"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."