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 daïs and a sofa in the centre of one long side, and another daïs with
a second sofa immediately opposite to it in the centre of the other long
side. Each daïs 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 of 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 the 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 Victoria 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.