t," said Clementina, with a glance as if for assent,
at her mother. "We should all have hated that."

"Anyhow it has fallen through."

"We don't mind that," said Clementina, and Daphne echoed her words.

"I don't see that there is any necessity to import this note
of--hostility to Lady Sunderbund into this matter." He addressed
himself rather more definitely to Lady Ella. "She's a woman of a very
extraordinary character, highly emotional, energetic, generous to an
extraordinary extent...."

Daphne made a little noise like a comment.

A faint acerbity in her father's voice responded.

"Anyhow you make a mistake if you think that the personality of Lady
Sunderbund has very much to do with this thing now. Her quality may have
brought out certain aspects of the situation rather more sharply than
they might have been brought out under other circumstances, but if
this chapel enterprise had been suggested by quite a different sort of
person, by a man, or by a committee, in the end I think I should have
come to the same conclusion. Leave Lady Sunderbund out. Any chapel was
impossible. It is just this specialization that has been the trouble
with religion. It is just this tendency to make it the business of
a special sort of man, in a special sort of building, on a special
day--Every man, every building, every day belongs equally to God.
That is my conviction. I think that the only possible existing sort of
religions meeting is something after the fashion of the Quaker meeting.
In that there is no professional religious man at all; not a trace of
the sacrifices to the ancient gods.... And no room for a professional
religions man...." He felt his argument did a little escape him. He
snatched, "That is what I want to make clear to you. God is not a
speciality; he is a universal interest."

He stopped. Both Daphne and Clementina seemed disposed to say something
and did not say anything.

Miriam was the first to speak. "Daddy," she said, "I know I'm stupid.
But are we still Christians?"

"I want you to think for yourselves."

"But I mean," said Miriam, "are we--something like Quakers--a sort of
very broad Christians?"

"You are what you choose to be. If you want to keep in the church, then
you must keep in the church. If you feel that the Christian doctrine is
alive, then it is alive so far as you are concerned."

"But the creeds?" asked Clementina.

He shook his head. "So far as Christianity is defined by its creeds