eby he hoped to make the
religious progress keep pace with the social. Mr. Parr was decidedly in
sympathy with this intention, and referred to it now.

"I was much impressed by what you said in your sermon to-day as to the
need of insisting upon authority in religious matters," he declared, "and
I quite agree that we should have a chapel of some size at the settlement
house for that reason. Those people need spiritual control. It's what
the age needs. And when I think of some of the sermons printed in the
newspapers to-day, and which are served up as Christianity, there is only
one term to apply to them--they are criminally incendiary."

"But isn't true Christianity incendiary, in your meaning of the word?"

It was Alison who spoke, in a quiet and musical voice that was in
striking contrast to the tone of Mr. Parr, which the rector had thought
unusually emphatic. It was the first time she had shown an inclination
to contribute to the talk. But since Hodder had sat down at the table
her presence had disturbed him, and he had never been wholly free from an
uncomfortable sense that he was being measured and weighed.

Once or twice he had stolen a glance at her as she sat, perfectly at
ease, and asked himself whether she had beauty, and it dawned upon him
little by little that the very proportion she possessed made for physical
unobtrusiveness. She was really very tall for a woman. At first he
would have said her nose was straight, when he perceived that it had a
delicate hidden curve; her eyes were curiously set, her dark hair parted
in the middle, brought down low on each side of the forehead and tied in
a Grecian knot. Thus, in truth, he observed, were seemingly all the
elements of the classic, even to the firm yet slender column of the neck.
How had it eluded him?

Her remark, if it astonished Hodder, had a dynamic effect on Eldon Parr.
And suddenly the rector comprehended that the banker had not so much been
talking to him as through him; had been, as it were, courting opposition.

"What do you mean by Christianity being incendiary?" he demanded.

"Incendiary, from your point of view--I made, the qualification,"
Alison replied, apparently unmoved by his obvious irritation. "I don't
pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element
in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man.
That's pure nitroglycerin, though it's been mixed with so much sawdust.
Incendiary is a mild epith