less."

"Yes, so you warned me; but what I find instructive is not the speaker
but the crowd."

"You have a crowd here."

"A much smaller one."

"So you are for the majorities?"

Max acknowledged the stroke. "Very well," he said; "let us go back."

"No, I only wanted you to notice the crowd. Did they seem interested?"

"They listened."

"That is something, is it not, when she was talking of things that to
their minds hardly concerned them?"

"But you say she was not telling the truth."

"She was ignorant, and she exaggerated; but for all they know what she
is saying might be gospel."

"Is that how you would have it preached?"

"If gospels had to wait for the wise and prudent," said Jenifer, "they
would wait till eternity. That woman was speaking not for an institution
but for a movement."

"Do not such exaggerations condemn it?"

"By no means; if some did not exaggerate none of us would get a
hearing--especially if we happened to be in a minority; and reformers
always are."

"Though I embroider it for myself," said Prince Max, "from others I
prefer to get plain truth."

"Plain truth," she replied, "is only that manner of dealing with a
thing--with some wrong, say--which makes it plain to people that the
wrong exists. Short of that you haven't got truth into them."

"Now you are preaching pragmatism," said Max.

"Do you suppose," she went on, "that to that dull, sunk, slow-witted
crowd we have been looking at, a mere niggardly statement of facts
would make the truth plain, or stir them to any action or feeling
for others? That woman on some points over-stated her case quite
ridiculously--especially as to the benefits and rewards which the
women's Charter would bring--but the effect upon her hearers fell far
short of what the real facts justify. Oh, people have to be bribed even
to do no more than open their ears to the truth."

"By false promises of reward? Yes, you have the Church with you there.
It deals with our ordinary everyday morality, in very much the same way.
Tells a maximum of untruth so that a necessary minimum may spring out of
it. How many Christians to-day really believe in the doctrine of hell?"

"Surely," she said, "to see the light of its fires in so many faces is
proof enough."

"That is not the doctrine," said the Prince, "and you know it. Hell here
and now may be very real; but it is not what your Church preaches. Many
of those lit-up faces that you speak of are aglow with