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 who indulge in them, and of insensate abuse by those who do not. The force of example, I have already said, is that to which I look as the remedy for the evil character of the social evil. When a certain number of women in high social circles shall have made it clear that they have discarded the old false teaching, and that they intend to make the religious element in human nature not the enemy, but the servant, of their affections and desires, you may depend upon it that other classes will see their opening, and will combine to insist upon religion being pressed into their service also. In short, we intend to show that Hedonism must be the religion of the future. That is my remedy, Miss Newman, and when it has worked, society will look back upon the state of things in which we now live complacently as belonging to an era of barbarism and abomination, even as we of to-day look back upon cannibalism or the torture. But the initiative lies with us, the more cultivated and influential classes; and that is why I consider that every lady who is brave enough to enter my church as a Mylittist, is a champion of her sex’s right in the most thorough and effective way, because her presence amounts to a formal claim that henceforward woman, and not man, shall lay down the law in the matter of woman’s morality.’

‘Provided, you mean, that her line of life is the matron’s and not the maiden’s,’ suggested Lesbia.

‘In either or any case,’ he answered.

‘Well, we shall judge for ourselves on Sunday, Mountjoy,’ said Mr Bristley. ‘Now we must be going, and thanks for the tickets.’