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.