Mrs. Lee had the chance now to carry out her scheme in coming to
Washington, for she was already deep in the mire of politics and
could see with every advantage how the great machine floundered
about, bespattering with mud even her own pure garments.
Ratcliffe himself, since entering the Treasury, had begun to talk
with a sneer of the way in which laws were made, and openly said
that he wondered how government got on at all. Yet he declared
still that this particular government was the highest expression of
political thought. Mrs. Lee stared at him and wondered whether he
knew what thought was. To her the government seemed to have
less thought in it than one of Sybil's gowns, for if they, like the
government, were monstrously costly, they were at least adapted to
their purpose, the parts fitted together, and they were neither
awkward nor unwieldy.
There was nothing very encouraging in all this, but it was better
than New York. At least it gave her something to look at, and to
think about. Even Lord Dunbeg preached practical philanthropy to
her by the hour. Ratcliffe, too, was compelled to drag himself out
of the rut of machine politics, and to justify his right of admission
to her house. There Mr. French discoursed at great length, until the
fourth of March sent him home to Connecticut; and he brought
more than one intelligent member of Congress to Mrs. Lee's
parlour. Underneath the scum floating on the surface of politics,
Madeleine felt that there was a sort of healthy ocean current of
honest purpose, which swept the scum before it, and kept the mass
pure.
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