it so energetically that a speck of foam flew into his face.

"Go slow," she advised, nonchalantly reaching up with a dish-towel and
wiping the fleck away. Whereupon he worked the machine more furiously
than ever.

Soon he was wondering how on earth he had come to assume, all along,
that she was not a woman. He now saw that what he had previously
considered boyishness in her was, in fact, simply the vigor and
freshness of an earnest, healthy, energetic girl. It dawned upon him
that her keen, gray eyes were not sharp, but alert; her mouth, not hard,
but resolute; her whole expression, instead of mannish, just as womanly
as that of any girl who has been thrown upon her own resources, and made
good. He soon found that his eyesight did not suffer in any way because
he looked at her.

"Now," she remarked, in her businesslike way, as she placed the brimming
pan into the oven, "I suppose that I'll hear various hints to the effect
that a woman has no business trying to do men's stunts. And I warn you
right now that I'm prepared to put up a warm argument!"

"Of course," said the geologist, with such gravity that the girl knew he
didn't mean it; "of course a woman's place is in the home. Surrounded by
seventeen or eighteen children, and cooking for that many more hired men
besides, she is simply ideal. We realize that."

"Then, admitting that much, why shouldn't a woman be as independent as
she likes? Think what women did during the war; remember what a lot of
women are doctors and lawyers! Is there any good reason why I couldn't
design a library as well as a man could?"