ooking back, saw Sondheim unfurl a
big red flag.

Instantly the police started for the rostrum. The din became deafening
as he threw one arm around Palla and forced her out into the street,
where Ilse and Brisson immediately joined them.

Then, as they looked around for a taxi, a little shrimp of a man came
out on the steps of the hall and spat on the sidewalk and cursed them
in Russian.

And, as Palla, recognising him, turned around, he shook his fists at
her and at Ilse, promising that they should be attended to when the
proper moment arrived.

Then he spat again, laughed a rather ghastly and distorted laugh, and
backed into the doorway behind him.

They walked east--there being no taxi in sight. Ilse and Brisson led;
Palla followed beside Jim.

"Well," said the latter, his voice not yet under complete control,
"don't you think you'd better keep away from such places in the
future?"

She was still very much excited: "It's abominable," she exclaimed,
"that this country should permit such lies to be spread among the
people and do nothing to counteract this campaign of falsehood! What
is going to happen, Jim, unless educated people combine to educate the
ignorant?"

"How?" he asked contemptuously.

"By example, first of all. By the purity and general decency of their
own lives. I tell you, Jim, that the unscrupulous greed of the
educated is as dangerous and vile as the murderous envy of the
Bolsheviki. We've got to reform ourselves before we can educate
others. And unless we begin by conforming to the Law of Love and
Service, some day the Law of Hate and Violence will cut our throats
for us."

"Palla," he said, "I never dreamed that you'd do such a thing as you
did to-night."

"I was afraid," she said with a nervous tightening of her arm under
his, "but I was still more afraid of being a coward."

"You didn't have to answer that crazy anarchist!"

"Somebody had to. He lied to those poor creatures. I--I couldn't stand
it!--" Her voice broke a little. "And if there is truly a god in me,
as I believe, then I should show Christ's courage ... lacking His
wisdom," she added so low that he scarcely heard her.

Ilse, walking ahead with Brisson, looked back over her shoulder at
Palla laughing.

"Didn't I tell you that there are some creatures you can't educate?
What do you think of your object lesson, darling?"

CHAPTER XII

On a foggy afternoon, toward midwinter, John Estridge strolled into
the