“Ermine, do you mean to say that you see me a wicked creature like a Jew?”
“By nature, I am as blind as you, Flemild.”
“‘By nature’! What do you mean? Do you see me so?”
“Flemild, dear friend, what if God sees it?”
Ermine had spoken very softly and tenderly, but Flemild was not in a mood to appreciate the tenderness.
“Well!” she said in a hard tone. “If we are so dreadfully wicked, I wonder you like to associate with us.”
“But if I am equally wicked?” suggested Ermine with a smile.
“I wonder how you can hold such an opinion of yourself. I should not like to think myself so bad. I could not bear it.”
Flemild entertained the curious opinion—it is astonishing how many people unwittingly hold it—that a fact becomes annihilated by a man shutting his eyes to it. Ermine regarded her with a look of slight amusement.
“What difference would it make if I did not think so?” she asked.