fixed way towards the appointed goal.
And--consider--isn't the upraised rod for your good? Your place is with
us--indeed it is. I fancy that Stephen here forgets that you are not
yet fully acquainted with our real principles and aims. A political
party cannot be judged from the platform. The views expressed there
have to be largely governed by the character of the audience. It is to
the textbooks of our creed, Dartrey's textbooks, that you should turn."

"I have read your views on certain social matters, Miss Miall," Tallente
observed, turning towards her.

She laughed understandingly. Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him.

"And thoroughly disapproved them, of course! But you know, Mr.
Tallente, we are out not to reconstruct Society but to lay the stepping
stones for a reconstruction. That is all, I suppose, that any single
generation could accomplish. The views which I have advocated in the
_Universal Review_ are the views which will be accepted as a matter of
course in fifty years' time. To-day they seem crude and unmoral,
chiefly because the casual reader, especially the British reader, dwells
so much upon external effects and thinks so little of the soul that lies
below. Even you, Mr. Tallente, with your passion for order and your
distrust of all change in established things, can scarcely consider our
marriage laws an entire success?"

Tallente winced a little and Dartrey hastily intervened.

"We want you to remember this," he said. "The principles which we
advocate are condemned before they are considered by men of inherited
principles and academic education such as yourself, because you have
associated them always with the disciples of anarchy, bolshevism, and
other diseased rituals. You have never stooped to separate the good
from the bad. The person who dares to tamper with the laws of King
Alfred stands before you prejudged. Granted that our doctrines are
extreme, are we--let me be personal and say am I--the class of man whom
you have associated with these doctrines? We Democrats have gained
great power during the last ten years. We have thrust our influence
deep into the hearts of those great, sinister bodies, the trades unions.
There is no one except ourselves who realises our numerical and
potential strength. We could have created a revolution in this country
at any time since the Premier's first gloomy speech in the House of
Commons after the signing of peace, had we chosen. I can assure you
that we