and whispered that she was not so sure about that. Then she got up, and, interrupting Jane in the middle of a sentence, said:
“Before you say any more, I want to know—am I to stay in the room? Because,” she added, “I have to confess that I am an impure woman.”
Everyone looked at her in astonishment.
“You are going to have a baby?” asked Jane.
She nodded her head.
It was extraordinary to see the different expressions on their faces. A sort of hum went through the room, in which I could catch the words “impure,” “baby,” “Castalia,” and so on. Jane, who was herself considerably moved, put it to us:
“Shall she go? Is she impure?”
Such a roar filled the room as might have been heard in the street outside.
“No! No! No! Let her stay! Impure? Fiddlesticks!” Yet I fancied that some of the youngest, girls of nineteen or twenty, held back
