girls cleared away the plates and dishes,
Canon Beecher invited Hyacinth to smoke.

'I never learnt the habit myself,' he said. 'It wasn't so much the
fashion in my young days as it is now, but I have no objection whatever
to the smell.'

Hyacinth lit a cigarette apologetically. It seemed to him almost a
wicked thing to do, but his host evidently wished him to be comfortable.
Their talk after the girls had left the room turned on politics.
Hyacinth's confession of his friendship with Augusta Goold had impressed
the Canon, and he delivered himself of a very kindly little lecture on
the duty of loyalty and the sinfulness of contention with the powers
that be. His way of putting the matter neither irritated Hyacinth, like
the flamboyant Imperialism of the Trinity students, nor drove him into
self-assertion, like Dr. Henry's contemptuous reasonableness. Still, he
felt bound to make some sort of defence of the opinions which were still
his own.

'Surely,' he said, 'there must be some limit to the duty of loyalty. If
a Government has no constitutional right to rule, is a man bound to be
loyal toit?'

'I think,' said the Canon, 'that the question is decided for us. Is it
not, Mr. Conneally? "Render unto Caesar"--you remember the verse. Even if
the Government were as unconstitutional as you appear to think, it would
not be more so than the Roman Government of Judaea when these words were
spoken.'

Hyacinth pondered this answer. It opened up to him an entirely new way
of looking at the subject, and he could see that it might be necessary
for a Christian to acquiesce without an attempt at resistance in any
Government which happened to exist.

He remembered other verses in the New Testament which could be quoted
even more conclusively in favour of this passive obedience. Yet he felt
that there must be a fallacy lurking somewhere. It was, on the face of
it, an obvious absurdity to think that a man, because he happened to
be a Christian, was therefore bound to submit to any form of tyranny or
oppression.

'Suppose,' he said--'I only say suppose--that a Government did immoral
things, that it robbed or allowed evil-disposed people to rob, would it
still be right to be loyal?'

'I think so,' said the Canon quietly.

Hyacinth looked at him in astonishment.

'Do you mean to say that you yourself would be loyal under such
circumstances?'

'I prefer not to discuss the question in that personal way, but the
Church to which