Grab you and dry you up and put you
in a case like the rest of us."
"Perhaps that's why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself."
"Is that your fondest ambition?"
However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no
sign of hurt in his reply.
"Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn't like to
be grabbed and dried up."
"Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth, and eventually
dried up and set in our proper places."
"Not you, certainly."
"Because you haven't seen me in my shell. That's where I mostly live.
I've broken out for a time."
"Don't you like it outside, Butterfly?" he queried with a hint of
playful caress in his voice.
"I like that name for myself," she returned quickly. "Though a butterfly
couldn't return to its chrysalis, no matter how much it wanted to, could
it? But you may call me that, since we're to be friends."
"Then you do like it outside your shell."
"It's exhilarating. But I suppose I should find it too rough for my
highly sensitized skin in the long run.... Are you going to write to me
if I write to you?"
"What about? That Number Six came in making bad steam, and that a
west-bound freight, running extra, was held up on the siding at Marchand
for half a day?"
"Is that all you have to write about?"
Banneker bethought himself of the very private dossier in his office.
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