did not cross her mind.

But what did cross her mind was that these associations meant only evil
for Jack, and that to be absorbed in the sort of life that seemed to
please him was for her to drift away from all her ideals.

A confused notion of all this was in her thoughts when she talked with
Father Damon, while the gentlemen were in the smoking-room. She asked
him about his mission.

"The interest continues," he replied; "but your East Side, Mrs. Delancy,
is a puzzling place."

"How so?"

"Perhaps you'll laugh if I say there is too much intelligence."

Edith did laugh, and then said: "Then you'd better move your mission
over to this side. Here is a field of good, unadulterated worldliness.
But what, exactly, do you mean?"

"Well, the attempt of science to solve the problem of sin and
wretchedness. What can you expect when the people are socialists and
their leaders agnostics?"

"But I thought you were something of a socialist yourself!"

"So I am," he said, frankly, "when I see the present injustice, the
iniquitous laws and combinations that leave these people so little
chance. They are ignorant, and expect the impossible; but they are right
in many things, and I go with them. But my motive is not theirs. I hope
not. There is no hope except in a spiritual life. Materialism down at
the bottom of society is no better than materialism at the top. Do you
know," he went on, with increased warmth, "that pessimism is rather the
rule over that side, and that many of those who labor most among the
poor have the least hope of ever making things substantially better?"

"But such unselfish people as Dr. Leigh do a great deal of good," Edith
suggested.

"Yes," he said reflecting--"yes, I have no doubt. I don't understand it.
She is not hopeful. She sees nothing beyond. I don't know what keeps her
up."

"Love of humanity, perhaps."

"I wish the phrase had never been invented. Religion of humanity! The
work is to save the souls of those people."

"But," said Edith, with a flush of earnestness "but, Father Damon, isn't
human love the greatest power to save?"

The priest looked at the girl. His face softened, and he said, more
gently, "I don't know. Of the soul, yes. But human love is so apt to
stand in the way of the higher life."

In her soul Edith resented this as an ascetic and priestly view; but she
knew his devotion to that humanity which he in vain tried to eliminate
from his austere life, and she turned t