"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?"
"No. I'm going soon, but I don't care about it. There isn't anything out there half as good as what I've got."
"How do you know if you haven't been there?"
"Oh, I know. I've heard. I read a great deal."
Jerry told me (in our second conversation) that he wondered why he still stood there talking to her. He supposed it was because he thought he had been impolite enough. But she made no move to go.
"What have you heard?" she asked again. "I suppose you thought that a girl had horns and a tail."
Unconsciously his gaze wandered down over her slim figure. Then he burst into a sudden fit of laughter.
"Not half as funny as I would be if I had them."
"You might have a tail twisted under your dress for all I know. What do girls wear skirts for?"
"To keep them warm. Why do you wear trousers?"
He was forced to admit the logic of that. Skirts might be silly, but she wasn't. She interested him, this strange creature that talked back, not in the least like Miss Redwood. The jade! Jerry did not know their tricks as I did. She was reading him, I haven't a doubt, like an open book. It was a pity. I hadn't yet prepared Jerry for this encounter. The girl had moved two or three paces away when she paused again.
"That's a nice name. I think it's like you."
"Oh, I don't know--boyish and rather jolly, in spite of being Jeremiah. It _is_ Jeremiah, isn't it?"
"I was sure of it. It was Jeremiah who wanted to throw me over the wall, but it was Jerry who didn't. Which are you really? If you're Jerry I'm not afraid of you in the least. But if you're Jeremiah, I must go at once."
"Oh, that's all right. You needn't hurry. I wouldn't hurt you. You seem to be a very sprightly sort of a creature. You laugh as though you really meant it. What's your name? I've told you mine."
"But not the last. There are five others--all girls."
She must have glanced around at him quickly, with that bird-like pertness I discovered later. He was declaring war, himself defenseless, and was not even aware of it.