ere was a sort of healthy
ocean current of honest purpose, which swept the scum before it, and
kept the mass pure.

This was enough to draw her on. She reconciled herself to accepting
the Ratcliffian morals, for she could see no choice. She herself had
approved every step she had seen him take. She could not deny that there
must be something wrong in a double standard of morality, but where was
it? Mr.

Ratcliffe seemed to her to be doing good work with as pure means as he
had at hand. He ought to be encouraged, not reviled. What was she that
she should stand in judgment?

Others watched her progress with less satisfaction. Mr. Nathan Gore was
one of these, for he came in one evening, looking much out of temper,
and, sitting down by her side he said he had come to bid good-bye and to
thank her for the kindness she had shown him; he was to leave Washington
the next morning. She too expressed her warm regret, but added that she
hoped he was only going in order to take his passage to Madrid.

He shook his head. "I am going to take my passage," said he, "but not to
Madrid. The fates have cut that thread. The President does not want my
services, and I can't blame him, for if our situations were reversed, I
should certainly not want his. He has an Indiana friend, who, I am told,
wanted to be postmaster at Indianapolis, but as this did not suit the
politicians, he was bought off at the exorbitant price of the Spanish
mission. But I should have no chance even if he were out of the way. The
President does not approve of me. He objects to the cut of my overcoat
which is unfortunately an English one. He also objects to the cut of my
hair. I am afraid that his wife objects to me because I am so happy as
to be thought a friend of yours."

Madeleine could only acknowledge that Mr. Gore's case was a bad one.
"But after all," said she, "why should politicians be expected to love
you literary gentlemen who write history. Other criminal classes are not
expected to love their judges."

"No, but they have sense enough to fear them," replied Gore
vindictively; "not one politician living has the brains or the art to
defend his own cause. The ocean of history is foul with the carcases of
such statesmen, dead and forgotten except when some historian fishes one
of them up to gibbet it."

Mr. Gore was so much out of temper that after this piece of extravagance
he was forced to pause a moment to recover himself. Then he went
on:--"You ar