"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or green tie, done loose in the French fashion, and nobody will wonder at your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are inspectors or charity agents--the two things you must avoid." "Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe--there is a portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me--and it took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, therefore, it will be upon your advice." "As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said Sister Jenifer. "What a statement!" exclaimed Max. "It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only they will face facts." "What are your own politics?" "I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they do." "Well, you are making me look," said Max. "Yet I have not been able to make my father." "Has he never been here?" "He has opened churches." "Well, you believe in prayer." "That depends on how you define it." "I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you have taken vows--for a period, at all events." "That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since they can always renew." "Those who have taken vows--do they give themselves entirely up to prayer?" "No, but they entirely depend upon it." "Depend--how?" "They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh would revolt." "Is it such horrible work?" "They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to do; I understand nothing about it."