said her ladyship frigidly, "I think we had better
change the subject; that last remark of yours was almost blasphemous."

"Never heard such rubbish preached from a respectable pulpit in my
life," said Mr. Horace Faustmann, a member of the Stock Exchange,
director of several limited companies and a most liberal contributor to
the offertories, and all Church effort in the parish of St. Chrysostom,
to his wife as they rolled smoothly in their cee-spring, rubber-tyred
victoria towards Hyde Park Corner.

"Why, if you can't make plenty of money and still be a Christian, where
are subscriptions coming from, and what price the Church endowments? It
seems absolutely absurd to me. I wonder what on earth Baldwin was
thinking about to let him preach a sermon like that in the smartest
church in the West End. If he goes on in that style he will just ruin
the show. Anyhow, he gets no more of my money if he is going to insult
rich people in the pulpit. Any more of that sort of thing, my dear, and
we'll go somewhere else, won't we?"

"I should think so," said the beautiful Mrs. Faustmann. She was the
daughter of a poor aristocrat, and had made a very good social and
financial bargain. She was one of the smartest women and most successful
entertainers in London. There was another man eating his heart out on
her account in the Burmese jungle, and sometimes, in her tenderest
moment, she gave him a thought and a little sigh--about as much thought
and sigh as her engagements permitted.

"Yes, Father Baldwin will really ruin the Church if he allows that sort
of thing. Of course all the good people will give it up. In fact, you
saw the Steinways, the Northwicks, the Athertons and several more leave
the church before he was half way through his harangue, for really you
could hardly call it a sermon. All the same, the church will be thronged
to-night and next Sunday, because people will go there just for the
sensation of the thing, and to see if anything else is going to happen;
but poor Father Baldwin will simply be inundated with letters from the
best of his people, and I don't think he'll find them very pleasant
reading. I am going to write, and, although I respect the dear man very
much, I shall tell him exactly what I think."

"Quite right," said her husband, as they turned into the Park. "You give
it to him straight. If you don't, I shall drop him a line myself and
tell him that if he wants any more of my money, and he has had a good