be their sister, have them killed in a particularly painful manner, and then eat them. It seems illogical, in view of the Law of Love."
"You are pleased to be facetious," said Alison coldly, "but the subject is hardly an amusing one. I do not choose to make myself ridiculous, and exceedingly inconvenient to my friends, by indulging in the fad of vegetarianism for purely sentimental reasons."
Certainly not—only for logical ones. You can't deny that, by causing pain or death to any living creature, you are breaking your own law."
"I do deny it," said Alison, with a backward gesture of her head, indicative of the courageous defence of her opinions. "Pray, why should I annoy and distress my friends by living on beans and macaroni, when the slaughter that admittedly does go on, so that man may exist, would go on exactly the same?"
"You would at least be consistent," said James. "It is a question of values. The inconveniences of being considered a faddist, against the sin—if you think it one—of adding to the sum of human pain by the addition of one rabbit or chicken." «
"But according to that, James, one should give up a good many things—hunting and fishing—for instance," said Zella, more for the sake of making herself heard than from any very passionate conviction.
"Well, people have been known to do so."
"For humanitarian reasons?"
"Certainly. Think of the saints in ancient days— well, some of them," said James hurriedly, forestalling the outburst which he saw trembling on Alison's lips as to the iniquity of the ascetic self-torturers of the Middle Ages. "And, as I said, members of the Theosophical Society are generally vegetarians, I believe."
"Have you ever known any members of this Society?" demanded Alison, with an accent of ineffable contempt.
"Only one," said James serenely—" a very good fellow."
"One can imagine the type—happy in all the glories of belonging to a Society with a capital S," laughed Alison, "and enjoying the importance of demanding cheese soufflé when other people are eating roast beef."
"I do not fancy he sees much cheese soufflé or roast beef, either, for the matter of that," said James. "Cheese soufflé is not a matter of course to every vegetarian, whatever a cup of tea and a bun may be."
"You mean," said Zella, looking at her cousin disapprovingly, "that your Theosophist friend probably to have very many motives in common."
"Exactly," James replied with provoking serenity.
"Then, why attempt to draw a parallel?" demanded Alison. "I have no doubt that to minds of a certain class, very worthy, very respectable, there is, as I have said, an immense satisfaction in being affiché as belonging to a Theosophical or any other sect. That hardly implies that the true meaning of the word Theosophy has been revealed to them. Theosophy in its deepest sense is the hall-mark of minds that are above the average, not below it."
Zella thought that the flow of rhetoric must have silenced even James, but he demanded with unabated amusement: "Then, you would say that my vegetarian friend's Theosophy could have little or nothing in common with yours."
"I do not know what his views are," repeated Alison impatiently; " but if he is a faddist of the body-building, nut-cutlet school, I should imagine there was no slightest bond of union between us—especially as you say or imply that he belongs to a class of society which finds a pleasure in peculiarity, such as good breeding would rather resent than otherwise."
"Yes," said James meditatively—" certainly. He is, in point of fact, a bank clerk."
Alison made an acquiescent gesture.
"Exactly," she said with cold triumph.
"Then," repeated James thoughtfully, "there could be little or no sympathy between you as fellow-Theosophists."
"The word probably bears quite a different meaning to each of us," returned Alison. "Our minds must, by the influence of heredity and environment alone, be as the poles asunder."
Zella wished, not for the first time, that she could manipulate polysyllables with the fluent assurance of Miss St. Craye.
"No bond of union between two persons each of whom profess equally that Theosophy is his and her creed," murmured James to himself.
Alison laughed a little.
"Admit that you are arguing after a defeat," she said with the gracious demeanour of victory. "You can scarcely expect me to admit a fellowship of mind with your vegetarian bank clerk."
"No. There can be no common meeting-ground for you both," James murmured thoughtfully.
"I should say most emphatically none," retorted Alison, as though humouring the insistence of a pertinacious child.
"Then," in his turn demanded James, " what becomes of your universal Brotherhood, pray? If rabbits and chickens are your brothers and sisters, surely a bank clerk is, too?"
James's tone was half humorous, but there was an undercurrent in it that made Lady St. Craye pause in her exchange of platitudes with Sir George Kindersley, and look at the flushed, contemptuous face of her daughter.
"Are-you talking about bank clerks?" she asked James, smiling. "I don't think I should like Alison to be a sister to bank clerks, you know."
It was impossible not to laugh at the plaintive triviality cutting across the earnest "Let me assure you" with which Alison had begun to reply.
"We shall be late for the first act," said Lady St. Craye placidly, rising from the table.
Zella went to bed that night with an intangible sense of failure. She had evidently failed to impress James, of that she was entirely convinced; and she was unhappily conscious, as in the old days at school, of her own weak fickleness. For even as Alison could succeed in displeasing her with James for his levity and his argumentative bluntness, so James himself had disillusioned her as to the high sincerity and superior personality of Alison St. Craye.
XXIII
"IN the midst of life we are in death," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans.
"You could hardly call the Baronne de Kervoyou in the midst of life, mother. She was over seventy, and ill with bronchitis."
"James dear, that sounds unfeeling. It does not matter what you say to me, since I understand my boy perfectly; but I should not like Louis or poor little Zella to hear you speak in that way. Besides, what I meant was that it is a great shock to hear so suddenly of a death in the family, when we are just fresh from all the excitement and pleasure of the wedding."
"In the family?"
"James, you are in what I call a cavilling mood to-day, dear. Why repeat everything I say in that absurd tone of incredulity? The Baronne may not have been an actual blood-relation of our own, but for my poor Esmée's sake I have always looked upon her as one of ourselves. And though we did not see much of her, owing to her living abroad, she and I were great friends."
James
