“But isn’t true Christianity incendiary, in your meaning of the word?”

It was Alison who spoke, in a quiet and musical voice that was in striking contrast to the tone of Mr. Parr, which the rector had thought unusually emphatic.  It was the first time she had shown an inclination to contribute to the talk.  But since Hodder had sat down at the table her presence had disturbed him, and he had never been wholly free from an uncomfortable sense that he was being measured and weighed.

Once or twice he had stolen a glance at her as she sat, perfectly at ease, and asked himself whether she had beauty, and it dawned upon him little by little that the very proportion she possessed made for physical unobtrusiveness.  She was really very tall for a woman.  At first he would have said her nose was straight, when he perceived that it had a delicate hidden curve; her eyes were curiously set, her dark hair parted in the middle, brought down low on each side of the forehead and tied in a Grecian knot.  Thus, in truth, he observed, were seemingly all the elements of the classic, even to the firm yet slender column of the neck.  How had it eluded him?

Her remark, if it astonished Hodder, had a dynamic effect on Eldon Parr.  And suddenly the rector comprehended that the banker had not so much been talking to him as through him; had been, as it were, courting opposition.

“What do you mean by Christianity being incendiary?” he demanded.

“Incendiary, from your point of view—­I made, the qualification,” Alison replied, apparently unmoved by his obvious irritation.  “I don’t pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man.  That’s pure nitroglycerin, though it’s been mixed with so much sawdust.  Incendiary is a mild epithet.  I never read the sermons you refer to; I dare say they’re crude, but they’re probably attempts to release an explosive which would blow your comfortable social system and its authority into atoms.”

Hodder, who had listened in amazement, glanced at the banker.  He had never before heard him opposed, or seen him really angry.

“I’ve heard that doctrine,” cried Mr. Parr.  “Those who are dissatisfied with things as they are because they have been too stupid or too weak or self-indulgent to rise, find it easy to twist the principles of Christianity into revolutionary propaganda.  It’s a case of the devil quoting Scripture.  The brotherhood of man!  There has never been an age when philanthropy and organized charity were on such a scale as to-day.”

A certain gallant, indomitable ring crept into Alison’s voice; she did not seem in the least dismayed or overborne.