_ 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 rôle 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 identical 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!" _