But Florence's mere silly
jibes at the Irish and at the Catholics could be apologized out of
existence. And that I appeared to fix up in two minutes or so.
She looked at me for a long time rather fixedly and queerly while I
was doing it. And at last I worked myself up to saying:
"Do accept the situation. I confess that I do not like your religion.
But I like you so intensely. I don't mind saying that I have never
had anyone to be really fond of, and I do not believe that anyone
has ever been fond of me, as I believe you really to be."
"Oh, I'm fond enough of you," she said. "Fond enough to say that I
wish every man was like you. But there are others to be
considered." She was thinking, as a matter of fact, of poor Maisie.
She picked a little piece of pellitory out of the breast-high wall in
front of us. She chafed it for a long minute between her finger and
thumb, then she threw it over the coping.
"Oh, I accept the situation," she said at last, "if you can."
VI I REMEMBER laughing at the phrase, "accept the situation",
which she seemed to repeat with a gravity too intense. I said to her
something like:
"It's hardly as much as that. I mean, that I must claim the liberty of
a free American citizen to think what I please about your
co-religionists.
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