of my own, and no more definite purpose in life than to write checks for
charities. Your Christianity commands that women shall stay at home, and
declares that they are not entitled to seek their own salvation, to have
any place in affairs, or to meddle with the realm of the intellect.
Those forbidden gardens are reserved for the lordly sex. St. Paul, you
say, put us in our proper place some twenty centuries ago, and we are to
remain there for all time."

He felt sweeping through him the reverse current of hostility.

"And what I preach," he asked, "has tended to confirm you in such a mean
conception of Christianity?"

Her eye travelled over the six feet of him--the kindling, reflecting eye
of the artist; it rested for a moment on the protesting locks of his
hair, which apparently could not be cut short enough to conform; on the
hands, which were strong and sinewy; on the wide, tolerant mouth, with
its rugged furrows, on the breadth and height of the forehead. She lay
for a moment, inert, considering.

"What you preach--yes," she answered, bravely meeting his look. "What
you are--no. You and your religion are as far apart as the poles. Oh,
this old argument, the belief that has been handed down to the man, the
authority with which he is clothed, and not the man himself! How can one
be a factor in life unless one represents something which is the fruit of
actual, personal experience? Your authority is for the weak, the timid,
the credulous,--for those who do not care to trust themselves, who run
for shelter from the storms of life to a 'papier-mache' fortress, made to
look like rock. In order to preach that logically you should be a white
ascetic, with a well-oiled manner, a downcast look lest you stumble in