the police, a condition with which some of her guests as
a matter of fact were not at all unfamiliar.

Mrs. Dodson, who went out very little, was present chiefly because Mrs.
Weidely was a friend of long standing, whose almost tearful assurance
that her absence would ruin the evening, had been too touching for
resistance. Mrs. Dodson was a kind-hearted, if not particularly
credulous, woman.

When Judith arrived, having been invited, she suspected, chiefly to give
"balance" to the affair, a young man with a narrow, equine face and a
great deal of coarse black hair, who she afterwards learned was named
Klemm, was standing in front of the fireplace, his legs wide apart, and
talking very rapidly, in a high, thin voice, punctuating his sentences
with rapier-like movements of his long, sharp fingers.

He was a poet, whose ready flow of language, with its glowing flights of
hyperbole, had once reacted unfavourably upon a too literal-minded
policeman, with a consequent very actual fortnight in jail. It had been
a distinctly unpleasant experience, but one which he would not have
escaped for worlds. Its immediate effect was a volume of lurid verse,
which had a very wide sale. And ever afterward he was able to denounce
things as they were, with the assurance of one who knew whereof he
spoke. He was young in years, but--he had lived--he had suffered....

"Charity--pah!" he declared with finality. "It is futile, childish,
debasing--both to them that give and them that receive. It is
abomination--the more organised, the worse it becomes. It is like
all--reform." The fine scorn with which he spoke would have made the
word shrivel up and disappear, had it been a material organism.

"And for reform you would substitute--revolution?" Judith was conscious
of Mrs. Dodson's firm, level voice, contrasting rather unexpectedly with
the uncertain falsetto of Mr. Klemm.

"Revolution--yes!" The accompanying gesture was splendidly dramatic. "A
man's word," he added, sternly, but unfortunately in a tone which was
somewhat feminine.

"So far as I know," said Mrs. Dodson, quietly, without any dramatic
effect, but in a way which carried conviction, "the real progress of the
world has been by evolution. Revolution has usually been followed by
reaction, the net advantage being no greater than is secured day after
day, year after year, by the despised reformers. Most of the
revolutionists I know--talk. The world needs--work!"

It was a stinging