cal men, these! they had no great problems of thought to
settle, no questions that rose above the ordinary rules of common
morals and homely duty. How they had managed to befog the subject!
What elaborate show-structures they had built up, with no result but
to obscure the horizon! Would not the country have done better without
them? Could it have done worse? What deeper abyss could have opened
under the nation's feet, than that to whose verge they brought it?

Madeleine's mind wearied with the monotony of the story. She discussed
the subject with Ratcliffe, who told her frankly that the pleasure of
politics lay in the possession of power. He agreed that the country
would do very well without him. "But here I am," said he, "and here I
mean to stay." He had very little sympathy for thin moralising, and a
statesmanlike contempt for philosophical politics. He loved power, and
he meant to be President.

That was enough.

Sometimes the tragic and sometimes the comic side was uppermost in her
mind, and sometimes she did not herself know whether to cry or to laugh.

Washington more than any other city in the world swarms with
simple-minded exhibitions of human nature; men and women curiously out
of place, whom it would be cruel to ridicule and ridiculous to weep
over. The sadder exhibitions are fortunately seldom seen by respectable
people; only the little social accidents come under their eyes. One
evening Mrs. Lee went to the President's first evening reception. As
Sybil flatly refused to face the crowd, and Carrington mildly said that
he feared he was not sufficiently reconstructed to appear at home in
that august presence, Mrs. Lee accepted Mr. French for an escort, and
walked across the Square with him to join the throng that was pouring
into the doors of the White House. They took their places in the line
of citizens and were at last able to enter the reception-room. There
Madeleine found herself before two seemingly mechanical figures, which
might be wood or wax, for any sign they showed of life. These two
figures were the President and his wife; they stood stiff and awkward by
the door, both their faces stripped of every sign of intelligence, while
the right hands of both extended themselves to the column of visitors
with the mechanical action of toy dolls. Mrs. Lee for a moment began
to laugh, but the laugh died on her lips. To the President and his
wife this was clearly no laughing matter. There they stood, automa