The prayer
meeting set me free, somehow. I should never have done it if it were
not for the prayer meeting.
MRS KNOX. [deeply horrified] Oh, dont say such a thing as that. I
know that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me
when I told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.
MARGARET. Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set
free for evil as well as good. As father says, you cant have anything
both ways at once. When I was at home and at school I was what you
call good; but I wasnt free. And when I got free I was what most
people would call not good. But I see no harm in what I did; though I
see plenty in what other people did to me.
MRS KNOX. I hope you dont think yourself a heroine of romance.
MARGARET. Oh no. [She sits down again at the table]. I'm a
heroine of reality, if you can call me a heroine at all. And reality
is pretty brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it. Yet
it's glorious all the same. It's so real and satisfactory.
MRS KNOX. I dont like this spirit in you, Margaret. I dont like your
talking to me in that tone.
MARGARET. It's no use, mother. I dont care for you and Papa any the
less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again. Ive
made a sort of descent into hell--
MRS KNOX. Margaret! Such a word!
MARGARET. You should have heard all the words that were flying round
that night. You should mix a little with people who dont know any
other words.
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