Baron Jacobi came in and found fault with them both.

Little Miss Dare--commonly known among her male friends as little Daredevil--who was always absorbed in some flirtation with a Secretary of Legation, came in, quite unaware that Popoff was present, and retired with him into a corner, while Orsini and Jacobi bullied poor Sybil, and fought with each other at the piano; everybody was talking with very little reference to any reply, when at last Mrs.
Lee drove them all out of the room: "We are quiet people," said she, "and we dine at half-past six." Senator Ratcliffe had not failed to make his Sunday evening call upon Mrs.
Lee.

Perhaps it was not strictly correct to say that they had talked books all the evening, but whatever the conversation was, it had only confirmed Mr.Ratcliffe's admiration for Mrs.Lee, who, without intending to do so, had acted a more dangerous part than if she had been the most accomplished of coquettes.

Nothing could be more fascinating to the weary politician in his solitude than the repose of Mrs.Lee's parlour, and when Sybil sang for him one or two simple airs--she said they were foreign hymns, the Senator being, or being considered, orthodox--Mr.Ratcliffe's heart yearned toward the charming girl quite with the sensations of a father, or even of an elder brother.
His brother senators very soon began to remark that the Prairie Giant had acquired a trick of looking up to the ladies' gallery.

One day Mr.
Jonathan Andrews, the special correspondent of the New York Sidereal System, a very friendly organ, approached Senator Schuyler Clinton with a puzzled look on his face.
"Can you tell me," said he, "what has happened to Silas P.Ratcliffe?
Only a moment ago I was talking with him at his seat on a very important subject, about which I must send his opinions off to New York to-night, when, in the middle of a sentence, he stopped short, got up without looking at me, and left the Senate Chamber, and now I see him in the gallery talking with a lady whose face I don't know." Senator Clinton slowly adjusted his gold eye-glasses and looked up at the place indicated: "Ah! Mrs.Lightfoot Lee! I think I will say a word to her myself;" and turning his back on the special correspondent, he skipped away with youthful agility after the Senator from Illinois.
"Devil!" muttered Mr.Andrews; "what has got into the old fools ?" and in a still less audible murmur as he looked up to Mrs.Lee, then in close conversation with Ratcliffe: "Had I better make an item of that ?" When young Mr.Schneidekoupon called upon Senator Ratcliffe to invite him to the dinner at Welckley's, he found that gentleman overwhelmed with work, as he averred, and very little disposed to converse.