Schneidekoupon disappeared as suddenly as he came,
and from Sybil's innocent complaints of his spirits and temper,
Mrs. Lee jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Ratcliffe, Mr. Clinton,
and Mr.
Krebs had for the moment combined to sit heavily upon poor
Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the
scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These
were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's
observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but
she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington,
when she spoke to him about it, only laughed and shook his head:
"Those matters are private, my dear Mrs. Lee; you and I are not
meant to know such things."
This Sunday afternoon Mr. Ratcliffe's object was to arrange the
little manoeuvre about Carson of Pennsylvania, which had
disturbed him in church.
His efforts were crowned with success. Krebs accepted Carson and
promised to bring him forward at ten minutes' notice, should the
emergency arise.
Ratcliffe was a great statesman. The smoothness of his
manipulation was marvellous. No other man in politics, indeed no
other man who had ever been in politics in this country, could--his
admirers said--have brought together so many hostile interests and
made so fantastic a combination. Some men went so far as to
maintain that he would "rope in the President himself before the
old man had time to swap knives with him." The beauty of his
work consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of
principle.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128