"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."

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