To her eyes he was the high-priest of American politics; he was
charged with the meaning of the mysteries, the clue to political
hieroglyphics. Through him she hoped to sound the depths of
statesmanship and to bring up from its oozy bed that pearl of
which she was in search; the mysterious gem which must lie
hidden somewhere in politics. She wanted to understand this man;
to turn him inside out; to experiment on him and use him as young
physiologists use frogs and kittens. If there was good or bad in
him, she meant to find its meaning.

And he was a western widower of fifty; his quarters in Washington
were in gaunt boarding-house rooms, furnished only with public
documents and enlivened by western politicians and
office-seekers. In the summer he retired to a solitary, white
framehouse with green blinds, surrounded by a few feet of
uncared-for grass and a white fence; its interior more dreary still,
with iron stoves, oil-cloth carpets, cold white walls, and one large
engraving of Abraham Lincoln in the parlour; all in Peonia,
Illinois! What equality was there between these two combatants?
what hope for him? what risk for her? And yet Madeleine Lee had
fully her match in Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe.

Chapter III

MRS. Lee soon became popular. Her parlour was a favourite haunt
of certain men and women who had the art of finding its mistress
at home; an art which seemed not to be within the powers of
everybody. Carrington was apt to be there more often than any one
else, so that he was looked on as almost a part of the family, and if