I think you have small chance of converting Mr.Isaacs." "I would not attempt it," she said, laying down her work in her lap, and looking at me for a moment.

"But since you speak of creeds, to what confession do you yourself belong, if I may ask ?" "I am a Roman Catholic," I answered; adding presently--"Really, though, I do not see how my belief in the papal infallibility affects my opinion of Mohammedan marriages." "And what _do_ you think of them ?" she inquired, resuming her work and applying herself thereto with great attention.
"I think that, though justified in principle by the ordinary circumstances of Eastern life, there are cases in which the system acts very badly.

I think that young men are often led by sheer force of example into marrying several wives before they have sufficiently reflected on the importance of what they are doing.

I think that both marriage and divorce are too easily managed in consideration of their importance to a man's life, and I am convinced that no civilised man of Western education, if he were to adopt Islam, would take advantage of his change of faith to marry four wives.

It is a case of theory _versus_ practice, which I will not attempt to explain.