"No," she said, quickly, "of course not!"

I was growing angry. I slipped from the booth.

"No," she said, "please do not go!" She reached forth and took my hand. Then, swiftly, she released it. "Forgive me," she said, "I did not mean to be feminine."

"Very well," I said, irritably.

"Please, don't leave," she said. "I do wish, desperately, to talk to you, Jason."

I sat down. We scarcely knew one another, and yet she had used my first name. I suppose I was weak. I felt mollified. Too, I was curious. Too, she was beautiful.

"Thank you, Jason," she said.

I was startled. She had thanked me. I had not expected that. I felt then that perhaps, truly, she did wish to speak with me, though for what reason I could not conjecture. Surely our politics were insufficiently congruent, as she must now understand, to motivate any expectation on her part that I would supply much positive reinforcement for her own views.

"Why do you wish to speak to me?" I asked. "Before you scarcely passed the time of day with me."

"There are reasons," she said.

"Before you would not speak with me," I said.

"You frightened me, Jason," she said.

"How?" I said.

"There was something about you," she said. "I do not know really what it was. There is a kind of power or masculinity about you." She looked up, quickly. "I find it offensive, you understand."

"All right," I said.

"But it made me feel feminine, weak. I do not wish to be feminine. I do not wish to be weak."

"I'm sorry if I said or did anything to alarm you," I said.

"It was nothing you said or did," she said. "It was rather something which I sensed you were."

"What?" I asked.

"Different from the others," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"A man," she said.

"That is silly," I said. "You must know hundreds of men."