"Put her out!" shouted some man's voice. A dozen other voices bawled
out incoherencies; Palla waited; and after a moment or two there were
no further interruptions.

"Please let me say what I have to say," she said in that shy and
gentle way she had when facing hostile listeners.

"Speak louder!" yelled a young man. "Come on, silk-stockings!--spit it
out and go home to mother!"

"I wish I could," she said.

Her rejoinder was so odd and unexpected that stillness settled over
the place.

"But all I can do," she added, in an even, colourless voice, "is to go
home. And I shall do that after I have said what I have to say."

At that moment there was a commotion in the rear of the hall. A dozen
policemen filed into the place, pushing their way right and left and
ranging themselves along the wall. Their officer came into the aisle:

"If there's any disorder in this place to-night, I'll run in the whole
bunch o' ye!" he said calmly.

"All right. Hit out, little girl!" cried the young man who had
interrupted before. "We gotta lot of business to fix up after you've
gone to bed, so get busy!"

"I, also, have some business to fix up," she said in the same sweet,
emotionless voice, "--business of setting myself right by admitting
that I have been wrong.

"Because, on this spot where I am standing, I have spoken against
the old order of things. I have said that there is no law excepting
only the law of Love and Service. I have said that there is no God
other than the deathless germ of deity within each one of us. I have
said that the conventions and beliefs and usages and customs of
civilisation were old, outworn, and tyrannical; and that there was
no need to regard them or to obey the arbitrary laws based on them.

"In other words, I have preached disorder while attempting to combat
it: I have preached revolution while counselling peace; I have
preached bigotry where I have demanded toleration.

"For there is no worse bigot than the free-thinker who demands that
the world subscribe to his creed; no tyrant like the under-dog when he
becomes the upper one; no autocracy to compare with mob rule!

"You can not obtain freedom for all by imposing that creed upon
anybody by the violence of revolutionary ukase!

"You can not wreck any edifice until all who enjoy ownership in it
agree to its demolition. You can not build for all unless each
voluntarily comes forward to aid with stone and mortar.

"Anarchy leaves the majori