous and vindictive; to put him in an attitude where any

reason he might give for declining would bear a look of meanness,

and tend to separate him from Mrs. Lee. Carrington was so

absorbed by these thoughts, and his mind worked so slowly, that

he failed to hear one or two remarks addressed to him by Mrs. Lee,

who became a little alarmed, under the impression that he was

unexpectedly paralyzed.

 

When at length he heard her and attempted to frame an answer, his

embarrassment increased. He could only stammer that he was

sorry to be obliged to decline, but this office was one he could not

undertake.

 

If Madeleine felt a little relieved by this decision, she did not show

it.

 

From her manner one might have supposed it to be her fondest

wish that Carrington should be Solicitor of the Treasury. She

cross-questioned him with obstinacy. Was not the offer a good

one? --and he was obliged to confess that it was. Were the duties

such as he could not perform? Not at all! there was nothing in the

duties which alarmed him. Did he object to it because of his

southern prejudices against the administration? Oh, no! he had no

political feeling to stand in his way. What, then, could be his

reason for refusing?

 

Carrington resorted again to silence, until Mrs. Lee, a little

impatiently, asked whether it was possible that his personal dislike

to Racliffe could blind him so far as to make him reject so fair a

proposal. Carrington, finding himself more and more

uncomfortable, rose restlessly from his chair and paced the room.

He felt that Ratclife had fairly out-generaled him, and he was at

his wits' end to know what card he could play that would not lead

directly into Ratcliffe's trump suit. To refuse such an offer was

hard enough at best, for a man who wanted money and

professional advancement as he did, but to injure himself and help

Ratcliffe by this refusal, was abominably hard. Nevertheless, he

was obliged to admit that he would rather not take a position so

directly under Ratcliffe's control. Madeleine said no more, but he

thought she looked annoyed, and he felt himself in an intolerably

painful situation. He was not certain that she herself might not

have had some share in proposing the plan, and that his refusal

might not have some mortifying consequences for her. What must

she think of him, then?

 

At this very moment he would have given his right arm for a word

of real affection from Mrs. Lee. He adored her. He would willingly

enough have damned himself for her. There was no sacrifice he

would not have made to bring her nearer to him. In his upright,

quiet, simple kind of way, he immolated himself before her. For

months his heart had ached with this hopeless passion. He

recognized that it was hopeless. He knew that she would never

love him, and, to do her justice, she never had given him reason to

suppose that it was in her power to love him, r any man. And here

he stood, obliged to appear ungrateful and prejudiced, mean and

vindictive, in her eyes. He took his seat again, looking so

unutterably dejected, his patient face so tragically mournful, that

Madeleine, after a while, began to see the absurd side of the

matter, and presently burst into a laugh "Please do not look so

frightfully miserable!" said she; "I did not mean to make you

unhappy. After all, what does it matter? You have a perfect right to

refuse, and, for my part, I have not the least wish to see you

accept."

 

On this, Carrington brightened, and declared that if she thought

him right in declining, he cared for nothing else. It was only the

idea of hurting her feelings that weighed on his mind. But in

saying this, he spoke in a tone that implied a deeper feeling, and

made Mrs. Lee again look grave and sigh.

 

"Ah, Mr. Carrington," she said, "this world will not run as we

want. Do you suppose the time will ever come when every one will

be good and happy and do just what they ought? I thought this

offer might possibly take one anxiety off your shoulders. I am

sorry now that I let myself be led into making it."

 

Carrington could not answer her. He dared not trust his voice. He

rose to go, and as she held out her hand, he suddenly raised it to

his lips, and so left her. She sat for a moment with tears in her eyes

after he was gone. She thought she knew all that was in his mind,

and with a woman's readiness to explain every act of men by their

consuming passions for her own sex, she took it as a matter of

course that jealousy was the whole cause of Carrington's hostility

to Ratcliffe, and she pardoned it with charming alacrity. "Ten

years ago, I could have loved him," she thought to herself, and

then, while she was half smiling at the idea, suddenly another

thought flashed upon her, and she threw her hand up before her

face as though some one had struck her a blow. Carrington had

reopened the old wound.

 

When Ratcliffe came to see her again, which he did very shortly

afterwards, glad of so good an excuse, she told him of Carrington's

refusal, adding only that he seemed unwilling to accept any

position that had a political character. Ratcliffe showed no sign of

displeasure; he only said, in a benignant tone, that he was sorry to

be unable to do something for so good a friend of hers; thus

establishing, at all events, his claim on her gratitude. As for

Carrington, the offer which Ratcliffe had made was not intended to

be accepted, and Carrington could not have more embarrassed the

secretary than by closing with it. Ratcliffe's object had been to

settle for his own satisfaction the question of Carrington's hostility,

for he knew the man well enough to feel sure that in any event he

would act a perfectly straightforward part. If he accepted, he

would at least be true to his chief. If he refused, as Ratcliffe

expected, it would be a proof that some means must be found of

getting him out of the way. In any case the offer was a new thread

in the net that Mr. Ratcliffe flattered himself he was rapidly

winding about the affections and ambitions of Mrs. Lee. Yet he

had reasons of his own for thinking that Carrington, more easily

than any other man, could cut the meshes of this net if he chose to

do so, and therefore that it would be wiser to postpone action until

Carrington were disposed of.

 

Without a moment's delay he made inquiries as to all the vacant or

eligible offices in the gift of the government outside his own

department. Very few of these would answer his purpose. He

wanted some temporary law business that would for a time take its

holder away to a distance, say to Australia or Central Asia, the

further the better; it must be highly paid, and it must be given in

such a way as not to excite suspicion that Ratcliffe was concerned

in the matter. Such an office was not easily found. There is little

law business in Central Asia, and at this moment there was not

enough to require a special agent in Australia. Carrington could

hardly be induced to lead an expedition to the sources of the Nile

in search of business merely to please Mr. Ratcliffe, nor could the

State Department offer encouragement to a hope that government

would pay the expenses of such an expedition. The best that

Ratcliffe could do was to select the place of counsel to the

Mexican claims-commission which was soon to meet in the city of

Mexico, and which would require about six months' absence. By a

little management he could contrive to get the counsel sent away

in advance of the commission, in order to work up a part of the

case on the spot. Ratcliffe acknowledged that Mexico was too

near, but he drily remarked to himself that if Carrington could get

back in time to dislodge him after he had once got a firm hold on

Mrs. Lee, he would never try to run another caucus.

 

The point once settled in his own mind, Ratcliffe, with his usual

rapidity of action, carried his scheme into effect. In this there was

little difficulty. He dropped in at the office of the Secretary of

State within eight-and-forty hours after his last conversation with

Mrs. Lee. During these early days of every new administration, the

absorbing business of government relates principally to

appointments. The Secretary of the Treasury was always ready to

oblige his colleagues in the Cabinet by taking care of their friends

to any reasonable extent. The Secretary of State was not less

courteous. The moment he understood that Mr. Ratcliffe had a

strong wish to secure the appointment of a certain person as

counsel to the Mexican claims-commission, the Secretary of State

professed readiness to gratify him, and when he heard who the

proposed person was, the suggestion was hailed with pleasure, for

Carrington was well known and much liked at the Department, and

was indeed an excellent man for the place. Ratcliffe hardly needed

to promise an equivalent. The business was arranged in ten

minutes.

 

"I only need say," added Ratcliffe, "that if my agency in the affair

is known, Mr. Carrington will certainly refuse the place, for he is

one of your old-fashioned Virginia planters, proud as Lucifer, and

willing to accept nothing by way of favour. I will speak to your

Assistant Secretary about it, and the recommendation shall appear

to come from him."

 

The very next day Carrington received a private note from his old

friend, the Assistant Secretary of State, who was overjoyed to do

him a kindness.

 

The note asked him to call at the Department at his earliest

convenience. He went, and the Assistant Secretary announced that

he had recommended Carrington's appointment as counsel to the

Mexican claims-commission, and that the Secretary had approved

the recommendation. "We want a Southern man, a lawyer with a

little knowledge of international law, one who can go at once, and,

above all, an honest man. You fit the description to a hair; so pack

your trunk as soon as you like."

 

Carrington was startled. Coming as it did, this offer was not only

unobjectionable, but tempting. It was hard for him even to imagine

a reason for hesitation. From the first he felt that he must go, and

yet to go was the very last thing he wanted to do. That he should

suspect Ratcliffe to be at the bottom of this scheme of banishment

was a matter of course, and he instantly asked whether any

influence had been used in his favour; but the Assistant Secretary

so stoutly averred that the appointment was made on his

recommendation alone, as to block all further inquiry. Technically

this assertion was exact, and it made Carrington feel that it would

be base ingratitude on his part not to accept a favour so

handsomely offered.

 

Yet he could not make up his mind to acceptance. He begged four

and twenty hours' delay, in order, as he said, to see whether he

could arrange his affairs for a six months' absence, although he

knew there would be no difficulty in his doing so. He went away

and sat in his office alone, gloomily wondering what he could do,

although from the first he saw that the situation was only too clear,

and there could not be the least dark corner of a doubt to crawl

into. Six months ago he would have jumped at this offer.

 

What had happened within six months to make it seem a disaster?

 

Mrs. Lee! There was the whole story. To go away now was to give

up Mrs. Lee, and probably to give her up to Ratcliffe. Carrington

gnashed his teeth when he thought how skilfully Ratcliffe was

playing his cards. The longer he reflected, the more certain he felt

that Ratcliffe was at the bottom of this scheme to get rid of him;

and yet, as he studied the situation, it occurred to him that after all

it was possible for Ratcliffe to make a blunder. This Illinois

politician was clever, and understood men; but a knowledge of

men is a very different thing from a knowledge of women.

Carrington himself had no great experience in the article of

women, but he thought he knew more than Ratcliffe, who was

evidently relying most on his usual theory of political corruption as

applied to feminine weaknesses, and who was only puzzled at

finding how high a price Mrs. Lee set on herself. If Ratcliffe were

really at the bottom of the scheme for separating Carrington from

her, it could only be because he thought that six months, or even

six weeks, would be enough to answer his purpose. And on

reaching this point in his reflections, Carrington suddenly rose, lit

a cigar, and walked up and down his room steadily for the next

hour, with the air of a general arranging a plan of campaign, or a

lawyer anticipating his opponent's line of argument.

 

On one point his mind was made up. He would accept. If Ratcliffe

really had a hand in this move, he should be gratified. If he had

laid a trap, he should be caught in it. And when the evening came,

Carrington took his hat and walked off to call upon Mrs. Lee.

 

He found the sisters alone and quietly engaged in their

occupations.

 

Madeleine was dramatically mending an open-work silk stocking,

a delicate and difficult task which required her whole mind. Sybil

was at the piano as usual, and for the first time since he had known

her, she rose when he came in, and, taking her work-basket, sat

down to share in the conversation. She meant to take her place as a

woman, henceforward. She was tired of playing girl. Mr.

Carrington should see that she was not a fool.

 

Carrington plunged at once into his subject, and announced the

offer made to him, at which Madeleine expressed delight, and

asked many questions. What was the pay? How soon must he go?

How long should he be away? Was there danger from the climate?

and finally she added, with a smile, "What am I to say to Mr.

Ratcliffe if you accept this offer after refusing his?" As for Sybil,

she made one reproachful exclamation: "Oh, Mr. Carrington!" and

sank back into silence and consternation. Her first experiment at

taking a stand of her own in the world was not encouraging. She

felt betrayed.

 

Nor was Carrington gay. However modest a man may be, only an

idiot can forget himself entirely in pursuing the moon and the

stars. In the bottom of his soul, he had a lingering hope that when

he told his story, Madeleine might look up with a change of

expression, a glance of unpremeditated regard, a little suffusion of

the eyes, a little trembling of the voice. To see himself relegated to

Mexico with such cheerful alacrity by the woman he loved was not

the experience he would have chosen. He could not help feeling

that his hopes were disposed of, and he watched her with a painful

sinking of the heart, which did not lead to lightness of

conversation. Madeleine herself felt that her expressions needed to

be qualified, and she tried to correct her mistake. What should she

do without a tutor? she said. He must let her have a list of books to

read while he was away: they were themselves going north in the

middle of May, and Carrington would be back by the time they

returned in December. After all, they should see as little of him

during the summer if he were in Virginia as if he were in Mexico.

 

Carrington gloomily confessed that he was very unwilling to go;

that he wished the idea had never been suggested; that he should

be perfectly happy if for any reason the scheme broke down; but

he gave no explanation of his feeling, and Madeleine had too much

tact to press for one. She contented herself by arguing against it,

and talking as vivaciously as she could. Her heart really bled for

him as she saw his face grow more and more pathetic in its quiet

expression of disappointment. But what could she say or do? He

sat till after ten o'clock; he could not tear himself away. He felt

that this was the end of his pleasure in life; he dreaded the solitude

of his thoughts. Mrs. Lee's resources began to show signs of

exhaustion. Long pauses intervened between her remarks; and at

length Carrington, with a superhuman effort, apologized for

inflicting himself upon her so unmercifully. If she knew, he said,

how he dreaded being alone, she would forgive him. Then he rose

to go, and, in taking leave, asked Sybil if she was inclined to ride

the next day; if so, he was at her service. Sybil's face brightened as

she accepted the invitation.

 

Mrs. Lee, a day or two afterwards, did mention Carrington's

appointment to Mr. Ratcliffe, and she told Carrington that the

Secretary certainly looked hurt and mortified, but showed it only

by almost instantly changing the subject.

 

Chapter X

 

THE next morning Carrington called at the Department and

announced his acceptance of the post. He was told that his

instructions would be ready in about a fortnight, and that he would

be expected to start as soon as he received them; in the meanwhile,

he must devote himself to the study of a mass of papers in the

Department. There was no trifling allowable here.

 

Carrington had to set himself vigorously to work. This did not,

however, prevent him from keeping his appointment with Sybil,

and at four o'clock they started together, passing out into the quiet

shadows of Rock Creek, and seeking still lanes through the woods

where their horses walked side by side, and they themselves could

talk without the risk of criticism from curious eyes. It was the

afternoon of one of those sultry and lowering spring days when life

germinates rapidly, but as yet gives no sign, except perhaps some

new leaf or flower pushing its soft head up against the dead leaves

that have sheltered it. The two riders had something of the same

sensation, as though the leafless woods and the laurel thickets, the

warm, moist air and the low clouds, were a protection and a soft

shelter. Somewhat to Carrington's surprise, he found that it was

pleasant to have Sybil's company. He felt towards her as to a

sister--a favourite sister.

 

She at once attacked him for abandoning her and breaking his

treaty so lately made, and he tried to gain her sympathy by saying

that if she knew how much he was troubled, she would forgive

him. Then when Sybil asked whether he really must go and leave

her without any friend whom she could speak to, his feelings got

the better of him: he could not resist the temptation to confide all

his troubles in her, since there was no one else in whom he could

confide. He told her plainly that he was in love with her sister.

 

"You say that love is nonsense, Miss Ross. I tell you it is no such

thing.

 

For weeks and months it is a steady physical pain, an ache about

the heart, never leaving one, by night or by day; a long strain on

one's nerves like toothache or rheumatism, not intolerable at any

one instant, but exhausting by its steady drain on the strength. It is

a disease to be borne with patience, like any other nervous

complaint, and to be treated with counter-irritants. My trip to

Mexico will be good for it, but that is not the reason why I must

go."

 

Then he told her all his private circumstances; the ruin which the

war had brought on him and his family; how, of his two brothers,

one had survived the war only to die at home, a mere wreck of

disease, privation, and wounds; the other had been shot by his side,

and bled slowly to death in his arms during the awful carnage in

the Wilderness; how his mother and two sisters were struggling for

a bare subsistence on a wretched Virginian farm, and how all his

exertions barely kept them from beggary.

 

"You have no conception of the poverty to which our southern

women are reduced since the war," said he; "they are many of

them literally without clothes or bread." The fee he should earn by

going to Mexico would double his income this year. Could he

refuse? Had he a right to refuse? And poor Carrington added, with

a groan, that if he alone were in question, he would sooner be shot

than go.

 

Sybil listened with tears in her eyes. She never before had seen a

man show suffering. The misery she had known in life had been

more or less veiled to her and softened by falling on older and

friendly shoulders. She now got for the first time a clear view of

Carrington, apart from the quiet exterior in which the man was

hidden. She felt quite sure, by a sudden flash of feminine

inspiration, that the curious look of patient endurance on his face

was the work of a single night when he had held his brother in his

arms, and knew that the blood was draining drop by drop from his

side, in the dense, tangled woods, beyond the reach of help, hour

after hour, till the voice failed and the limbs grew stiff and cold.

When he had finished his story, she was afraid to speak. She did

not know how to show her sympathy, and she could not bear to

seem unsympathetic. In her embarrassment she fairly broke down

and could only dry her eyes in silence.

 

Having once got this weight of confidence off his mind,

Carrington felt comparatively gay and was ready to make the best

of things. He laughed at himself to drive away the tears of his

pretty companion, and obliged her to take a solemn pledge never

to betray him. "Of course your sister knows it all," he said; "but

she must never know that I told you, and I never would tell any one

but you."

 

Sybil promised faithfully to keep his confidence to herself, and she

went on to defend her sister.

 

"You must not blame Madeleine," said ,she; "if you knew as well as

I do what she has been through, you would not think her cold. You

do know how suddenly her husband died, after only one day's

illness, and what a nice fellow he was. She was very fond of him,

and his death seemed to stun her. We hardly knew what to make of

it, she was so quiet and natural. Then just a week later her little

child died of diphtheria, suffering horribly, and she wild with

despair because she could not relieve it. After that, she was almost

insane; indeed, I have always thought she was quite insane for a

time. I know she was excessively violent and wanted to kill

herself, and I never heard any one rave as she did about religion

and resignation and God. After a few weeks she became quiet and

stupid and went about like a machine; and at last she got over it,

but has never been what she was before. You know she was a

rather fast New York girl before she married, and cared no more

about politics and philanthropy than I do. It was a very late thing,

all this stuff. But she is not really hard, though she may seem so. It

is all on the surface. I always know when she is thinking about her

husband or child, because her face gets rigid; she looks then as she

used to look after her child died, as though she didn't care what

became of her and she would just as lieve kill herself as not. I don't

think she will ever let herself love any one again. She has a horror

of it. She is much more likely to go in for ambition, or duty, or

self-sacrifice."

 

They rode on for a while in silence, Carrington perplexed by the

problem how two harmless people such as Madeleine and he could

have been made by a beneficent Providence the sport of such cruel

tortures; and Sybil equally interested in thinking what sort of a

brother-in-law Carrington would make; on the whole, she thought

she liked him better as he was. The silence was only broken by

Carrington's bringing the conversation back to its starting-point:

"Something must be done to keep your sister out of Ratcliffe's

power. I have thought about it till I am tired. Can you make no

suggestion?"

 

No! Sybil was helpless and dreadfully alarmed. Mr. Ratcliffe came

to the house as often as he could, and seemed to tell Madeleine

everything that was going on in politics, and ask her advice, and

Madeleine did not discourage him. "I do believe she likes it, and

thinks she can do some good by it. I don't dare speak to her about

it. She thinks me a child still, and treats me as though I were

fifteen. What can I do?"

 

Carrington said he had thought of speaking to Mrs. Lee himself,

but he did not know what to say, and if he offended her, he might

drive her directly into Ratcliffe's arms. But Sybil thought she

would not be offended if he went to work in the right way. "She

will stand more from you than from any one else. Tell her openly

that you--that you love her," said Sybil with a burst of desperate

courage; "she can't take offence at that; and then you can say

almost anything."

 

Carrington looked at Sybil with more admiration than he had ever

expected to feel for her, and began to think that he might do worse

than to put himself under her orders. After all, she had some

practical sense, and what was more to the point, she was

handsomer than ever, as she sat erect on her horse, the rich colour

rushing up under the warm skin, at the impropriety of her speech.

"You are certainly right," said he; "after all, I have nothing to lose.

Whether she marries Ratcliffe or not, she will never marry me, I

suppose."

 

This speech was a cowardly attempt to beg encouragement from

Sybil, and met with the fate it deserved, for Sybil, highly flattered

at Carrington's implied praise, and bold as a lioness now that it

was Carrington's fingers, and not her own, that were to go into the

fire, gave him on the spot a feminine view of the situation that did

not encourage his hopes. She plainly said that men seemed to take

leave of their senses as soon as women were concerned; for her

part, she could not understand what there was in any woman to

make such a fuss about; she thought most women were horrid;

men were ever so much nicer; "and as for Madeleine, whom all of

you are ready to cut each other's throats about, she's a dear, good

sister, as good as gold, and I love her with all my heart, but you

wouldn't like her, any of you, if you married her; she has always

had her own way, and she could not help taking it; she never could

learn to take yours; both of you would be unhappy in a week; and

as for that old Mr. Ratcliffe, she would make his life a burden--and

I hope she will," concluded Sybil with a spiteful little explosion of

hatred.

 

Carrington could not help being amused by Sybil's way of dealing

with affairs of the heart. Emboldened by encouragement, she went

on to attack him pitilessly for going down on his knees before her

sister, "just as though you were not as good as she is," and openly

avowed that, if she were a man, she would at least have some

pride. Men like this kind of punishment.

 

Carrington did not attempt to defend himself; he even courted

Sybil's attack. They both enjoyed their ride through the bare

woods, by the rippling spring streams, under the languid breath of

the moist south wind. It was a small idyll, all the more pleasant

because there was gloom before and behind it. Sybil's irrepressible

gaiety made Carrington doubt whether, after all, life need be so

serious a matter. She had animal spirits in plenty, and it needed an

effort for her to keep them down, while Carrington's spirits were

nearly exhausted after twenty years of strain, and he required a

greater effort to hold himself up. There was every reason why he

should be grateful to Sybil for lending to him from her superfluity.

He enjoyed being laughed at by her. Suppose Madeleine Lee did

refuse to marry him! What of it?

 

"Pooh!" said Sybil; "you men are all just alike. How can you be so

silly?

 

Madeleine and you would be intolerable together. Do find some

one who won't be solemn!"

 

They laid out their little plot against Madeleine and elaborated it

carefully, both as to what Carrington should say and how he

should say it, for Sybil asserted that men were too stupid to be

trusted even in making a declaration of love, and must be taught,

like little children to say their prayers. Carrington enjoyed being

taught how to make a declaration of love.

 

He did not ask where Sybil had learned so much about men's

stupidity. He thought perhaps Schneidekoupon could have thrown

light on the subject. At all events, they were so busily occupied

with their schemes and lessons, that they did not-reach home till

Madeleine had become anxious lest they had met with some

accident. The long dusk had become darkness before she heard the

clatter of hoofs on the asphalt pavement, and she went down to the

door to scold them for their delay. Sybil only laughed at her, and

said it was all Mr. Carrington's fault: he had lost his way, and she

had been forced to find it for him.

 

Ten days more passed before their plan was carried into effect.

April had come. Carrington's work was completed and he was

ready to start on his journey. Then at last he appeared one evening

at Mrs. Lee's at the very moment when Sybil, as chance would

have it, was going out to pass an hour or two with her friend

Victoria Dare a few doors away. Carrington felt a little ashamed as

she went. This kind of conspiracy behind Mrs. Lee's back was not

to his taste.

 

He resolutely sat down, and plunged at once into his subject. He

was almost ready to go, he said; he had nearly completed his work

in the Department, and he was assured that his instructions and

papers would be ready in two days more; he might not have

another chance to see Mrs. Lee so quietly again, and he wanted to

take his leave now, for this was what lay most heavily on his mind;

he should have gone willingly and gladly if it had not been for

uneasiness about her; and yet he had till now been afraid to speak

openly on the subject. Here he paused for a moment as though to

invite some reply.

 

Madeleine laid down her work with a look of regret though not of

annoyance, and said frankly and instantly that he had been too

good a friend to allow of her taking offence at anything he could

say; she would not pretend to misunderstand him. "My affairs," she

added with a shade of bitterness, "seem to have become public

property, and I would rather have some voice in discussing them

myself than to know they are discussed behind my back."

 

This was a sharp thrust at the very outset, but Carrington turned it

aside and went quietly on:

 

"You are frank and loyal, as you always are. I will be so too. I can't

help being so. For months I have had no other pleasure than in

being near you.

 

For the first time in my life I have known what it is to forget my

own affairs in loving a woman who seems to me without a fault,

and for one solitary word from whom I would give all I have in

life, and perhaps itself."

 

Madeleine flushed and bent towards him with an earnestness of

manner that repeated itself in her tone.

 

"Mr. Carrington, I am the best friend you have on earth. One of

these days you will thank me with your whole soul for refusing to

listen to you now.

 

You do not know how much misery I am saving you. I have no

heart to give.

 

You want a young, fresh life to help yours; a gay, lively

temperament to enliven your despondency; some one still young

enough to absorb herself in you and make all her existence yours. I

could not do it. I can give you nothing. I have done my best to

persuade myself that some day I might begin life again with the

old hopes and feelings, but it is no use. The fire is burned out. If

you married me, you would destroy yourself You would wake up

some day, and find the universe dust and ashes."

 

Carrington listened in silence. He made no attempt to interrupt or

to contradict her. Only at the end he said with a little bitterness:

"My own life is worth so much to the world and to me, that I

suppose it would be wrong to risk it on such a venture; but I would

risk it, nevertheless, if you gave me the chance. Do you think me

wicked for tempting Providence? I do not mean to annoy you with

entreaties. I have a little pride left, and a great deal of respect for

you. Yet I think, in spite of all you have said or can say, that one

disappointed life may be as able to find happiness and repose in

another, as to get them by sucking the young life-blood of a fresh

soul."

 

To this speech, which was unusually figurative for Carrington,

Mrs. Lee could find no ready answer. She could only reply that

Carrington's life was worth quite as much as his neighbour's, and

that it was worth so much to her, if not to himself, that she would

not let him wreck it.

 

Carrington went on: "Forgive my talking in this way. I do not mean

to complain. I shall always love you just as much, whether you

care for me or not, because you are the only woman I have ever

met, or am ever likely to meet, who seems to me perfect."

 

If this was Sybil's teaching, she had made the best of her time.

 

Carrington's tone and words pierced through all Mrs. Lee's armour

as though they were pointed with the most ingenious cruelty, and

designed to torture her. She felt hard and small before him. Life

for life, his had been, and was now, far less bright than hers, yet he

was her superior. He sat there, a true man, carrying his burden

calmly, quietly, without complaint, ready to face the next shock of

life with the same endurance he had shown against the rest. And

he thought her perfect! She felt humiliated that any brave man

should say to her face that he thought her perfect! She! perfect! In

her contrition she was half ready to go down at his feet and confess

her sins; her hysterical dread of sorrow and suffering, her narrow

sympathies, her feeble faith, her miserable selfishness, her abject

cowardice. Every nerve in her body tingled with shame when she

thought what a miserable fraud she was; what a mass of

pretensions unfounded, of deceit ingrained. She was ready to hide

her face in her hands. She was disgusted, outraged with her own

image as she saw it, contrasted with Carrington's single word:

Perfect!

 

Nor was this the worst. Carrington was not the first man who had

thought her perfect. To hear this word suddenly used again, which

had never been uttered to her before except by lips now dead and

gone, made her brain reel. She seemed to hear her husband once

more telling her that she was perfect. Yet against this torture, she

had a better defence. She had long since hardened herself to bear

these recollections, and they steadied and strengthened her.

 

She had been called perfect before now, and what had come of it?

Two graves, and a broken life! She drew herself up with a face

now grown quite pale and rigid. In reply to Carrington, she said

not a word, but only shook her head slightly without looking at

him.

 

He went on: "After all, it is not my own happiness I am thinking of

but yours. I never was vain enough to think that I was worth your

love, or that I could ever win it. Your happiness is another thing. I

care so much for that as to make me dread going away, for fear

that you may yet find yourself entangled in this wretched political

life here, when, perhaps if I stayed, I might be of some use."

 

"Do you really think, then, that I am going to fall a victim to Mr.

 

Ratcliffe?" asked Madeleine, with a cold smile.

 

"Why not?" replied Carrington, in a similar tone. "He can put

forward a strong claim to your sympathy and help, if not to your

love. He can offer you a great field of usefulness which you want.

He has been very faithful to you. Are you quite sure that even now

you can refuse him without his complaining that you have trifled

with him?"

 

"And are you quite sure," added Mrs. Lee, evasively, "that you

have not been judging him much too harshly? I think I know him

better than you. He has many good qualities, and some high ones.

What harm can he do me? Supposing even that he did succeed in

persuading me that my life could be best used in helping his, why

should I be afraid of it?"

 

"You and I," said Carrington, "are wide apart in our estimates of

Mr.

 

Ratcliffe. To you, of course, he shows his best side. He is on his

good behaviour, and knows that any false step will ruin him. I see

in him only a coarse, selfish, unprincipled politician, who would

either drag you down to his own level, or, what is more likely,

would very soon disgust you and make your life a wretched

self-immolation before his vulgar ambition, or compel you to leave

him. In either case you would be the victim. You cannot afford to

make another false start in life. Reject me! I have not a word to say

against it. But be on your guard against giving your existence up to

him."

 

"Why do you think so ill of Mr. Ratcliffe?" asked Madeleine; "he

always speaks highly of you. Do you know anything against him

that the world does not?"

 

"His public acts are enough to satisfy me," replied Carrington,

evading a part of the question. "You know that I have never had

but one opinion about him."

 

There was a pause in the conversation. Both parties felt that as yet

no good had come of it. At length Madeleine asked, "What would

you have me do? Is it a pledge you want that I will under no

circumstances marry Mr. Ratcliffe?"

 

"Certainly not," was the answer; "you know me better than to think

I would ask that. I only want you to take time and keep out of his

influence until your mind is fairly made up. A year hence I feel

certain that you will think of him as I do."

 

"Then you will allow me to marry him if I find that you are

mistaken," said Mrs. Lee, with a marked tone of sarcasm.

 

Carrington looked annoyed, but he answered quietly, "What I fear

is his influence here and now. What I would like to see you do is

this: go north a month earlier than you intended, and without

giving him time to act. If I were sure you were safely in Newport, I

should feel no anxiety."

 

"You seem to have as bad an opinion of Washington as Mr. Gore,"

said Madeleine, with a contemptuous smile. "He gave me the same

advice, though he was afraid to tell me why. I am not a child. I am

thirty years old, and have seen something of the world. I am not

afraid, like Mr. Gore, of Washington malaria, or, like you, of Mr.

Ratcliffe's influence. If I fall a victim I shall deserve my fate, and

certainly I shall have no cause to complain of my friends. They

have given me advice enough for a lifetime."

 

Carrington's face darkened with a deeper shade of regret. The turn

which the conversation had taken was precisely what he had

expected, and both Sybil and he had agreed that Madeleine would

probably answer just in this way.

 

Nevertheless, he could not but feel acutely the harm he was doing

to his own interests, and it was only by a sheer effort of the will

that he forced himself to a last and more earnest attack.

 

"I know it is an impertinence," he said; "I wish it were in my

power to show how much it costs me to offend you. This is the

first time you ever had occasion to be offended. If I were to yield

to the fear of your anger and were to hold my tongue now, and by

any chance you were to wreck your life on this rock, I should never

forgive myself the cowardice. I should always think I might have

done something to prevent it. This is probably the last time I shall

have the chance to talk openly with you, and I implore you to

listen to me. I want nothing for myself If I knew I should never see

you again, I would still say the same thing. Leave Washington!

Leave it now!

 

--at once! --without giving more than twenty-four hours' notice!

Leave it without letting Mr. Ratcliffe see you again in private!

Come back next winter if you please, and then accept him if you

think proper. I only pray you to think long about it and decide

when you are not here."

 

Madeleine's eyes flashed, and she threw aside her embroidery with

an impatient gesture: "No! Mr. Carrington! I will not be dictated

to! I will carry out my own plans! I do not mean to marry Mr.

Ratcliffe. If I had meant it, I should have done it before now. But I

will not run away from him or from myself. It would be

unladylike, undignified, cowardly."

 

Carrington could say no more. He had come to the end of his

lesson. A long silence ensued and then he rose to go. "Are you

angry with me?" said she in a softer tone.

 

"I ought to ask that question," said he. "Can you forgive me? I am

afraid not. No man can say to a woman what I have said to you,

and be quite forgiven. You will never think of me again as you

would have done if I had not spoken. I knew that before I did it. As

for me, I can only go on with my old life. It is not gay, and will not

be the gayer for our talk to-night."

 

Madeleine relented a little: "Friendships like ours are not so easily

broken," she said. "Do not do me another injustice. You will see

me again before you go?"

 

He assented and bade good-night. Mrs. Lee, weary and disturbed in

mind, hastened to her room. "When Miss Sybil comes in, tell her

that I am not very well, and have gone to bed," were her

instructions to her maid, and Sybil thought she knew the cause of

this headache.

 

But before Carrington's departure he had one more ride with Sybil,

and reported to her the result of the interview, at which both of

them confessed themselves much depressed. Carrington expressed

some hope that Madeleine meant, after a sort, to give a kind of

pledge by saying that she had no intention of marrying Mr.

Ratcliffe, but Sybil shook her head emphatically:

 

"How can a woman tell whether she is going to accept a man until

she is asked?" said she with entire confidence, as though she were

stating the simplest fact in the world. Carrington looked puzzled,

and ventured to ask whether women did not generally make up

their minds beforehand on such an interesting point; but Sybil

overwhelmed him with contempt: "What good will they do by

making up their minds, I should like to know? of course they

would go and do the opposite. Sensible women don't pretend to

make up their minds, Mr. Carrington. But you men are so stupid,

and you can't understand in the least."

 

Carrington gave it up, and went back to his stale question: Could

Sybil suggest any other resource? and Sybil sadly confessed that

she could not. So far as she could see, they must trust to luck, and

she thought it was cruel tor Mr. Carrington to go away and leave

her alone without help. He had promised to prevent the marriage.

 

"One thing more I mean to do," said Carrington: "and here

everything will depend on your courage and nerve. You may

depend upon it that Mr. Ratcliffe will offer himself before you go

north. He does not suspect you of making trouble, and he will not

think about you in any way if you let him alone and keep quiet.

When he does offer himself you will know it; at least your sister

will tell you if she has accepted him. If she refuses him point

blank, you will have nothing to do but to keep her steady. If you

see her hesitating, you must break in at any cost, and use all your

influence to stop her. Be bold, then, and do your best. If everything

fails and she still clings to him, I must play my last card, or rather

you must play it for me.

 

I shall leave with you a sealed letter which you are to give her if

everything else fails. Do it before she sees Ratcliffe a second time.

See that she reads it and, if necessary, make her read it, no matter

when or where. No one else must know that it exists, and you must

take as much care of it as though it were a diamond. You are not to

know what is in it; it must be a complete secret. Do you

understand?"

 

Sybil thought she did, but her heart sank. "When shall you give me

this letter?" she asked.

 

"The evening before I start, when I come to bid good-bye; probably

next Sunday. This letter is our last hope. If, after reading that, she

does not give him up, you will have to pack your trunk, my dear

Sybil, and find a new home, for you can never live with them."

 

He had never before called her by her first name, and it pleased her

to hear it now, though she generally had a strong objection to such

familiarities.

 

"Oh, I wish you were not going!" she exclaimed tearfully. "What

shall I do when you are gone?"

 

At this pitiful appeal, Carrington felt a sudden pang. He found that

he was not so old as he had thought. Certainly he had grown to like

her frank honesty and sound common sense, and he had at length

discovered that she was handsome, with a very pretty figure. Was

it not something like a flirtation he had been carrying on with this

young person for the last month? A glimmering of suspicion

crossed his mind, though he got rid of it as quickly as possible. For

a man of his age and sobriety to be in love with two sisters at once

was impossible; still more impossible that Sybil should care for

him.

 

As for her, however, there was no doubt about the matter. She had

grown to depend upon him, and she did it with all the blind

confidence of youth. To lose him was a serious disaster. She had

never before felt the sensation, and she thought it most

disagreeable. Her youthful diplomatists and admirers could not at

all fill Carrington's place. They danced and chirruped cheerfully on

the hollow crust of society, but they were wholly useless when one

suddenly fell through and found oneself struggling in the darkness

and dangers beneath. Young women, too, are apt to be flattered by

the confidences of older men; they have a keen palate for whatever

savours of experience and adventure. For the first time in her life,

Sybil had found a man who gave some play to her imagination;

one who had been a rebel, and had grown used to the shocks of

fate, so as to walk with calmness into the face of death, and to

command or obey with equal indifference. She felt that he would

tell her what to do when the earthquake came, and would be at

hand to consult, which is in a woman's eyes the great object of

men's existence, when trouble comes. She suddenly conceived that

Washington would be intolerable without him, and that she should

never get the courage to fight Mr. Ratcliffe alone, or, if she did,

she should make some fatal mistake.

 

They finished their ride very soberly. She began to show a new

interest in all that concerned him, and asked many questions about

his sisters and their plantation. She wanted to ask him whether she

could not do something to help them, but this seemed too

awkward. On his part he made her promise to write him faithfully

all that took place, and this request pleased her, though she knew

his interest was all on her sister's account.

 

The following Sunday evening when he came to bid good-bye, it

was still worse. There was no chance for private talk. Ratcliffe was

there, and several diplomatists, including old Jacobi, who had eyes

like a cat and saw every motion of one's face. Victoria Dare was

on the sofa, chattering with Lord Dunbeg; Sybil would rather have

had any ordinary illness, even to the extent of a light case of

scarlet fever or small-pox than let her know what was the matter.

Carrington found means to get Sybil into another room for a

moment and to give her the letter he had promised. Then he bade

her good-bye, and in doing so he reminded her of her promise to

write, pressing her hand and looking into her eyes with an

earnestness that made her heart beat faster, although she said to

herself that his interest was all about her sister; as it was--mostly.

The thought did not raise her spirits, but she went through with her

performance like a heroine. Perhaps she was a little pleased to see

that he parted from Madeleine with much less apparent feeling.

One would have said that they were two good friends who had no

troublesome sentiment to worry them. But then every eye in the

room was watching this farewell, and speculating about it.

Ratcliffe looked on with particular interest and was a little

perplexed to account for this too fraternal cordiality. Could he

have made a miscalculation? or was there something behind? He

himself insisted upon shaking hands genially with Carrington and

wished him a pleasant journey and a successful one.

 

That night, for the first time since she was a child, Sybil actually

cried a little after she went to bed, although it is true that her

sentiment did not keep her awake. She felt lonely and weighed

down by a great responsibility.

 

For a day or two afterwards she was nervous and restless. She

would not ride, or make calls, or see guests. She tried to sing a

little, and found it tiresome. She went out and sat for hours in the

Square, where the spring sun was shining warm and bright on the

prancing horse of the great Andrew Jackson. She was a little cross,

too, and absent, and spoke so often about Carrington that at last

Madeleine was struck by sudden suspicion, and began to watch her

with anxious care.

 

Tuesday night, after this had gone on for two days, Sybil was in

Madeleine's room, where she often stayed to talk while her sister

was at her toilet.

 

This evening she threw herself listlessly on the couch, and within

five minutes again quoted Carrington. Madeleine turned from the

glass before which she was sitting, and looked her steadily in the

face.

 

"Sybil," said she, "this is the twenty-fourth time you have

mentioned Mr.

 

Carrington since we sat down to dinner. I have waited for the

round number to decide whether I should take any notice of it or

not? what does it mean, my child? Do you care for Mr.

Carrington?"

 

"Oh, Maude!" exclaimed Sybil reproachfully, flushing so violently

that, even by that dim light, her sister could not but see it.

 

Mrs. Lee rose and, crossing the room, sat down by Sybil who was

lying on the couch and turned her face away. Madeleine put her

arms round her neck and kissed her.

 

"My poor--poor child!" said she pityingly. "I never dreamed of

this! What a fool I have been! How could I have been so

thoughtless! Tell me!" she added, with a little hesitation; "has

he--does he care for you?"

 

"No! no!" cried Sybil, fairly breaking down into a burst of tears;

"no! he loves you! nobody but you! he never gave a thought to me.

I don't care for him so very much," she continued, drying her tears;

"only it seems so lonely now he is gone."

 

Mrs. Lee remained on the couch, with her arm round her sister's

neck, silent, gazing into vacancy, the picture of perplexity and

consternation.

 

The situation was getting beyond her control.

 

Chapter XI

 

IN the middle of April a sudden social excitement started the

indolent city of Washington to its feet. The Grand-Duke and

Duchess of Saxe-Baden-Hombourg arrived in America on a tour of

pleasure, and in due course came on to pay their respects to the

Chief Magistrate of the Union. The newspapers hastened to inform

their readers that the Grand-Duchess was a royal princess of

England, and, in the want of any other social event, every one who

had any sense of what was due to his or her own dignity, hastened

to show this august couple the respect which all republicans who

have a large income derived from business, feel for English

royalty. New York gave a dinner, at which the most insignificant

person present was worth at least a million dollars, and where the

gentlemen who sat by the Princess entertained her for an hour or

two by a calculation of the aggregate capital represented. New

York also gave a ball at which the Princess appeared in an

ill-fitting black silk dress with mock lace and jet ornaments,

among several hundred toilets that proclaimed the refined

republican simplicity of their owners at a cost of various hundred

thousand dollars. After these hospitalities the Grand-ducal pair

came on to Washington, where they became guests of Lord Skye,

or, more properly, Lord Skye became their guest, for he seemed to

consider that he handed the Legation over to them, and he told

Mrs. Lee, with true British bluntness, of speech, that they were a

great bore and he wished they had stayed in

Saxe-Baden-Hombourg, or wherever they belonged, but as they

were here, he must be their lackey. Mrs. Lee was amused and a

little astonished at the candour with which he talked about them,

and she was instructed and improved by his dry account of the

Princess, who, it seemed, made herself disagreeable by her airs of

royalty; who had suffered dreadfully from the voyage; and who

detested America and everything American; but who was, not

without some show of reason, jealous of her husband, and endured

endless sufferings, though with a very bad grace, rather than lose

sight of him.

 

Not only was Lord Skye obliged to turn the Legation into an hotel,

but in the full enthusiasm of his loyalty he felt himself called upon

to give a ball. It was, he said, the easiest way of paying off all his

debts at once, and if the Princess was good for nothing else, she

could be utilized as a show by way of "promoting the harmony of

the two great nations." In other words, Lord Skye meant to exhibit

the Princess for his own diplomatic benefit, and he did so. One

would have thought that at this season, when Congress had

adjourned, Washington would hardly have afforded society enough

to fill a ball-room, but this, instead of being a drawback, was an

advantage. It permitted the British Minister to issue invitations

without limit. He asked not only the President and his Cabinet, and

the judges, and the army, and the navy, and all the residents of

Washington who had any claim to consideration, but also all the

senators, all the representatives in Congress, all the governors of

States with their staffs, if they had any, all eminent citizens and

their families throughout the Union and Canada, and finally every

private individual, from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Panama,

who had ever shown him a civility or was able to control interest

enough to ask for a card. The result was that Baltimore promised

to come in a body, and Philadelphia was equally well-disposed;

New York provided several scores of guests, and Boston sent the

governor and a delegation; even the well-known millionaire who

represented California in the United States Senate was irritated

because, his invitation having been timed to arrive just one day too

late, he was prevented from bringing his family across the

continent with a choice party in a director's car, to enjoy the smiles

of royalty in the halls of the British lion. It is astonishing what

efforts freemen will make in a just cause.

 

Lord Skye himself treated the whole affair with easy contempt.

One afternoon he strolled into Mrs. Lee's parlour and begged her to

give him a cup of tea.

 

He said he had got rid of his menagerie for a few hours by shunting

it off upon the German Legation, and he was by way of wanting a

little human society. Sybil, who was a great favourite with him,

entreated to be told all about the ball, but he insisted that he knew

no more than she did. A man from New York had taken possession

of the Legation, but what he would do with it was not within the

foresight of the wisest; trom the talk of the young members of his

Legation, Lord Skye gathered that the entire city was to be roofed

in and forty millions of people expected, but his own concern in

the affair was limited to the flowers he hoped to receive.

 

"All young and beautiful women," said he to Sybil, "are to send me

flowers.

 

I prefer Jacqueminot roses, but will accept any handsome variety,

provided they are not wired. It is diplomatic etiquette that each

lady who sends me flowers shall reserve at least one dance for me.

You will please inscribe this at once upon your tablets, Miss

Ross."

 

To Madeleine this ball was a godsend, for it came just in time to

divert Sybil's mind from its troubles. A week had now passed since

that revelation of Sybil's heart which had come like an earthquake

upon Mrs. Lee. Since then Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all

the more because she was conscious of being watched. She was in

secret ashamed of her own conduct, and inclined to be angry with

Carrington, as though he were responsible for her foolishness; but

she could not talk with Madeleine on the subject without

discussing Mr. Ratcliffe, and Carrington had expressly forbidden

her to attack Mr. Ratcliffe until it was clear that Ratcliffe had laid

himself open to attack. This reticence deceived poor Mrs. Lee,

who saw in her sister's moods only that unrequited attachment for

which she held herself solely to blame. Her gross negligence in

allowing Sybil to be improperly exposed to such a risk weighed

heavily on her mind. With a saint's capacity for self-torment,

Madeleine wielded the scourge over her own back until the blood

came. She saw the roses rapidly fading from Sybil's cheeks, and by

the help of an active imagination she discovered a hectic look and

symptoms of a cough. She became fairly morbid on the subject,

and fretted herself into a fever, upon which Sybil sent, on her own

responsibility, for the medical man, and Madeleine was obliged to

dose herself with quinine. In fact, there was much more reason for

anxiety about her than for her anxiety about Sybil, who, barring a

little youthful nervousness in the face of responsibility, was as

healthy and comfortable a young woman as could be shown in

America, and whose sentiment never cost her five minutes' sleep,

although her appetite may have become a shade more exacting

than before. Madeleine was quick to notice this, and surprised her

cook by making daily and almost hourly demands for new and

impossible dishes, which she exhausted a library of cookery-books

to discover.

 

Lord Skye's ball and Sybil's interest in it were a great relief to

Madeleine's mind, and she now turned her whole soul to frivolity.

Never, since she was seventeen, had she thought or talked so much

about a ball, as now about this ball to the Grand-Duchess. She

wore out her own brain in the effort to amuse Sybil. She took her

to call on the Princess; she would have taken her to call on the

Grand Lama had he come to Washington. She instigated her to

order and send to Lord Skye a mass of the handsomest roses New

York could afford. She set her at work on her dress several days

before there was any occasion for it, and this famous costume had

to be taken out, examined, criticised, and discussed with unending

interest. She talked about the dress, and the Princess, and the ball,

till her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and her brain refused

to act. From morning till night, for one entire week, she ate, drank,

breathed, and dreamt of the ball. Everything that love could

suggest or labour carry out, she did, to amuse and occupy her

sister.

 

She knew that all this was only temporary and palliative, and that

more radical measures must be taken to secure Sybil's happiness.

On this subject she thought in secret until both head and heart

ached. One thing and one thing only was clear: if Sybil loved

Carrington, she should have him. How Madeleine expected to

bring about this change of heart in Carrington, was known only to

herself. She regarded men as creatures made for women to dispose

of, and capable of being transferred like checks, or baggage-labels,

from one woman to another, as desired. The only condition was

that he should first be completely disabused of the notion that he

could dispose of himself. Mrs. Lee never doubted that she could

make Carrington fall in love with Sybil provided she could place

herself beyond his reach. At all events, come what might, even

though she had to accept the desperate alternative offered by Mr.

Ratcliffe, nothing should be allowed to interfere with Sybil's

happiness. And thus it was, that, for the first time, Mrs. Lee began

to ask herself whether it was not better to find the solution of her

perplexities in marriage.

 

Would she ever have been brought to this point without the violent

pressure of her sister's supposed interests? This is one of those

questions which wise men will not ask, because it is one which the

wisest man or woman cannot answer. Upon this theme, an army of

ingenious authors have exhausted their ingenuity in entertaining

the public, and their works are to be found at every book-stall.

They have decided that any woman will, under the right

conditions, marry any man at any time, provided her "higher

nature" is properly appealed to. Only with regret can a writer

forbear to moralize on this subject. "Beauty and the Beast,"

"Bluebeard," "Auld Robin Gray," have the double charm to authors

of being very pleasant to read, and still easier to dilute with

sentiment. But at least ten thousand modern writers, with Lord

Macaulay at their head, have so ravaged and despoiled the region

of fairy-stories and fables, that an allusion even to the "Arabian

Nights" is no longer decent. The capacity of women to make


unsuitable marriages must be considered as the corner-stone of

society.

 

Meanwhile the ball had, in truth, very nearly driven all thought of

Carrington out of Sybil's mind. The city filled again. The streets

swarmed with fashionable young men and women from the

provinces of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, who gave Sybil

abundance of occupation. She received bulletins of the progress of

affairs. The President and his wife had consented to be present, out

of their high respect for Her Majesty the Queen and their desire to

see and to be seen. All the Cabinet would accompany the Chief

Magistrate. The diplomatic corps would appear in uniform; so,

too, the officers of the army and navy; the Governor-General of

Canada was coming, with a staff. Lord Skye remarked that the

Governor-General was a flat.

 

The day of the ball was a day of anxiety to Sybil, although not on

account of Mr. Ratcliffe or of Mr. Carrington, who were of trifling

consequence compared with the serious problem now before her.

The responsibility of dressing both her sister and herself fell upon

Sybil, who was the real author of all Mrs. Lee's millinery triumphs

when they now occurred, except that Madeleine managed to put

character into whatever she wore, which Sybil repudiated on her

own account. On this day Sybil had reasons for special excitement.

All winter two new dresses, one especially a triumph of Mr.

 

Worth's art, had lain in state upstairs, and Sybil had waited in vain

for an occasion that should warrant the splendour of these

garments.

 

One afternoon in early June of the preceding summer, Mr. Worth

had received a letter on the part of the reigning favourite of the

King of Dahomey, directing him to create for her a ball-dress that

should annihilate and utterly destroy with jealousy and despair the

hearts of her seventy-five rivals; she was young and beautiful;

expense was not a consideration. Such were the words of her

chamberlain. All that night, the great genius of the nineteenth

century tossed wakefully on his bed revolving the problem in his

mind. Visions of flesh-coloured tints shot with blood-red perturbed

his brain, but he fought against and dismissed them; that

combination would be commonplace in Dahomey. When the first

rays of sunlight showed him the reflection of his careworn face in

the plate-glass mirrored ceiling, he rose and, with an impulse of

despair, flung open the casements. There before his blood-shot

eyes lay the pure, still, new-born, radiant June morning. With a cry

of inspiration the great man leaned out of the casement and rapidly

caught the details of his new conception. Before ten o'clock he was

again at his bureau in Paris. An imperious order brought to his

private room every silk, satin, and gauze within the range of pale

pink, pale crocus, pale green, silver and azure. Then came

chromatic scales of colour; combinations meant to vulgarise the

rainbow; sinfonies and fugues; the twittering of birds and the great

peace of dewy nature; maidenhood in her awakening innocence;

"The Dawn in June." The Master rested content.

 

A week later came an order from Sybil, including "an entirely

original ball-dress,--unlike any other sent to America." Mr. Worth

pondered, hesitated; recalled Sybil's figure; the original pose of her

head; glanced anxiously at the map, and speculated whether the

New York Herald had a special correspondent at Dahomey; and at

last, with a generosity peculiar to great souls, he duplicated for

"Miss S. Ross, New York, U.S. America," the order for "L'Aube,

Mois de Juin."

 

The Schneidekoupons and Mr. French, who had reappeared in

Washington, came to dine with Mrs. Lee on the evening of the

ball, and Julia Schneidekoupon sought in vain to discover what

Sybil was going to wear. "Be happy, my dear, in your ignorance!"

said Sybil; "the pangs of envy will rankle soon enough."

 

An hour later her room, except the fireplace, where a wood fire

was gently smouldering, became an altar of sacrifice to the Deity

of Dawn in June. Her bed, her low couch, her little tables, her

chintz arm-chairs, were covered with portions of the divinity,

down to slippers and handkerchief, gloves and bunches of fresh

roses. When at length, after a long effort, the work was complete,

Mrs. Lee took a last critical look at the result, and enjoyed a glow

of satisfaction. Young, happy, sparkling with consciousness of

youth and beauty, Sybil stood, Hebe Anadyomene, rising from the

foam of soft creplisse which swept back beneath the long train of

pale, tender, pink silk, fainting into breadths of delicate primrose,

relieved here and there by facings of June green--or was it the blue

of early morning? --or both?

 

suggesting unutterable freshness. A modest hint from her maid that

"the girls," as women-servants call each other in American

households, would like to offer their share of incense at the shrine,

was amiably met, and they were allowed a glimpse of the divinity

before she was enveloped in wraps. An admiring group, huddled in

the doorway, murmured approval, from the leading "girl," who was

the cook, a coloured widow of some sixty winters, whose

admiration was irrepressible, down to a New England spinster

whose Anabaptist conscience wrestled with her instincts, and who,

although disapproving of "French folks," paid in her heart that

secret homage to their gowns and bonnets which her sterner lips

refused. The applause of this audience has, from generation to

generation, cheered the hearts of myriads of young women starting

out on their little adventures, while the domestic laurels flourish

green and fresh for one half hour, until they wither at the threshold

of the ball-room.

 

Mrs. Lee toiled long and earnestly over her sister's toilet, for had

not she herself in her own day been the best-dressed girl in New

York?--at least, she held that opinion, and her old instincts came to

life again whenever Sybil was to be prepared for any great

occasion. Madeleine kissed her sister affectionately, and gave her

unusual praise when the "Dawn in June" was complete. Sybil was

at this moment the ideal of blooming youth, and Mrs. Lee almost

dared to hope that her heart was not permanently broken, and that

she might yet survive until Carrington could be brought back. Her

own toilet was a much shorter affair, but Sybil was impatient long

before it was concluded; the carriage was waiting, and she was

obliged to disappoint her household by coming down enveloped in

her long opera-cloak, and hurrying away.

 

When at length the sisters entered the reception-room at the British

Legation, Lord Skye rebuked them for not having come early to

receive with him. His Lordship, with a huge riband across his

breast, and a star on his coat, condescended to express himself

vigorously on the subject of the "Dawn in June." Schneidekoupon,

who was proud of his easy use of the latest artistic jargon, looked

with respect at Mrs. Lee's silver-gray satin and its Venetian lace,

the arrangement of which had been conscientiously stolen from a

picture in the Louvre, and he murmured audibly, "Nocturne in

silver-gray!"--then, turning to Sybil--"and you? Of course! I see! A

song without words!" Mr. French came up and, in his most

fascinating tones, exclaimed, "Why, Mrs. Lee, you look real

handsome to-night!" Jacobi, after a close scrutiny, said that he took

the liberty of an old man in telling them that they were both

dressed absolutely without fault. Even the Grand-Duke was struck

by Sybil, and made Lord Skye introduce him, after which

ceremony he terrified her by asking the pleasure of a waltz. She

disappeared from Madeleine's view, not to be brought back again

until Dawn met dawn.

 

The ball was, as the newspapers declared, a brilliant success.

Every one who knows the city of Washington will recollect that,

among some scores of magnificent residences which our own and

foreign governments have built for the comfort of cabinet officers,

judges, diplomatists, vice-presidents, speakers, and senators, the

British Legation is by far the most impressive.

 

Combining in one harmonious whole the proportions of the Pitti

Palace with the decoration of the Casa d'Oro and the dome of an

Eastern Mosque, this architectural triumph offers extraordinary

resources for society. Further description is unnecessary, since

anyone may easily refer back to the New York newspapers of the

following morning, where accurate plans of the house on the

ground floor, will be found; while the illustrated newspapers of the

same week contain excellent sketches of the most pleasing scenic

effects, as well as of the ball-room and of the Princess smiling

graciously from her throne. The lady just behind the Princess on

her left, is Mrs. Lee, a poor likeness, but easily distinguishable

from the fact that the artist, for his own objects, has made her

rather shorter, and the Princess rather taller, than was strictly

correct, just as he has given the Princess a gracious smile, which

was quite different from her actual expression. In short, the artist is

compelled to exhibit the world rather as we would wish it to be,

than as it was or is, or, indeed, is like shortly to become. The

strangest part of his picture is, however, the fact that he actually

did see Mrs. Lee where he has put her, at the Princess's elbow,

which was almost the last place in the room where any one who

knew Mrs. Lee would have looked for her.

 

The explanation of this curious accident shall be given

immediately, since the facts are not mentioned in the public

reports of the ball, which only said that, "close behind her Royal

Highness the Grand-Duchess, stood our charming and aristocratic

countrywoman, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, who has made so great a

sensation in Washington this winter, and whose name public

rumour has connected with that of the Secretary of the Treasury.

To her the Princess appeared to address most of her conversation."

 

The show was a very pretty one, and on a pleasant April evening

there were many places less agreeable to be in than this. Much

ground outside had been roofed over, to make a ball-room, large as

an opera-house, with a da?s and a sofa in the centre of one long

side, and another da?s with a second sofa immediately opposite to

it in the centre of the other long side. Each da?s had a canopy of

red velvet, one bearing the Lion and the Unicorn, the other the

American Eagle. The Royal Standard was displayed above the

Unicorn; the Stars-and-Stripes, not quite so effectively, waved

above the Eagle. The Princess, being no longer quite a child, found

gas trying to her complexion, and compelled Lord Skye to

illuminate her beauty by one hundred thousand wax candies, more

or less, which were arranged to be becoming about the

Grand-ducal throne, and to be showy and unbecoming about the

opposite institution across the way.

 

The exact facts were these. It had happened that the

Grand-Duchess, having been necessarily brought into contact with

the President, and particularly with his wife, during the past week,

had conceived for the latter an antipathy hardly to be expressed in

words. Her fixed determination was at any cost to keep the

Presidential party at a distance, and it was only after a stormy

scene that the Grand-Duke and Lord Skye succeeded in extorting

her consent that the President should take her to supper. Further

than this she would not go. She would not speak to "that woman,"

as she called the President's wife, nor be in her neighbourhood.

She would rather stay in her own room all the evening, and she did

not care in the least what the Queen would think of it, for she was

no subject of the Queen's. The case was a hard one for Lord Skye,

who was perplexed to know, from this point of view, why he was

entertaining the Princess at all; but, with the help of the

Grand-Duke and Lord Dunbeg, who was very active and smiled

deprecation with some success, he found a way out of it; and this

was the reason why there were two thrones in the ball-room, and

why the British throne was lighted with such careful reference to

the Princess's complexion. Lord Skye immolated himself in the

usual effort of British and American Ministers, to keep the two

great powers apart. He and the Grand-Duke and Lord Dunbeg

acted as buffers with watchful diligence, dexterity, and success. As

one resource, Lord Skye had bethought himself of Mrs. Lee, and

he told the Princess the story of Mrs. Lee's relations with the

President's wife, a story which was no secret in Washington, for,

apart from Madeleine's own account, society was left in no doubt

of the light in which Mrs. Lee was regarded by the mistress of the

White House, whom Washington ladles were now in the habit of

drawing out on the subject of Mrs. Lee, and who always rose to the

bait with fresh vivacity, to the amusement and delight of Victoria

Dare and other mischief-makers.

 

"She will not trouble you so long as you can keep Mrs. Lee in your

neighbourhood," said Lord Skye, and the Princess accordingly

seized upon Mrs. Lee and brandished her, as though she were a

charm against the evil eye, in the face of the President's party. She

made Mrs. Lee take a place just behind her as though she were a

lady-in-waiting. She even graciously permitted her to sit down, so

near that their chairs touched. Whenever "that woman" was within

sight, which was most of the time, the Princess directed her

conversation entirely to Mrs. Lee and took care to make it evident.

Even before the Presidential party had arrived, Madeleine had

fallen into the Princess's grasp, and when the Princess went

forward to receive the President and his wife, which she did with a

bow of stately and distant dignity, she dragged Madeleine closely

by her side. Mrs. Lee bowed too; she could not well help it; but

was cut dead for her pains, with a glare of contempt and hatred.

Lord Skye, who was acting as cavalier to the President's wife, was

panic-stricken, and hastened to march his democratic potentate

away, under pretence of showing her the decorations. He placed

her at last on her own throne, where he and the Grand-Duke

relieved each other in standing guard at intervals throughout the

evening. When the Princess followed with the President, she

compelled her husband to take Mrs. Lee on his arm and conduct

her to the British throne, with no other object than to exasperate

the President's wife, who, from her elevated platform, looked

down upon the cortège with a scowl.

 

In all this affair Mrs. Lee was the principal sufferer. No one could

relieve her, and she was literally penned in as she sat. The Princess

kept up an incessant fire of small conversation, principally

complaint and fault-finding, which no one dared to interrupt. Mrs.

Lee was painfully bored, and after a time even the absurdity of the

thing ceased to amuse her.

 

She had, too, the ill-luck to make one or two remarks which

appealed to some hidden sense of humour in the Princess, who

laughed and, in the style of royal personages, gave her to

understand that she would like more amusement of the same sort.

Of all things in life, Mrs. Lee held this kind of court-service in

contempt, for she was something more than republican--a little

communistic at heart, and her only serious complaint of the

President and his wife was that they undertook to have a court and

to ape monarchy.

 

She had no notion of admitting social superiority in any one,

President or Prince, and to be suddenly converted into a

lady-in-waiting to a small German Grand-Duchess, was a terrible

blow. But what was to be done? Lord Skye had drafted her into the

service and she could not decently refuse to help him when he

came to her side and told her, with his usual calm directness, what

his difficulties were, and how he counted upon her to help him out.

 

The same play went on at supper, where there was a

royal-presidential table, which held about two dozen guests, and

the two great ladies presiding, as far apart as they could be placed.

The Grand-Duke and Lord Skye, on either side of the President's

wife, did their duty like men, and were rewarded by receiving from

her much information about the domestic arrangements of the

White House. The President, however, who sat next the Princess at

the opposite end, was evidently depressed, owing partly to the fact

that the Princess, in defiance of all etiquette, had compelled Lord

Dunbeg to take Mrs. Lee to supper and to place her directly next

the President. Madeleine tried to escape, but was stopped by the

Princess, who addressed her across the President and in a decided

tone asked her to sit precisely there. Mrs.

 

Lee looked timidly at her neighbour, who made no sign, but ate his

supper in silence only broken by an occasional reply to a rare

remark. Mrs. Lee pitied him, and wondered what his wife would

say when they reached home. She caught Ratcliffe's eye down the

table, watching her with a smile; she tried to talk fluently with

Dunbeg; but not until supper was long over and two o'clock was at

hand; not until the Presidential party, under all the proper

formalities, had taken their leave of the Grand-ducal party; not

until Lord Skye had escorted them to their carriage and returned to

say that they were gone, did the Princess loose her hold upon Mrs.

Lee and allow her to slip away into obscurity.

 

Meanwhile the ball had gone on after the manner of balls. As

Madeleine sat in her enforced grandeur she could watch all that

passed. She had seen Sybil whirling about with one man after

another, amid a swarm of dancers, enjoying herself to the utmost

and occasionally giving a nod and a smile to her sister as their eyes

met. There, too, was Victoria Dare, who never appeared flurried

even when waltzing with Lord Dunbeg, whose education as a

dancer had been neglected. The fact was now fully recognized that

Victoria was carrying on a systematic flirtation with Dunbeg, and

had undertaken as her latest duty the task of teaching him to waltz.

His struggles and her calmness in assisting them commanded

respect. On the opposite side of the room, by the republican

throne, Mrs. Lee had watched Mr. Ratcliffe standing by the

President, who appeared unwilling to let him out of arm's length

and who seemed to make to him most of his few remarks.

Schneidekoupon and his sister were mixed in the throng, dancing

as though England had never countenanced the heresy of

free-trade. On the whole, Mrs. Lee was satisfied.

 

If her own sufferings were great, they were not without reward.

She studied all the women in the ball-room, and if there was one

prettier than Sybil, Madeleine's eyes could not discover her. If

there was a more perfect dress, Madeleine knew nothing of

dressing. On these points she felt the confidence of conviction. Her

calm would have been complete, had she felt quite sure that none

of Sybil's gaiety was superficial and that it would not be followed

by reaction. She watched nervously to see whether her face

changed its gay expression, and once she thought it became

depressed, but this was when the Grand-Duke came up to claim his

waltz, and the look rapidly passed away when they got upon the

floor and his Highness began to wheel round the room with a

precision and momentum that would have done honour to a

regiment of Life Guards. He seemed pleased with his experiment,

for he was seen again and again careering over the floor with Sybil

until Mrs. Lee herself became nervous, for the Princess frowned.

 

After her release Madeleine lingered awhile in the ball-room to

speak with her sister and to receive congratulations. For half an

hour she was a greater belle than Sybil. A crowd of men clustered

about her, amused at the part she had played in the evening's

entertainment and full of compliments upon her promotion at

Court. Lord Skye himself found time to offer her his thanks in a

more serious tone than he generally affected. "You have suffered

much," said he, "and I am grateful." Madeleine laughed as she

answered that her sufferings had seemed nothing to her while she

watched his. But at last she became weary of the noise and glare of

the ball-room, and, accepting the arm of her excellent friend Count

Popoff, she strolled with him back to the house. There at last she

sat down on a sofa in a quiet window-recess where the light was

less strong and where a convenient laurel spread its leaves in front

so as to make a bower through which she could see the passers-by

without being seen by them except with an effort. Had she been a

younger woman, this would have been the spot for a flirtation, but

Mrs. Lee never flirted, and the idea of her flirting with Popoff

would have seemed ludicrous to all mankind.

 

He did not sit down, but was leaning against the angle of the wall,

talking with her, when suddenly Mr. Ratcliffe appeared and took

the seat by her side with such deliberation and apparent sense of

property that Popoff incontinently turned and fled. No one knew

where the Secretary came from, or how he learned that she was

there. He made no explanation and she took care to ask for none.

She gave him a highly-coloured account of her evening's service as

lady-in-waiting, which he matched by that of his own trials as

gentleman-usher to the President, who, it seemed, had clung

desperately to his old enemy in the absence of any other rock to

clutch at.

 

Ratcliffe looked the character of Prime Minister sufficiently well

at this moment. He would have held his own, at a pinch, in any

Court, not merely in Europe but in India or China, where dignity is

still expected of gentlemen.

 

Excepting for a certain coarse and animal expression about the

mouth, and an indefinable coldness in the eye, he was a handsome

man and still in his prime. Every one remarked how much he was

improved since entering the Cabinet. He had dropped his

senatorial manner. His clothes were no longer congressional, but

those of a respectable man, neat and decent. His shirts no longer

protruded in the wrong places, nor were his shirt-collars frayed or

soiled. His hair did not stray over his eyes, ears, and coat, like that

of a Scotch terrier, but had got itself cut. Having overheard Mrs.

Lee express on one occasion her opinion of people who did not

take a cold bath every morning, he had thought it best to adopt this

reform, although he would not have had it generally known, tot it

savoured ot caste. He made an effort not to be dictatorial and to

forget that he had been the Prairie Giant, the bully of the Senate. In

short, what with Mrs. Lee's influence and what with his

emancipation from the Senate chamber with its code of bad

manners and worse morals, Mr. Ratcliffe was fast becoming a

respectable member of society whom a man who had never been

in prison or in politics might safely acknowledge as a friend.

 

Mr. Ratcliffe was now evidently bent upon being heard. After

charting for a time with some humour on the President's successes

as a man of fashion, he changed the subject to the merits of the

President as a statesman, and little by little as he spoke he became

serious and his voice sank into low and confidential tones. He

plainly said that the President's incapacity had now become

notorious among his followers; that it was only with difficulty his

Cabinet and friends could prevent him from making a fool of

himself fifty times a day; that all the party leaders who had

occasion to deal with him were so thoroughly disgusted that the

Cabinet had to pass its time in trying to pacify them; while this

state of things lasted, Ratcliffe's own influence must be

paramount; he had good reason to know that if the Presidential

election were to take place this year, nothing could prevent his

nomination and election; even at three years' distance the chances

in his favour were at least two to one; and after this exordium he

went on in a low tone with increasing earnestness, while Mrs. Lee

sat motionless as the statue of Agrippina, her eyes fixed on the

ground:

 

"I am not one of those who are happy in political life. I am a

politician because I cannot help myself; it is the trade I am fittest

for, and ambition is my resource to make it tolerable. In politics

we cannot keep our hands clean. I have done many things in my

political career that are not defensible. To act with entire honesty

and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and

the atmosphere of politics is impure.

 

Domestic life is the salvation of many public men, but I have for

many years been deprived of it. I have now come to that point

where increasing responsibilities and temptations make me require

help. I must have it. You alone can give it to me. You are kind,

thoughtful, conscientious, high-minded, cultivated, fitted better

than any woman I ever saw, for public duties. Your place is there.

You belong among those who exercise an influence beyond their

time. I only ask you to take the place which is yours."

 

This desperate appeal to Mrs. Lee's ambition was a calculated part

of Ratcliffe's scheme. He was well aware that he had marked high

game, and that in proportion to this height must be the power of

his lure. Nor was he embarrassed because Mrs. Lee sat still and

pale with her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands twisted

together in her lap. The eagle that soars highest must be longer in

descending to the ground than the sparrow or the partridge. Mrs.

Lee had a thousand things to think about in this brief time, and yet

she found that she could not think at all; a succession of mere

images and fragments of thought passed rapidly over her mind,

and her will exercised no control upon their order or their nature.

One of these fleeting reflections was that in all the offers of

marriage she had ever heard, this was the most unsentimental and

businesslike. As for his appeal to her ambition, it fell quite dead

upon her ear, but a woman must be more than a heroine who can

listen to flattery so evidently sincere, from a man who is

pre-eminent among men, without being affected by it. To her,

however, the great and overpowering fact was that she found

herself unable to retreat or escape; her tactics were disconcerted,

her temporary barriers beaten down.

 

The offer was made. What should she do with it?

 

She had thought for months on this subject without being able to

form a decision; what hope was there that she should be able to

decide now, in a ball-room, at a minute's notice? When, as

occasionally happens, the conflicting sentiments, prejudices, and

passions of a lifetime are compressed into a single instant, they

sometimes overcharge the mind and it refuses to work. Mrs. Lee

sat still and let things take their course; a dangerous expedient, as

thousands of women have learned, for it leaves them at the mercy

of the strong will, bent upon mastery.

 

The music from the ball-room did not stop. Crowds of persons

passed by their retreat. Some glanced in, and not one of these felt a

doubt what was going on there. An unmistakeable atmosphere of

mystery and intensity surrounded tfle pair. Ratcliffe's eyes were

fixed upon Mrs. Lee, and hers on the ground. Neither seemed to

speak or to stir. Old Baron Jacobi, who never failed to see

everything, saw this as he went by, and ejaculated a foreign oath of

frightful import. Victoria Dare saw it and was devoured by

curiosity to such a point as to be hardly capable of containing

herself.

 

After a silence which seemed interminable, Ratcliffe went on: "I

do not speak of my own feelings because I know that unless

compelled by a strong sense of duty, you will not be decided by

any devotion of mine. But I honestly say that I have learned to

depend on you to a degree I can hardly express; and when I think

of what I should be without you, life seems to me so intolerably

dark that I am ready to make any sacrifice, to accept any

conditions that will keep you by my side."

 

Meanwhile Victoria Dare, although deeply interested in what

Dunbeg was telling her, had met Sybil and had stopped a single

second to whisper in her ear: "You had better look after your sister,

in the window, behind the laurel with Mr. Ratcliffe!" Sybil was on

Lord Skye's arm, enjoying herself amazingly, though the night was

far gone, but when she caught Victoria's words, the expression of

her face wholly changed. All the anxieties and terrors of the last

fortnight, came back upon it. She dragged Lord Skye across the

hall and looked in upon her sister. One glance was enough.

 

Desperately frightened but afraid to hesitate, she went directly up

to Madeleine who was still sitting like a statue, listening to

Ratcliffe's last words. As she hurriedly entered, Mrs. Lee, looking

up, caught sight of her pale face, and started from her seat.

 

"Are you ill, Sybil?" she exclaimed; "is anything the matter?"

 

"A little--fatigued," gasped Sybil; "I thought you might be ready to

go home."

 

"I am," cried Madeleine; "I am quite ready. Good evening, Mr.

Ratcliffe. I will see you to-morrow. Lord Skye, shall I take leave of

the Princess?"

 

"The Princess retired half an hour ago," replied Lord Skye, who

saw the situation and was quite ready to help Sybil; "let me take

you to the dressing-room and order your carriage." Mr. Ratcliffe

found himself suddenly left alone, while Mrs. Lee hurried away,

torn by fresh anxieties. They had reached the dressing-room and

were nearly ready to go home, when Victora Dare suddenly dashed

in upon them, with an animation of manner very unusual in her,

and, seizing Sybil by the hand, drew her into an adjoining room

and shut the door. "Can you keep a secret?" said she abruptly.

 

"What!" said Sybil, looking at her with open-mouthed interest;

"you don't mean--are you really--tell me, quick!"

 

"Yes!" said Victoria relapsing into composure; "I am engaged!"

 

"To Lord Dunbeg?"

 

Victoria nodded, and Sybil, whose nerves were strung to the

highest pitch by excitement, flattery, fatigue, perplexity, and terror,

burst into a paroxysm of laughter, that startled even the calm Miss

Dare.

 

"Poor Lord Dunbeg! don't be hard on him, Victoria!" she gasped

when at last she found breath; "do you really mean to pass the rest

of your life in Ireland? Oh, how much you will teach them!"

 

"You forget, my dear," said Victoria, who had placidly enthroned

herself on the foot of a bed, "that I am not a pauper. I am told that

Dunbeg Castle is a romantic summer residence, and in the dull

season we shall of course go to London or somewhere. I shall be

civil to you when you come over. Don't you think a coronet will

look well on me?"

 

Sybil burst again into laughter so irrepressible and prolonged that

it puzzled even poor Dunbeg, who was impatiently pacing the

corridor outside.

 

It alarmed Madeleine, who suddenly opened the door. Sybil

recovered herself, and, her eyes streaming with tears, presented

Victoria to her sister:

 

"Madeleine, allow me to introduce you to the Countess Dunbeg!"

 

But Mrs. Lee was much too anxious to feel any interest in Lady

Dunbeg. A sudden fear struck her that Sybil was going into

hysterics because Victoria's engagement recalled her own

disappointment. She hurried her sister away to the carriage.

 

Chapter XII

 

THEY drove home in silence, Mrs. Lee disturbed with anxieties

and doubts, partly caused by her sister, partly by Mr. Ratcliffe;

<,P>Sybil divided between amusement at Victoria's conquest, and

alarm at her own boldness in meddling with her sister's affairs.

Desperation, however, was stronger than fear. She made up her

mind that further suspense was not to be endured; she would fight

her baffle now before another hour was lost; surely no time could

be better. A few moments brought them to their door. Mrs. Lee

had told her maid not to wait for them, and they were alone. The

fire was still alive on Madeleine's hearth, and she threw more

wood upon it. Then she insisted that Sybil must go to bed at once.

But Sybil refused; she felt quite well, she said, and not in the least

sleepy; she had a great deal to talk about, and wanted to get it off

her mind. Nevertheless, her feminine regard for the "Dawn in

June" led her to postpone what she had to say until with

Madeleine's help she had laid the triumph of the ball carefully

aside; then, putting on her dressing-gown, and hastily plunging

Carrington's letter into her breast, like a concealed weapon, she

hurried back to Madeleine's room and established herself in a chair

before the fire. There, after a moment's pause, the two women

began their long-deferred trial of strength, in which the match was

so nearly equal as to make the result doubtful; for, if Madeleine

were much the cleverer, Sybil in this case knew much better what

she wanted, and had a clear idea how she meant to gain it, while

Madeleine, unsuspicious of attack, had no plan of defence at all.

 

"Madeleine," began Sybil, solemnly, and with a violent palpitation

of the heart, "I want you to tell me something."

 

"What is it, my child?" said Mrs. Lee, puzzled, and yet half ready

to see that there must be some connection between her sister's

coming question and the sudden illness at the ball, which had

disappeared as suddenly as it came.

 

"Do you mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?"

 

Poor Mrs. Lee was quite disconcerted by the directness of the

attack. This fatal question met her at every turn. Hardly had she

succeeded in escaping trom it at the ball scarcely an hour ago, by a

stroke of good fortune for which she now began to see she was

indebted to Sybil, and here it was again presented to her face like a

pistol. The whole town, then, was asking it.

 

Ratcliffe's offer must have been seen by half Washington, and her

reply was awaited by an immense audience, as though she were a

political returning-board. Her disgust was intense, and her first

answer to Sybil was a quick inquiry:

 

"Why do you ask such a question? have you heard anything,--has

anyone talked about it to you?"

 

"No!" replied Sybil; "but I must know; I can see for myself without

being told, that Mr. Racliffe is trying to make you marry him. I

don't ask out of curiosity; this is something that concerns me

nearly as much as it does you yourself. Please tell me! don't treat

me like a child any longer! let me know what you are thinking

about! I am so tired of being left in the dark!

 

You have no idea how much this thing weighs on me. Oh, Maude,

I shall never be happy again until you trust me about this."

 

Mrs. Lee felt a little pang of conscience, and seemed suddenly to

become conscious of a new coil, tightening about her, in this

wretched complication. Unable to see her way, ignorant of her

sister's motives, urged on by the idea that Sybil's happiness was

involved, she was now charged with want of feeling, and called

upon for a direct answer to a plain question.

 

How could she aver that she did not mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?

to say this would be to shut the door on all the objects she had at

heart. If a direct answer must be given, it was better to say "Yes!"

and have it over; better to leap blindly and see what came of it.

Mrs. Lee, therefore, with an internal gasp, but with no visible sign

of excitement, said, as though she were in a dream:

 

"Well, Sybil, I will tell you. I would have told you long ago if I had

known myself. Yes! I have made up my mind to marry Mr.

Ratcliffe!"

 

Sybil sprang to her feet with a cry: "And have you told him so?"

she asked.

 

"No! you came and interrupted us just as we were speaking. I was

glad you did come, for it gives me a little time to think. But I am

decided now. I shall tell him to-morrow."

 

This was not said with the air or one wnose heart beat warmly at

the thought of confessing her love. Mrs. Lee spoke mechanically,

and almost with an effort. Sybil flung herself with all her energy

upon her sister; violently excited, and eager to make herself heard,

without waiting for arguments, she broke out into a torrent of

entreaties: "Oh, don't, don't, don't! Oh, please, please, don't, my

dearest, dearest Maude! unless you want to break my heart, don't

marry that man! You can't love him! You can never be happy with

him! he will take you away to Peonia, and you will die there! I

shall never see you again! He will make you unhappy; he will beat

you, I know he will! Oh, if you care for me at all, don't marry him!

Send him away! don't see him again! let us go ourselves, now, in

the morning train, before he comes back. I'm all ready; I'll pack

everything for you; we'll go to Newport; to Europe--anywhere, to

be out of his reach!"

 

With this passionate appeal, Sybil threw herself on her knees by

her sister's side, and, clasping her arms around Madeleine's waist,

sobbed as though her heart were already broken. Had Carrington

seen her then he must have admitted that she had carried out his

instructions to the letter. She was quite honest, too, in it all. She

meant what she said, and her tears were real tears that had been

pent up for weeks. Unluckily, her logic was feeble. Her idea of Mr.

Ratcliffe's character was vague, and biased by mere theories of

what a Prairie Giant of Peonia should be in his domestic relations.

Her idea of Peonia, too, was indistinct. She was haunted by a

vision of her sister, sitting on a horse-hair sofa before an air-tight

iron stove in a small room with high, bare white walls, a

chromolithograph on each, and at her side a marble-topped table

surmounted by a glass vase containing funereal dried grasses; the

only literature, Frank Leslie's periodical and the New York Ledger,

with a strong smell of cooking everywhere prevalent. Here she saw

Madeleine receiving visitors, the wives of neighbours and

constituents, who told her the Peonia news.

 

Notwithstanding her ignorant and unreasonable prejudice against

western men and women, western towns and prairies, and, in short,

everything western, down to western politics and western

politicians, whom she perversely asserted to be tue lowest ot all

western products, there was still some common sense in Sybil's

idea. When that inevitable hour struck for Mr.

 

Ratcliffe, which strikes sooner or later for all politicians, and an

ungrateful country permitted him to pine among his friends in

Illinois, what did he propose to do with his wife? Did he seriously

suppose that she, who was bored to death by New York, and had

been able to find no permanent pleasure in Europe, would live

quietly in the romantic village of Peonia? If not, did Mr. Ratcliffe

imagine that they could find happiness in the enjoyment of each

other's society, and of Mrs. Lee's income, in the excitements of

Washington? In the ardour of his pursuit, Mr. Ratcliffe had

accepted in advance any conditions which Mrs. Lee might impose,

but if he really imagined that happiness and content lay on the

purple rim of this sunset, he had more confidence in women and in

money than a wider experience was ever likely to justify.

 

Whatever might be Mr. Ratcliffe's schemes for dealing with these

obstacles they could hardly be such as would satisfy Sybil, who, if

inaccurate in her theories about Prairie Giants, yet understood

women, and especially her sister, much better than Mr. Ratcliffe

ever could do. Here she was safe, and it would have been better

had she said no more, for Mrs. Lee, though staggered for a moment

by her sister's vehemence, was reassured by what seemed the

absurdity of her fears. Madeleine rebelled against this hysterical

violence of opposition, and became more fixed in her decision.

 

She scolded her sister in good, set terms--

 

"Sybil, Sybil! you must not be so violent. Behave like a woman,

and not like a spoiled child!"

 

Mrs. Lee, like most persons who have to deal with spoiled or

unspoiled children, resorted to severity, not so much because it

was the proper way of dealing with them, as because she knew not

what else to do. She was thoroughly uncomfortable and weary. She

was not satisfied with herself or with her own motives. Doubt

encompassed her on all sides, and her worst opponent was that

sister whose happiness had turned the scale against her own

judgment.

 

Nevertheless her tactics answered their object of checking Sybil's

vehemence. Her sobs came to an end, and she presently rose with a

quieter air.

 

"Madeleine," said she, "do you really want to marry Mr.

Ratcliffe?"

 

"What else can I do, my dear Sybil? I want to do whatever is for

the best. I thought you might be pleased."

 

"You thought I might be pleased?" cried Sybil in astonishment.

"What a strange idea! If you had ever spoken to me about it I

should have told you that I hate him, and can't understand how you

can abide him. But I would rather marry him myself than see you

marry him. I know that you will kill yourself with unhappiness

when you have done it. Oh, Maude, please tell me that you won't!"

And Sybil began gently sobbing again, while she caressed her

sister.

 

Mrs. Lee was infinitely distressed. To act against the wishes of her

nearest friends was hard enough, but to appear harsh and unfeeling

to the one being whose happiness she had at heart, was intolerable.

Yet no sensible woman, after saying that she meant to marry a man

like Mr. Ratcliffe, could throw him over merely because another

woman chose to behave like a spoiled child.

 

Sybil was more childish than Madeleine herself had supposed. She

could not even see where her own interest lay. She knew no more

about Mr. Ratcliffe and the West than if he were the giant of a

fairy-story, and lived at the top of a bean-stalk. She must be treated

as a child; with gentleness, affection, forbearance, but with

firmness and decision. She must be refused what she asked, for her

own good.

 

Thus it came about that at last Mrs. Lee spoke, with an appearance

of decision far from representing her internal tremor.

 

"Sybil, dear, I have made up my mind to marry Mr. Ratcliffe

because there is no other way of making every one happy. You

need not be afraid of him. He is kind and generous. Besides, I can

take care of myself; and I will take care of you too. Now let us not

discuss it any more. It is broad daylight, and we are both tired out."

 

Sybil grew at once perfectly calm, and standing before her sister,

as though their r?les were henceforward to be reversed, said:

 

"You have really made up your mind, then? Nothing I can say will

change it?"

 

Mrs. Lee, looking at her with more surprise than ever, could not

force herself to speak; but she shook her head slowly and

decidedly.

 

"Then," said Sybil, "there is only one thing more I can do. You

must read this!" and she drew out Carrington's letter, which she

held before Madeleine's face.

 

"Not now, Sybil!" remonstrated Mrs. Lee, dreading another long

struggle. "I will read it after we have had some rest. Go to bed

now!"

 

"I do not leave this room, nor will I ever go to bed until you have

read that letter," answered Sybil, seating herself again before the

fire with the resolution of Queen Elizabeth; "not if I sit here till

you are married. I promised Mr. Carrington that you should read it

instantly; it's all I can do now." With a sigh, Mrs. Lee drew up the

window-curtain, and in the gray morning light sat down to break

the seal and read the following letter:--

 

"Washington, 2nd April.

 

"My dear Mrs. Lee, "This letter will only come into your hands in

case there should be a necessity for your knowing its contents.

Nothing short of necessity would excuse my writing it. I have to

ask your pardon for intruding again upon your private affairs. In

this case, if I did not intrude, you would have cause for serious

complaint against me.

 

"You asked me the other day whether I knew anything against Mr.

Ratcliffe which the world did not know, to account for my low

opinion of his character. I evaded your question then. I was bound

by professional rules not to disclose facts that came to me under a

pledge of confidence. I am going to violate these rules now, only

because I owe you a duty which seems to me to override all others.

 

"I do know facts in regard to Mr. Ratcliffe, which have seemed to

me to warrant a very low opinion of his character, and to mark him

as unfit to be, I will not say your husband, but even your

acquaintance.

 

"You know that I am executor to Samuel Baker's will. You know

who Samuel Baker was. You have seen his wife. She has told you

herself that I assisted her in the examination and destruction of all

her husband's private papers according to his special death-bed

request. One of the first facts I learned from these papers and her

explanations, was the following.

 

"Just eight years ago, the great 'Inter-Oceanic Mail Steamship

Company,' wished to extend its service round the world, and, in

order to do so, it applied to Congress for a heavy subsidy. The

management of this affair was put into the hands of Mr. Baker, and

all his private letters to the President of the Company, in press

copies, as well as the President's replies, came into my possession.

Baker's letters were, of course, written in a sort of cypher, several

kinds of which he was in the habit of using. He left among his

papers a key to this cypher, but Mrs. Baker could have explained it

without that help.

 

"It appeared from this correspondence that the bill was carried

successfully through the House, and, on reaching the Senate, was

referred to the appropriate Committee. Its ultimate passage was

very doubtful; the end of the session was close at hand; the Senate

was very evenly divided, and the Chairman of the Committee was

decidedly hostile.

 

"The Chairman of that Committee was Senator Ratcliffe, always

mentioned by Mr. Baker in cypher, and with every precaution. If

you care, however, to verify the fact, and to trace the history of the

Subsidy Bill through all its stages, together with Mr. Ratcliffe's

report, remarks, and votes upon it, you have only to look into the

journals and debates for that year.

 

"At last Mr. Baker wrote that Senator Ratcliffe had put the bill in

his pocket, and unless some means could be found of overcoming

his opposition, there would be no report, and the bill would never

come to a vote. All ordinary kinds of argument and influence had

been employed upon him, and were exhausted. In this exigency

Baker suggested that the Company should give him authority to

see what money would do, but he added that it would be worse

than useless to deal with small sums. Unless at least one hundred

thousand dollars could be employed, it was better to leave the

thing alone.

 

"The next mail authorized him to use any required amount of

money not exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Two

days later he wrote that the bill was reported, and would pass the

Senate within forty-eight hours; and he congratulated the Company

on the fact that he had used only one hundred thousand dollars out

of its last credit.

 

"The bill was actually reported, passed, and became law as he

foretold, and the Company has enjoyed its subsidy ever since. Mrs.

Baker also informed me that to her knowledge her husband gave

the sum mentioned, in United States Coupon Bonds, to Senator

Ratcliffe.

 

"This transaction, taken in connection with the tortuousness of his

public course, explains the distrust I have always expressed for

him. You will, however, understand that all these papers have been

destroyed. Mrs. Baker could never be induced to hazard her own

comfort by revealing the facts to the public. The officers of the

Company in their own interests would never betray the transaction,

and their books were undoubtedly so kept as to show no trace of it.

If I made this charge against Mr. Ratcliffe, I should be the only

sufferer. He would deny and laugh at it. I could prove nothing. I

am therefore more directly interested than he is in keeping silence.

 

"In trusting this secret to you, I rely firmly upon your mentioning it

to no one else--not even to your sister. You are at liberty, if you

wish, to show this letter to one person only-- to Mr. Ratcliffe

himself. That done, you will, I beg, burn it immediately.

 

"With the warmest good wishes, I am, "Ever most truly yours,

"John Carrington."

 

When Mrs. Lee had finished reading this letter, she remained for

some time quite silent, looking out into the square below. The

morning had come, and the sky was bright with the fresh April

sunlight. She threw open her window, and drew in the soft spring

air. She needed all the purity and quiet that nature could give, for

her whole soul was in revolt, wounded, mortified, exasperated.

Against the sentiment of all her friends she had insisted upon

believing in this man; she had wrought herself up to the point of

accepting him for her husband; a man who, if law were the same

thing as justice, ought to be in a felon's cell; a man who could take

money to betray his trust. Her anger at first swept away all bounds.

She was impatient for the moment when she should see him again,

and tear off his mask. For once she would express all the loathing

she felt for the whole pack of political hounds. She would see

whether the animal was made like other beings; whether he had a

sense of honour; a single clean spot in his mind.

 

Then it occurred to her that after all there might be a mistake;

perhaps Mr.

 

Ratcliffe could explain the charge away. But this thought only laid

bare another smarting wound in her pride. Not only did she believe

the charge, but she believed that Mr. Ratcliffe would defend his

act. She had been willing to marry a man whom she thought

capable of such a crime, and now she shuddered at the idea that

this charge might have been brought against her husband, and that

she could not dismiss it with instant incredulity, with indignant

contempt. How had this happened? how had she got into so foul a

complication? When she left New York, she had meant to be a

mere spectator in Washington. Had it entered her head that she

could be drawn into any project of a second marriage, she never

would have come at all, for she was proud of her loyalty to her

husband's memory, and second marriages were her abhorrence. In

her restlessness and solitude, she had forgotten this; she had only

asked whether any life was worth living for a woman who had

neither husband nor children. Was the family all that life had to

offer? could she find no interest outside the household? And so,

led by this will-of-the-wisp, she had, with her eyes open, walked

into the quagmire of politics, in spite of remonstrance, in spite of

conscience.

 

She rose and paced the room, while Sybil lay on the couch,

watching her with eyes half shut. She grew more and more angry

with herself, and as her self-reproach increased, her anger against

Ratcliffe faded away. She had no right to be angry with Ratcliffe.

He had never deceived her. He had always openly enough avowed

that he knew no code of morals in politics; that if virtue did not

answer his purpose he used vice. How could she blame him for

acts which he had repeatedly defended in her presence and with

her tacit assent, on principles that warranted this or any other

villainy?

 

The worst was that this discovery had come on her as a blow, not

as a reprieve from execution. At this thought she became furious

with herself.

 

She had not known the recesses of her own heart. She had honestly

supposed that Sybil's interests and Sybil's happiness were forcing

her to an act of self-sacrifice; and now she saw that in the depths

of her soul very different motives had been at work: ambition,

thirst for power, restless eagerness to meddle in what did not

concern her, blind longing to escape from the torture of watching

other women with full lives and satisfied instincts, while her own

life was hungry and sad. For a time she had actually, unconscious

as she was of the delusion, hugged a hope that a new field of

usefulness was open to her; that great opportunities for doing good

were to supply the aching emptiness of that good which had been

taken away; and that here at last was an object for which there

would be almost a pleasure in squandering the rest of existence

even if she knew in advance that the experiment would fail. Life

was emptier than ever now that this dream was over. Yet the worst

was not in that disappointment, but in the discovery of her own

weakness and self-deception.

 

Worn out by long-continued anxiety, excitement and sleeplessness,

she was unfit to struggle with the creatures of her own

imagination. Such a strain could only end in a nervous crisis, and

at length it came:

 

"Oh, what a vile thing life is!" she cried, throwing up her arms

with a gesture of helpless rage and despair. "Oh, how I wish I were

dead! how I wish the universe were annihilated!" and she flung

herself down by Sybil's side in a frenzy of tears.

 

Sybil, who had watched all this exhibition in silence, waited

quietly for the excitement to pass. There was little to say. She

could only soothe.

 

After the paroxysm had exhausted itself Madeleine lay quiet for a

time, until other thoughts began to disturb her. From reproaching

herself about Ratcliffe she went on to reproach herself about Sybil,

who really looked worn and pale, as though almost overcome by

fatigue.

 

"Sybil," said she, "you must go to bed at once. You are tired out. It

was very wrong in me to let you sit up so late. Go now, and get

some sleep."

 

"I am not going to bed till you do, Maude!" replied Sybil, with

quiet obstinacy.

 

"Go, dear! it is all settled. I shall not marry Mr. Ratcliffe. You

need not be anxious about it any more."

 

"Are you very unhappy?"

 

"Only very angry with myself. I ought to have taken Mr.

Carrington's advice sooner."

 

"Oh, Maude!" exclaimed Sybil, with a sudden explosion of energy;

"I wish you had taken him!"

 

This remark roused Mrs. Lee to new interest: "Why, Sybil," said

she, "surely you are not in earnest?"

 

"Indeed, I am," replied Sybil, very decidedly. "I know you think I

am in love with Mr. Carrington myself, but I'm not. I would a great

deal rather have him for a brother-in-law, and he is so much the

nicest man you know, and you could help his sisters."

 

Mrs. Lee hesitated a moment, for she was not quite certain

whether it was wise to probe a healing wound, but she was anxious

to clear this last weight from her mind, and she dashed recklessly

forward:

 

"Are you sure you are telling the truth, Sybil? Why, then, did you

say that you cared for him? and why have you been so miserable

ever since he went away?"

 

"Why? I should think it was plain enough why! Because I thought,

as every one else did, that you were going to marry Mr. Ratcliffe;

and because if you married Mr. Ratcliffe, I must go and live alone;

and because you treated me like a child, and never took me into

your confidence at all; and because Mr.

 

Carrington was the only person I had to advise me, and after he

went away, I was left all alone to fight Mr. Ratcliffe and you both

together, without a human soul to help me in case I made a

mistake. You would have been a great deal more miserable than I

if you had been in my place."

 

Madeleine looked at her for a moment in doubt. Would this last?

did Sybil herself know the depth of her own wound? But what

could Mrs. Lee do now?

 

Perhaps Sybil did deceive herself a little. When this excitement

had passed away, perhaps Carrington's image might recur to her

mind a little too often for her own comfort. The future must take

care of itself. Mrs. Lee drew her sister closer to her, and said:

"Sybil, I have made a horrible mistake, and you must forgive me."

 

Chapter XIII

 

NOT until afternoon did Mrs. Lee reappear. How much she had

slept she did not say, and she hardly looked like one whose

slumbers had been long or sweet; but if she had slept little, she had

made up for the loss by thinking much, and, while she thought, the

storm which had raged so fiercely in her breast, more and more

subsided into calm. If there was not sunshine yet, there was at least

stillness. As she lay, hour after hour, waiting for the sleep that did

not come, she had at first the keen mortification of reflecting how

easily she had been led by mere vanity into imagining that she

could be of use in the world. She even smiled in her solitude at the

picture she drew of herself, reforming Ratcliffe, and Krebs, and

Schuyler Clinton. The ease with which Ratcliffe alone had twisted

her about his finger, now that she saw it, made her writhe, and the

thought of what he might have done, had she married him, and of

the endless succession of moral somersaults she would have had to

turn, chilled her with mortal terror. She had barely escaped being

dragged under the wheels of the machine, and so coming to an

untimely end. When she thought of this, she felt a mad passion to

revenge herself on the whole race of politicians, with Ratcliffe at

their head; she passed hours in framing bitter speeches to be made

to his face.

 

Then as she grew calmer, Ratcliffe's sins took on a milder hue;

life, after all, had not been entirely blackened by his arts; there was

even some good in her experience, sharp though it were. Had she

not come to Washington in search of men who cast a shadow, and

was not Ratcliffe's shadow strong enough to satisfy her? Had she

not penetrated the deepest recesses of politics, and learned how

easily the mere possession of power could convert the shadow of a

hobby-horse existing only in the brain of a foolish country farmer,

into a lurid nightmare that convulsed the sleep of nations? The

antics of Presidents and Senators had been amusing--so amusing

that she had nearly been persuaded to take part in them. She had

saved herself in time.

 

She had got to the bottom of this business of democratic

government, and found out that it was nothing more than

government of any other kind. She might have known it by her

own common sense, but now that experience had proved it, she

was glad to quit the masquerade; to return to the true democracy of

life, her paupers and her prisons, her schools and her hospitals. As

for Mr. Ratcliffe, she felt no difficulty in dealing with him.

 

Let Mr. Ratcliffe, and his brother giants, wander on their own

political prairie, and hunt for offices, or other profitable game, as

they would.

 

Their objects were not her objects, and to join their company was

not her ambition. She was no longer very angry with Mr. Ratcliffe.

She had no wish to insult him, or to quarrel with him. What he had

done as a politician, he had done according to his own moral code,

and it was not her business to judge him; to protect herself was the

only right she claimed. She thought she could easily hold him at

arm's length, and although, if Carrington had written the truth, they

could never again be friends, there need be no difficulty in their

remaining acquaintances. If this view of her duty was narrow, it

was at least proof that she had learned something from Mr.

 

Ratcliffe; perhaps it was also proof that she had yet to learn Mr.

Ratcliffe himself.

 

Two o'clock had struck before Mrs. Lee came down from her

chamber, and Sybil had not yet made her appearance. Madeleine

rang her bell and gave orders that, if Mr. Ratcliffe called she

would see him, but she was at home to no one else. Then she sat

down to write letters and to prepare for her journey to New York,

for she must now hasten her departure in order to escape the gossip

and criticism which she saw hanging like an avalanche over her

head.

 

When Sybil at length came down, looking much fresher than her

sister, they passed an hour together arranging this and other small

matters, so that both of them were again in the best of spirits, and

Sybil's face was wreathed in smiles.

 

A number of visitors came to the door that day, some of them

prompted by friendliness and some by sheer curiosity, for Mrs.

Lee's abrupt disappearance from the ball had excited remark.

Against all these her door was firmly closed. On the other hand, as

the afternoon went on, she sent Sybil away, so that she might have

the field entirely to herself, and Sybil, relieved of all her alarms,

sallied out to interrupt Dunbeg's latest interview with his Countess,

and to amuse herself with Victoria's last "phase."

 

Towards four o'clock the tall form of Mr. Ratcliffe was seen to

issue from the Treasury Department and to descend the broad steps

of its western front.

 

Turning deliberately towards the Square, the Secretary of the

Treasury crossed the Avenue and stopping at Mrs. Lee's door, rang

the bell. He was immediately admitted. Mrs. Lee was alone in her

parlour and rose rather gravely as he entered, but welcomed him as

cordially as she could. She wanted to put an end to his hopes at

once and to do it decisively, but without hurting his feelings.

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said she, when he was seated- "I am sure you will

be better pleased by my speaking instantly and frankly. I could not

reply to you last night. I will do so now without delay. What you

wish is impossible. I would rather not even discuss it. Let us leave

it here and return to our old relations."

 

She could not force herself to express any sense of gratitude for his

affection, or of regret at being obliged to meet it with so little

return.

 

To treat him with tolerable civility was all she thought required of

her.

 

Ratcliffe felt the change of manner. He had been prepared for a

struggle, but not to be met with so blunt a rebuff at the start. His

look became serious and he hesitated a moment before speaking,

but when he spoke at last, it was with a manner as firm and

decided as that of Mrs. Lee herself.

 

"I cannot accept such an answer. I will not say that I have a right to

explanation,--I have no rights which you are bound to respect,--but

from you I conceive that I may at least ask the favour of one, and

that you will not refuse it. Are you willing to tell me your reasons

for this abrupt and harsh decision?"

 

"I do not dispute your right of explanation, Mr. Ratcliffe. You have

the right, if you choose to use it, and I am ready to give you every

explanation in my power; but I hope you will not insist on my

doing so. If I seemed to speak abruptly and harshly, it was merely

to spare you the greater annoyance of doubt. Since I am forced to

give you pain, was it not fairer and more respectful to you to speak

at once? We have been friends. I am very soon going away. I

sincerely want to avoid saying or doing anything that would

change our relations."

 

Ratcliffe, however, paid no attention to these words, and gave

them no answer. He was much too old a debater to be misled by

such trifles, when he needed all his faculties to pin his opponent to

the wall. He asked:--

 

"Is your decision a new one?"

 

"It is a very old one, Mr. Ratcliffe, which I had let myself lose

sight of, for a time. A night's reflection has brought me back to it."

 

"May I ask why you have returned to it? surely you would not have

hesitated without strong reasons."

 

"I will tell you frankly. If, by appearing to hesitate, I have misled

you, I am honestly sorry for it. I did not mean to do it. My

hesitation was owing to the doubt whether my life might not really

be best used in aiding you. My decision was owing to the certainty

that we are not fitted for each other.

 

Our lives run in separate grooves. We are both too old to change

them."

 

Ratcliffe shook his head with an air of relief. "Your reasons, Mrs.

Lee, are not sound. There is no such divergence in our lives. On

the contrary I can give to yours the field it needs, and that it can

get in no other way; while you can give to mine everything it now


wants. If these are your only reasons I am sure of being able to

remove them."

 

Madeleine looked as though she were not altogether pleased at this

idea, and became a little dogmatic. "It is no use our arguing on this

subject, Mr.

 

Ratcliffe. You and I take very different views of life. I cannot

accept yours, and you could not practise on mine."

 

"Show me," said Ratcliffe, "a single example of such a divergence,

and I will accept your decision without another word."

 

Mrs. Lee hesitated and looked at him for an instant as though to be

quite sure that he was in earnest. There was an effrontery about

this challenge which surprised her, and if she did not check it on

the spot, there was no saying how much trouble it might give her.

Then unlocking the drawer of the writing-desk at her elbow, she

took out Carrington's letter and handed it to Mr. Ratcliffe.

 

"Here is such an example which has come to my knowledge very

lately. I meant to show it to you in any case, but I would rather

have waited."

 

Ratcliffe took the letter which she handed to him, opened it

deliberately, looked at the signature, and read. He showed no sign

of surprise or disturbance. No one would have imagined that he

had, from the moment he saw Carrington's name, as precise a

knowledge of what was in this letter as though he had written it

himself. His first sensation was only one of anger that his projects

had miscarried. How this had happened he could not at once

understand, for the idea that Sybil could have a hand in it did not

occur to him. He had made up his mind that Sybil was a silly,

frivolous girl, who counted for nothing in her sister's actions. He

had fallen into the usual masculine blunder of mixing up smartness

of intelligence with strength of character. Sybil, without being a

metaphysician, willed anything which she willed at all with more

energy than her sister did, who was worn out with the effort of life.

Mr. Ratcliffe missed this point, and was left to wonder who it was

that had crossed his path, and how Carrington had managed to be

present and absent, to get a good office in Mexico and to baulk his

schemes in Washington, at the same time. He had not given

Carrington credit for so much cleverness.

 

He was violently irritated at the check. Another day, he thought,

would have made him safe on this side; and possibly he was right.

Had he once succeeded in getting ever so slight a hold on Mrs. Lee

he would have told her this story with his own colouring, and from

his own point of view, and he fully believed he could do this in

such a way as to rouse her sympathy. Now that her mind was

prejudiced, the task would be much more difficult; yet he did not

despair, for it was his theory that Mrs. Lee, in the depths of her

soul, wanted to be at the head of the White House as much as he

wanted to be there himself, and that her apparent coyness was

mere feminine indecision in the face of temptation. His thoughts

now turned upon the best means of giving again the upper hand to

her ambition. He wanted to drive Carrington a second time from

the field.

 

Thus it was that, having read the letter once in order to learn what

was in it, he turned back, and slowly read it again in order to gain

time. Then he replaced it in its envelope, and returned it to Mrs.

Lee, who, with equal calmness, as though her interest in it were at

an end, tossed it negligently into the fire, where it was reduced to

ashes under Ratcliffe's eyes.

 

He watched it burn for a moment, and then turning to her, said,

with his usual composure, "I meant to have told you of that affair

myself. I am sorry that Mr. Carrington has thought proper to

forestall me. No doubt he has his own motives for taking my

character in charge."

 

"Then it is true!" said Mrs. Lee, a little more quickly than she had

meant to speak.

 

"True in its leading facts; untrue in some of its details, and in the

impression it creates. During the Presidential election which took

place eight years ago last autumn, there was, as you may

remember, a violent contest and a very close vote. We believed

(though I was not so prominent in the party then as now), that the

result of that election would be almost as important to the nation

as the result of the war itself. Our defeat meant that the

government must pass into the blood-stained hands of rebels, men

whose designs were more than doubtful, and who could not, even

if their designs had been good, restrain the violence of their

followers. In consequence we strained every nerve. Money was

freely spent, even to an amount much in excess of our resources.

How it was employed, I will not say.

 

I do not even know, for I held myself aloof from these details,

which fell to the National Central Committee of which I was not a

member. The great point was that a very large sum had been

borrowed on pledged securities, and must be repaid. The members

of the National Committee and certain senators held discussions

on the subject, in which I shared. The end was that towards the

close of the session the head of the committee, accompanied by

two senators, came to me and told me that I must abandon my

opposition to the Steamship Subsidy. They made no open avowal

of their reasons, and I did not press for one. Their declaration, as

the responsible heads of the organization, that certain action on my

part was essential to the interests of the party, satisfied me. I did

not consider myself at liberty to persist in a mere private opinion

in regard to a measure about which I recognized the extreme

likelihood of my being in error. I accordingly reported the bill, and

voted for it, as did a large majority of the party. Mrs. Baker is

mistaken in saying that the money was paid to me. If it was paid at

all, of which I have no knowledge except from this letter, it was

paid to the representative of the National Committee. I received no

money. I had nothing to do with the money further than as I might

draw my own conclusions in regard to the subsequent payment of

the campaign debt."

 

Mrs. Lee listened to all this with intense interest. Not until this

moment had she really felt as though she had got to the heart of

politics, so that she could, like a physician with his stethoscope,

measure the organic disease. Now at last she knew why the pulse

beat with such unhealthy irregularity, and why men felt an anxiety

which they could not or would not explain. Her interest in the

disease overcame her disgust at the foulness of the revelation. To

say that the discovery gave her actual pleasure would be doing her

injustice; but the excitement of the moment swept away every

other sensation. She did not even think of herself. Not until

afterwards did she fairly grasp the absurdity of Ratcliffe's wish that

in the face of such a story as this, she should still have vanity

enough to undertake the reform of politics. And with his aid too!

The audacity of the man would have seemed sublime if she had

felt sure that he knew the difference between good and evil,

between a lie and the truth; but the more she saw of him, the surer

she was that his courage was mere moral paralysis, and that he

talked about virtue and vice as a man who is colour-blind talks

about red and green; he did not see them as she saw them; if left to

choose for himself he would have nothing to guide him. Was it

politics that had caused this atrophy of the moral senses by disuse?

Meanwhile, here she sat face to face with a moral lunatic, who had

not even enough sense of humour to see the absurdity of his own

request, that she should go out to the shore of this ocean of

corruption, and repeat the ancient r?le of King Canute, or Dame

Partington with her mop and her pail. What was to be done with

such an animal?

 

The bystander who looked on at this scene with a wider knowledge

of facts, might have found entertainment in another view of the

subject, that is to say, in the guilelessness ot Madeleine Lee. With


all her warnings she was yet a mere baby-in-arms in the face of the

great politician. She accepted his story as true, and she thought it

as bad as possible; but had Mr.

 

Ratcliffe's associates now been present to hear his version of it,

they would have looked at each other with a smile of professional

pride, and would have roundly sworn that he was, beyond a doubt,

the ablest man this country had ever produced, and next to certain

of being President. They would not, however, have told their own

side of the story if they could have helped it, but in talking it over

among themselves they might have assumed the facts to have been

nearly as follows: that Ratcliffe had dragged them into an

enormous expenditure to carry his own State, and with it his own

re-election to the Senate; that they had tried to hold him

responsible, and he had tried to shirk the responsibility; that there

had been warm discussions on the subject; that he himself had

privately suggested recourse to Baker, had shaped his conduct

accordingly, and had compelled them, in order to save their own

credit, to receive the money.

 

Even if Mrs. Lee had heard this part of the story, though it might

have sharpened her indignation against Mr. Ratcliffe, it would not

have altered her opinions. As it was, she had heard enough, and

with a great effort to control her expression of disgust, she sank

back in her chair as Ratcliffe concluded. Finding that she did not

speak, he went on:

 

"I do not undertake to defend this affair. It is the act of my public

life which I most regret--not the doing, but the necessity of doing. I

do not differ from you in opinion on that point. I cannot

acknowledge that there is here any real divergence between us."

 

"I am afraid," said Mrs. Lee, "that I cannot agree with you."

 

This brief remark, the very brevity of which carried a barb of

sarcasm, escaped from Madeleine's lips before she had fairly

intended it. Ratcliffe felt the sting, and it started him from his

studied calmness of manner.

 

Rising from his chair he stood on the hearthrug before Mrs. Lee,

and broke out upon her with an oration in that old senatorial voice

and style which was least calculated to enlist her sympathies:

 

"Mrs. Lee," said he, with harsh emphasis and dogmatic tone, "there

are conflicting duties in all the transactions of life, except the

simplest.

 

However we may act, do what we may, we must violate some

moral obligation.

 

All that can be asked of us is that we should guide ourselves by

what we think the highest. At the time this affair occurred, I was a

Senator of the United States. I was also a trusted member of a

great political party which I looked upon as identica,l with the

nation. In both capacities I owed duties to my constituents, to the

government, to the people. I might interpret these duties narrowly

or broadly. I might say: Perish the government, perish the Union,

perish this people, rather than that I should soil my hands! Or I

might say, as I did, and as I would say again: Be my fate what it

may, this glorious Union, the last hope of suffering humanity, shall

be preserved."

 

Here he paused, and seeing that Mrs. Lee, after looking for a time

at him, was now regarding the fire, lost in meditation over the

strange vagaries of the senatorial mind, he resumed, in another line

of argument. He rightly judged that there must be some moral

defect in his last remarks, although he could not see it, which

made persistence in that direction useless.

 

"You ought not to blame me--you cannot blame me justly. It is to

your sense of justice I appeal. Have I ever concealed from you my

opinions on this subject? Have I not on the contrary always

avowed them? Did I not here, on this very spot, when challenged

once before by this same Carrington, take credit for an act less

defensible than this? Did I not tell you then that I had even

violated the sanctity of a great popular election and reversed its

result? That was my sole act! In comparison with it, this is a trifle!

Who is injured by a steamship company subscribing one or ten

hundred thousand dollars to a campaign fund? Whose rights are

affected by it? Perhaps its stock holders receive one dollar a share

in dividends less than they otherwise would. If they do not

complain, who else can do so? But in that election I deprived a

million people of rights which belonged to them as absolutely as

their houses! You could not say that I had done wrong. Not a word

of blame or criticism have you ever uttered to me on that account.

If there was an offence, you condoned it! You certainly led me to

suppose that you saw none. Why are you now so severe upon the

smaller crime?"

 

This shot struck hard. Mrs. Lee visibly shrank under it, and lost her

composure. This was the same reproach she had made against

herself, and to which she had been able to find no reply. With

some agitation she exclaimed:

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe, pray do me justice! I have tried not to be severe. I

have said nothing in the way of attack or blame. I acknowledge

that it is not my place to stand in judgment over your acts. I have

more reason to blame myself than you, and God knows I have

blamed myself bitterly." The tears stood in her eyes as she said

these last words, and her voice trembled.

 

Ratcliffe saw that he had gained an advantage, and, sitting down

nearer to her, he dropped his voice and urged his suit still more

energetically:

 

"You did me justice then; why not do it now? You were convinced

then that I did the best I could. I have always done so. On the other

hand I have never pretended that all my acts could be justified by

abstract morality. Where, then, is the divergence between us?"

 

Mrs. Lee did not undertake to answer this last argument: she only

returned to her old ground. "Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, "I do not want

to argue this question. I have no doubt that you can overcome me

in argument. Perhaps on my side this is a matter of feeling rather

than of reason, but the truth is only too evident to me that I am not

fitted for politics. I should be a drag upon you. Let me be the judge

of my own weakness! Do not insist upon pressing me, further!"

 

She was ashamed of herself for this appeal to a man whom she

could not respect, as though she were a suppliant at his mercy, but

she feared the reproach of having deceived him, and she tried

pitiably to escape it.

 

Ratcliffe was only encouraged by her weakness.

 

"I must insist upon pressing it, Mrs. Lee," replied he, and he

became yet more earnest as he went on; "my future is too deeply

involved in your decision to allow of my accepting your answer as

final. I need your aid.

 

There is nothing I will not do to obtain it. Do you require

affection? mine for you is boundless. I am ready to prove it by a

life of devotion. Do you doubt my sincerity? test it in whatever

way you please. Do you fear being dragged down to the level of

ordinary politicians? so far as concerns myself, my great wish is to

have your help in purifying politics. What higher ambition can

there be than to serve one's country for such an end?

 

Your sense of duty is too keen not to feel that the noblest objects

which can inspire any woman, combine to point out your course."

 

Mrs. Lee was excessively uncomfortable, although not in the least

shaken.

 

She began to see that she must take a stronger tone if she meant to

bring this importunity to an end, and she answered:--

 

"I do not doubt your affection or your sincerity, Mr. Ratcliffe. It is

myself I doubt. You have been kind enough to give me much of

your confidence this winter, and if I do not yet know about politics

all that is to be known, I have learned enough to prove that I could

do nothing sillier than to suppose myself competent to reform

anything. If I pretended to think so, I should be a mere worldly,

ambitious woman, such as people think me. The idea of my

purifying politics is absurd. I am sorry to speak so strongly, but I

mean it. I do not cling very closely to life, and do not value my

own very highly, but I will not tangle it in such a way; I will not

share the profits of vice; I am not willing to be made a receiver of

stolen goods, or to be put in a position where I am perpetually

obliged to maintain that immorality is a virtue!"

 

As she went on she became more and more animated and her

words took a sharper edge than she had intended. Ratcliffe felt it,

and showed his annoyance. His face grew dark and his eyes looked

out at her with their ugliest expression. He even opened his mouth

for an angry retort, but controlled himself with an effort, and

presently resumed his argument.

 

"I had hoped," he began more solemnly than ever, "that I should

find in you a lofty courage which would disregard such risks. If all

tme men and women were to take the tone you have taken, our

government would soon perish. If you consent to share my career, I

do not deny that you may find less satisfaction than I hope, but you

will lead a mere death in life if you place yourself like a saint on a

solitary column. I plead what I believe to be your own cause in

pleading mine. Do not sacrifice your life!"

 

Mrs. Lee was in despair. She could not reply what was on her lips,

that to marry a murderer or a thief was not a sure way of

diminishing crime. She had already said something so much like

this that she shrank from speaking more plainly. So she fell back

on her old theme.

 

"We must at all events, Mr. Ratcliffe, use our judgments according

to our own consciences. I can only repeat now what I said at first. I

am sorry to seem insensible to your expressions towards me, but I

cannot do what you wish. Let us maintain our old relations if you

will, but do not press me further on this subject."

 

Ratcliffe grew more and more sombre as he became aware that

defeat was staring him in the face. He was tenacious of purpose,

and he had never in his life abandoned an object which he had so

much at heart as this. He would not abandon it. For the moment, so

completely had the fascination of Mrs.

 

Lee got the control of him, he would rather have abandoned the

Presidency itself than her. He really loved her as earnestly as it was

in his nature to love anything. To her obstinacy he would oppose

an obstinacy greater still; but in the meanwhile his attack was

disconcerted, and he was at a loss what next to do. Was it not

possible to change his ground; to offer inducements that would

appeal even more strongly to feminine ambition and love of

display than the Presidency itself? He began again:--

 

"Is there no form of pledge I can give you? no sacrifice I can

make? You dislike politics. Shall I leave political life? I will do

anything rather than lose you. I can probably control the

appointment of Minister to England. The President would rather

have me there than here. Suppose I were to abandon politics and

take the English mission. Would that sacrifice not affect you? You

might pass four years in London where there would be no politics,

and where your social position would be the best in the world; and

this would lead to the Presidency almost as surely as the other."

Then suddenly, seeing that he was making no headway, he threw

off his studied calmness and broke out in an appeal of almost

equally studied violence.

 

"Mrs. Lee! Madeleine! I cannot live without you. The sound of

your voice--the touch of your hand--even the rustle of your

dress--are like wine to me. For God's sake, do not throw me over!"

 

He meant to crush opposition by force. More and more vehement

as he spoke he actually bent over and tried to seize her hand. She

drew it back as though he were a reptile. She was exasperated by

this obstinate disregard of her forbearance, this gross attempt to

bribe her with office, this flagrant abandonment of even a pretence

of public virtue; the mere thought of his touch on her person was

more repulsive than a loathsome disease. Bent upon teaching him

a lesson he would never forget, she spoke out abruptly, and with

evident signs of contempt in her voice and manner:

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe, I am not to be bought. No rank, no dignity, no

consideration, no conceivable expedient would induce me to

change my mind.

 

Let us have no more of this!"

 

Ratcliffe had already been more than once, during this

conversation, on the verge of losing his temper. Naturally

dictatorial and violent, only long training and severe experience

had taught him self-control, and when he gave way to passion his

bursts of fury were still tremendous. Mrs. Lee's evident personal

disgust, even more than her last sharp rebuke, passed the bounds of

his patience. As he stood before her, even she, high-spirited as she

was, and not in a calm frame of mind, felt a momentary shock at

seeing how his face flushed, his eyes gleamed, and his hands

trembled with rage.

 

"Ah!" exclaimed he, turning upon her with a harshness, almost a

savageness, of manner that startled her still more; "I might have

known what to expect!

 

Mrs. Clinton warned me early. She said then that I should find you

a heartless coquette!"

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe!" exclaimed Madeleine, rising from her chair, and

speaking in a warning voice almost as passionate as his own.

 

"A heartless coquette!" he repeated, still more harshly than before;

"she said you would do just this! that you meant to deceive me!

that you lived on flattery! that you could never be anything but a

coquette, and that if you married me, I should repent it all my life.

I believe her now!"

 

Mrs. Lee's temper, too, was naturally a high one. At this moment

she, too, was flaming with anger, and wild with a passionate

impulse to annihilate this man. Conscious that the mastery was in

her own hands, she could the more easily control her voice, and

with an expression of unutterable contempt she spoke her last

words to him, words which had been ringing all day in her ears:

 

"Mr. Ratcliffe! I have listened to you with a great deal more

patience and respect than you deserve. For one long hour I have

degraded myself by discussing with you the question whether I

should marry a man who by his own confession has betrayed the

highest trusts that could be placed in him, who has taken money

for his votes as a Senator, and who is now in public office by

means of a successful fraud of his own, when in justice he should

be in a State's prison. I will have no more of this. Understand, once

for all, that there is an impassable gulf between your life and mine.

I do not doubt that you will make yourself President, but whatever

or wherever you are, never speak to me or recognize me again!"

 

He glared a moment into her face with a sort of blind rage, and

seemed about to say more, when she swept past him, and before he

realized it, he was alone.

 

Overmastered by passion, but conscious that he was powerless,

Ratcliffe, after a moment's hesitation, left the room and the house.

He let himself out, shutting the front door behind him, and as he

stood on the pavement old Baron Jacobi, who had special reasons

for wishing to know how Mrs. Lee had recovered from the fatigue

and excitements of the ball, came up to the spot.

 

A single glance at Ratcliffe showed him that something had gone

wrong in the career of that great man, whose fortunes he always

followed with so bitter a sneer of contempt. Impelled by the spirit

of evil always at his elbow, the Baron seized this moment to sound

the depth of his friend's wound. They met at the door so closely

that recognition was inevitable, and Jacobi, with his worst smile,

held out his hand, saying at the same moment with diabolic

malignity:

 

"I hope I may offer my felicitations to your Excellency!"

 

Ratcliffe was glad to find some victim on whom he could vent his

rage. He had a long score of humiliations to repay this man, whose

last insult was beyond all endurance. With an oath he dashed

Jacobi's hand aside, and, grasping his shoulder, thrust him out of

the path. The Baron, among whose weaknesses the want of high

temper and personal courage was not recorded, had no mind to

tolerate such an insult from such a man. Even while Ratcliffe's

hand was still on his shoulder he had raised his cane, and before

the Secretary saw what was coming, the old man had struck him

with all his force full in the face. For a moment Ratcliffe staggered

back and grew pale, but the shock sobered him. He hesitated a

single instant whether to crush his assailant with a blow, but he felt

that for one of his youth and strength, to attack an infirm

diplomatist in a public street would be a fatal blunder, and while

Jacobi stood, violently excited, with his cane raised ready to strike

another blow, Mr. Ratcliffe suddenly turned his back and without a

word, hastened away.

 

When Sybil returned, not long afterwards, she found no one in the

parlour.

 

On going to her sister's room she discovered Madeleine lying on

the couch, looking worn and pale, but with a slight smile and a

peaceful expression on her face, as though she had done some act

which her conscience approved. She called Sybil to her side, and,

taking her hand, said:

 

"Sybil, dearest, will you go abroad with me again?"

 

"Of course I will," said Sybil; "I will go to the end of the world

with you."

 

"I want to go to Egypt," said Madeleine, still smiling faintly;

"democracy has shaken my nerves to pieces. Oh, what rest it would

be to live in the Great Pyramid and look out for ever at the polar

star!"

 

Conclusion

 

SYBIL TO CARRINGTON "May 1st, New York.

 

"My dear Mr. Carrington, "I promised to write you, and so, to keep

my promise, and also because my sister wishes me to tell you

about our plans, I send this letter. We have left Washington--for

ever, I am afraid--and are going to Europe next month.

 

You must know that a fortnight ago, Lord Skye gave a great ball to

the Grand-Duchess of something-or-other quite unspellable. I

never can describe things, but it was all very fine. I wore a lovely

new dress, and was a great success, I assure you. So was

Madeleine, though she had to sit most of the evening by the

Princess--such a dowdy! The Duke danced with me several times;

he can't reverse, but that doesn't seem to matter in a Grand-Duke.

 

Well! things came to a crisis at the end of the evening. I followed

your directions, and after we got home gave your letter to

Madeleine. She says she has burned it. I don't know what happened

afterwards--a tremendous scene, I suspect, but Victoria Dare

writes me from Washington that every one is talking about M.'s

refusal of Mr. R., and a dreadful thing that took place on our very

doorstep between Mr. R. and Baron Jacobi, the day after the ball.

She says there was a regular pitched battle, and the Baron struck

him over the face with his cane. You know how afraid Madeleine

was that they would do something of the sort in our parlour. I'm

glad they waited till they were in the street. But isn't it shocking!

They say the Baron is to be sent away, or recalled, or something. I

like the old gentleman, and for his sake am glad duelling is gone

out of fashion, though I don't much believe Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe

could hit anything. The Baron passed through here three days ago

on his summer trip to Europe. He left his card on us, but we were

out, and did not see him. We are going over in July with the

Schneidekoupons, and Mr. Schneidekoupon has promised to send

his yacht to the Mediterranean, so that we shall sail about there

after finishing the Nile, and see Jerusalem and Gibraltar and

Constantinople. I think it will be perfectly lovely. I hate ruins, but I

fancy you can buy delicious things in Constantinople. Of course,

after what has happened, we can never go back to Washington. I

shall miss our rides dreadfully. I read Mr. Browning's 'Last Ride

Together,' as you told me; I think it's beautiful and perfectly easy,

all but a little. I never could understand a word of him before--so I

never tried. Who do you think is engaged? Victoria Dare, to a

coronet and a peat-bog, with Lord Dunbeg attached. Victoria says

she is happier than she ever was before in any of her other

engagements, and she is sure this is the real one. She says she has

thirty thousand a year derived from the poor of America, which

may just as well go to relieve one of the poor in Ireland.

 

You know her father was a claim agent, or some such thing, and is

said to have made his money by cheating his clients out of their

claims. She is perfectly wild to be a countess, and means to make

Castle Dunbeg lovely by-and-by, and entertain us all there.

Madeleine says she is just the kind to be a great success in London.

Madeleine is very well, and sends her kind regards. I believe she is

going to add a postscript. I have promised to let her read this, but I

don't think a chaperoned letter is much fun to write or receive.

Hoping to hear from you soon, "Sincerely yours, "Sybil Ross."

 

Enclosed was a thin strip of paper containing another message

from Sybil, privately inserted at the last moment unknown to Mrs.

Lee--

 

"If I were in your place I would try again after she comes home."

 

Mrs. Lee's P.S. was very short--

 

"The bitterest part of all this horrid story is that nine out of ten of

our countrymen would say I had made a mistake."

 

 

 

 

 

End


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