beautiful Gothic church--whereby
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 sawd