Part 6 (1/2)
”What? Throwing me over the wall or being polite?”
He looked rather bewildered, I think, at the inanity of her conversation. Jerry wasn't much given to small talk.
”I'm sorry you don't think I'm polite. I--I'm not used to talking to women. They're too fussy about trifles. What does it matter--”
”I don't call throwing a female visitor over a wall a trifle,” she broke in. ”And it isn't quite hospitable. Now is it?”
Jerry rubbed his head and regarded her seriously.
”Now that you mention it, I don't suppose it is. But n.o.body asked you.
You just came. Didn't you see the trespa.s.s signs?”
”Oh, yes, they're all about,” she said carelessly, as she picked up her tin specimen-box and turned away. ”I didn't mean to stay. I followed a b.u.t.terfly. He came in the iron railings, where the stream goes through the wall. I crawled under where the iron is bent. If you're afraid of women you'd better have it fixed.”
”Afraid!” It was one word that Jerry detested. ”Afraid! That's funny.
Do you think I'm afraid of _you_?”
”Yes,” she replied, eyeing him critically. ”I rather think you are.”
”Well, I--I'm not. It would take more than a woman to make _me_ afraid.”
Something in the turn of the phrase and tone of voice made her turn and examine him with a new interest.
”You're a queer boy,” she said.
”How--queer?” he muttered.
”You look and act as though you'd never seen a girl before.”
If he had known women better he wouldn't have believed that she meant what she said. As it was, her wizardry astounded him.
”How can you tell that?”
She was now regarding him wide-eyed in amazement.
”It's true, then?” she gasped.
”Yes, it's true. You're the first girl that I remember having seen.
But what difference does that make? Why should I be afraid of you?
You couldn't hurt a flea. You can talk pretty well, but talk never killed anybody.”
She seemed stricken suddenly dumb and regarded him with an air which to anyone but Jerry would have shown her as discomfited as he.
”Do you mean that you've lived all your life a prisoner inside this wall and never seen a woman?” she asked incredulously.
”That depends upon what you mean by prisoner,” said Jerry. ”If having everything you want, doing everything you want is being a prisoner, I suppose that's what I am.”
”Extraordinary! And you've had no curiosity to go out--to see the world?”