"You don't understand, Mason," she answered, "you can't. You're not a Catholic. Catholicism is different from all other creeds. It is not just something you think and argue about, but it has you--you belong to it; it is as much a part of you as your blood and bones." There was a finality in her voice, a resignation of self, which bespoke the vast accumulated will of the Church operating upon and through her. Stevens knew suddenly that she was not an individualized woman in the same sense that he was an individualized man, with the private possibility of doing what he pleased so long as he did not interfere with the private possibilities of others; he realized that in certain important intimate matters such as the one which had arisen between them she was without power of decision, the decision having been made for her many centuries ago; and he felt the awe which comes to every man when first he is confronted by the Roman Catholic Church. "You mean there is no way out of it--but death?--your husband's death?" His self-confidence seemed to have departed as if he, too, had met fate in the road. "Yes," she answered gently, "that is the only way." And then she smiled with some little effort, but still she smiled, for she detested gloom on her day off. "Oh, Mason," said she, "why wasn't grandpa a Swede?" He looked at her with amazement and not without a trace of disapprobation, for her eyes were dancing. Was she actually making jokes about his misery--to say nothing of hers--if indeed she felt any? He was learning more about women every minute. Now she was practically giggling. He frowned deeper and sighed. Perhaps, perhaps everything was for the best, after all. He might as well tell her so, too. No reason to make himself wretched for something she seemed to think hilariously humorous. "Well, Georgia, I must say," he began portentously--'twas the voice of the husband--almost. She could hear him complain. Whereat she simply threw back her head and laughed again. He noticed, as he had often noticed, that her strong little teeth were white and regular, that her positive little nose was straight and slender, and the laughter creases about her eyes reminded him of the time she thought it such fun to be caught in Ravinia Park in the rain without an umbrella. So presently he tempered his frown, then put it away altogether, and his eyes twinkled and he turned the corners of his mouth up instead of down. "Oh, dear me," he mocked, half in fun and half not, "as the fellow says, 'we can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em.'" But she, who had been reading him like a book in plain print, asked, "Come, tell aunty your idea of a jolly Sunday in the park with your best girl. To sit her on a bench and make her listen while you mourn for the universe?" "But what are we going to do about it?" he asked solemnly, "that's what I want to know." "Do?" she responded with a certain gay definiteness, "do nothing."