Miss Blair took formal refuge in her notes. "Birthplace?" she continued. "Shawnee Springs." "Age?" "Seventeen, two months ago--September tenth." The official jotted "American" under the heading of nationality, and said,-- "Where were your parents born?" "Father hailed from the South--from Virginia." Her face lighted curiously. "His people once owned slaves." "And your mother?" The girl's interest in her ancestry flagged. "Pure Shawnee Springs." She flung off the characterization with scorn. "Pure, unadulterated Shawnee Springs." But the superintendent was now on the alert for the unexpected. "I want plain answers," she admonished. "What has been your religious training?" "Mixed. Father was an Episcopalian, I think, but he wasn't much of a churchgoer; he preferred the woods. Mother's a Baptist." "And you?" "I don't know what I am. I guess God isn't interested in my case." The official retreated upon her final routine question. "Education?" "I was in my last year at high school when"--her cheek flamed--"when this happened." Miss Blair construed the flush as a hopeful sign. "You may sit down, Jean," she said, indicating the narrow iron bed. "Let me see your knitting." The girl handed over the task work which had made isolation doubly odious. The superintendent pursed her thin lips. "Have you never set up a stocking before?" she asked. "No." "Can you sew?" "No." "Or cook?" "No." "'No, Miss Blair,' would be more courteous. Have you been taught any form of housework whatsoever?" Jean looked her fathomless contempt. "We kept help for such drudgery," she explained briefly. "You must learn, then. They are things which every woman should know." "I don't care to learn the things every woman should know. I hate women's work. I hate women, too, and their namby-pamby ways. I'd give ten years of my life to be a man." Her listener contrasted Jean Fanshaw's person with her ideas. Even the flesh-mortifying, blue-and-white-check uniform of the refuge became the girl. Immature in outline, she was opulent in promise. Her features held no hint of masculinity; the mouth, chin, eyes--above all, the defiant eyes--were hopelessly feminine. Miss Blair's own pale glance returned again and again upon those eyes. They made her think of pools which forest leaves have dyed. The brows were brown, too, and delicately lined, but the thick rope of hair, which fell quite to the girl's hips, was fair. The other woman touched the splendid braid covetously. "You can't escape your sex," she said. "Don't try." "But I wasn't meant for a girl. They didn't want one when I was born. They'd had one girl, my sister Amelia, and they counted on a boy. They felt sure of it. Why, they'd even picked out his name. It was to be John, after my father. Then I came." "Nature knew best." Jean gave a mirthless laugh. "Nature made a botch," she retorted. "What business has a boy with the body of a girl?" The superintendent lost patience. "You must rid yourself of this nonsense," she declared firmly, and said again, "You can't escape your sex." "I will if I can." "But why?" "Because this is a man's world. Because I mean to do the things men do." "For some little time to come you'll occupy yourself with the things women do." Jean's long fingers clenched at the reminder. The hot color flooded back. "Oh, the shame of it!" she cried passionately. "The wicked injustice of it!" "You did wrong. This is your punishment." "My punishment!" flashed the girl. "My punishment! Could they punish me in no other way than this? Am I a Stella Wilkes, a common creature of the streets, who--" The...