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. And I suppose that Florence must have liberty to
think what she pleases and to say what politeness allows her to
say."

"She had better," Leonora answered, "not say one single word
against my people or my faith." It struck me at the time, that there
was an unusual, an almost threatening, hardness in her voice. It
was almost as if she were trying to convey to Florence, through
me, that she would seriously harm my wife if Florence went to
something that was an extreme. Yes, I remember thinking at the
time that it was almost as if Leonora were saying, through me to
Florence: