“Seeing that a Pole is his Congressman neighbor—” Vassar admitted good-humoredly. “It must get on the nerves of the old boys who can’t see our point of view. The man or woman born in free America inherits it all as a matter of course. He rarely thinks of his priceless birthright. To my old father every day of life is a Fourth of July! To me it is the same. A frail half-starved little orphan clinging to his hand thirty-one years ago, I stood on the deck of a steamer and saw this wonderful Promised Land. You are American by the accident of birth. You had no choice. We are American because we willed to come. We love this land because it’s worth loving. We know why we love it. We lifted up our eyes from a far country—amid tears and ashes and ruins—and saw the light of liberty shining here across the seas. We came and you received us with open arms. You set no hired spies to watch us. You made our homes and our firesides holy ground. We kiss the soil beneath our feet. It is our country—our flag, our nation, our people as it can’t be yours who do not realize its full meaning—can’t you see?”
“Yes,” she answered softly. “And I never thought of it in that way before.”
She glanced at the tall, straight, intense figure with new interest. They walked in silence for a block and he touched her arm with a movement of instinctive chivalrous protection as they crossed Second Avenue.
She broke into a laugh in spite of an effort at self-control when they had reached the sidewalk.
He blushed and looked puzzled.
“Why do you laugh?” he asked in hurt surprise.
“Oh, nothing—”
“You couldn’t have laughed at the little confession I just made to you—”
She laid her hand on his arm in gentle quick protest.
“You know I could not. It was too sincere. It was from the depths of your inmost heart. And I see you and all your people who have come to our shores in the past generation through new eyes after this revelation you have given me—no, I was laughing at something miles removed—”