After dinner the conversation turned upon politics and Mr. Allen described his interview with Mr. Broad, regretting that the movement in the district round Cowfold would receive no countenance from the minister of the very sect which ought to be its chief support.
“A sad falling off,” said Zachariah, “from the days, even in my time, when the Dissenters were the insurrectionary class. Mr. Bradshaw, last Sunday, after his sermon, shut his Bible, and told the people that he did not now interfere much in political matters; but he felt he should not be doing his duty if he did not tell those whom he taught which way they ought to vote, and that what he had preached to them for so many years would be poor stuff if it did not compel them into a protest against taxing the poor for the sake of the rich.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Allen; “but then Broad never has taught what Bradshaw teaches; he never seems to me to see anything clearly; at least he never makes me see anything clearly; the whole world is in a fog to him.”
“From what I have heard of Mr. Broad,” said Pauline, “I should think the explanation of him is very simple; he is a hypocrite—an ordinary hypocrite. What is the use of going out of the way to seek for explanations of such commonplace persons?”
“Pauline, Pauline,” cried Zachariah, “you surely forget, my child, in whose company you are!”
“Oh, as for that,” said George, “Miss Coleman needn’t mind me. I haven’t married Mr. Broad, and my father is quite right. For that matter, I believe Miss Coleman is right too.”
“Well,” said Mr. Allen, “it is rather strong to say a man is an ordinary hypocrite, and it is not easy to prove it.”
“Not easy to prove it,” said Pauline, shifting a little her chair and looking straight at Mr. Allen, with great earnestness; “hypocrisy is the one thing easiest to prove. I can tell whether a man is a hypocrite before I know anything else about him. I may not for a long time be able to say what else he may be, but before he speaks, almost, I can detect whether he is sincere.”
“You women,” said Zachariah, with a smile, “or you girls rather, are so positive. Just as though the world were divided like the goats and the sheep in the gospel. That is a passage that I never could quite understand. I never, hardly, see a pure breed either of goat or sheep. I never see anybody who deserves to go straight to heaven or who deserves to go straight to hell. When the judgment day comes it will be a difficult task. Why, Pauline, my dear, I am a humbug myself.”
“Ah well, I have heard all that before; but, nevertheless, what I say is true. Some men, using speech as God meant men to use it, are liars, and some are not. Of course not entirely so, nor at all times. We cannot speak mere truth; we are not made to speak it. For all that you are not a liar.”