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 the 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 of Project Gutenberg's Democracy An American Novel, by Henry Adams