seems so difficult."

"One feels it," explained Joan.

"Yes, but didn't they all feel it," Madge suggested. She still seemed to
be arguing with herself rather than with Joan. "Nietzsche. I have been
reading him. They are forming a Nietzsche Society to give lectures about
him--propagate him over here. Eleanor's in it up to the neck. It seems
to me awful. Every fibre in my being revolts against him. Yet they're
all cocksure that he is the coming prophet. He must have convinced
himself that he is serving God. If I were a fighter I should feel I was
serving God trying to down Him. How do I know which of us is right?
Torquemada--Calvin," she went on, without giving Joan the chance of a
reply. "It's easy enough to see they were wrong now. But at the time
millions of people believed in them--felt it was God's voice speaking
through them. Joan of Arc! Fancy dying to put a thing like that upon a
throne. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. You can say she drove
out the English--saved France. But for what? The Bartholomew massacres.
The ruin of the Palatinate by Louis XIV. The horrors of the French
Revolution, ending with Napoleon and all the misery and degeneracy that
he bequeathed to Europe. History might have worked itself out so much
better if the poor child had left it alone and minded her sheep."

"Wouldn't that train of argument lead to nobody ever doing anything?"
suggested Joan.

"I suppose it would mean stagnation," admitted Madge. "And yet I don't
know. Are there not forces moving towards right that are crying to us to
help them, not by violence, which only interrupts--delays them, but by
quietly preparing the way for them? You know what I mean. Erasmus
always said that Luther had hindered the Reformation by stirring up
passion and hate." She broke off suddenly. There were tears in her
eyes. "Oh, if God would only say what He wants of us," she almost cried;
"call to us in trumpet tones that would ring through the world,
compelling us to take sides. Why can't He speak?"

"He does," answered Joan. "I hear His voice. There are things I've got
to do. Wrongs that I must fight against. Rights that I must never dare
to rest till they are won." Her lips were parted. Her breasts heaving.
"He does call to us. He has girded His sword upon me."

Madge looked at her in silence for quite a while. "How confident you
are," she said. "How I envy you."

They talked for a time about dome