n.

* * * * *

Whistling softly she left the room and walked down the corridor. She
stopped whistling abruptly and glanced around in embarrassment. She had
remembered the old adage: 'A whistling girl and a crowing hen are sure
to come to some bad end'.

There seemed to be something _indecent_ about whistling in public.

The fact that she had, colored her emotions with uneasiness.

She realized that there might be a million such superstitions--many of
them not recognized as superstitions at all--buried in her personality.
Her brain might be highly efficient, but was it efficient enough to
overcome all the emotional biases implanted by twenty-four years of
environment? Was even her knowledge of the real nature of the world--was
mankind's--sufficient to overcome such biases?

Perhaps, she thought, I'm not as smart as I thought I was. There may be
deep and illogical currents in me. Perhaps I'm not, not _mature_ enough
for such power as I've been given.

Annoyed, she took out a cigarette, and in defiance of cultural
tradition, lit it there in the corridor while she waited for the
elevator.

The operator did not approve of women smoking in public. He said so.

She ate in the coffee shop.

After the meal, she took a cab to the offices of the morning paper.

In the entranceway to the building, sure that no one was watching, she
became invisible.

Half an hour later, possessed of the information she had come after
(harvested from the back files of the paper) she was once again in the
street.

In her room, she went to the telephone. She placed a long distance call
to a Boston hospital.

The news had not been widely reported. She found most of the names in
brief paragraphs stating that Mr. and Mrs. such and such had settled
their suit against the so and so hospital out of court. In the three
cases where the confinements had been in private homes, there had been
kidnapping stories in the paper. In one of the cases, a man had later
been convicted and executed--although the body of the child had never
been recovered from the pond into which the prosecution contended it had
been thrown.

She talked to the switch board operator at the Boston hospital. She was
given the superintendent. He--impressed by the fact that she was
calling from the Pacific coast--sent his secretary to rummage the files
for the hospital's copy of the birth certificate.

Julia waited.

"Yes, I have it."

"It