“It feels like you didn’t bother to try,” he said. Jane protested. She had worked hard on that paper. “Maybe you’re not up to the task,” he said, the only thing worse she could imagine than his guessing that she hadn’t tried. Jane looked around the room, with its sloped ceilings and books piled everywhere, and wondered if he was right. Her intellect was the only part of herself that she had never doubted, never despised. But right then she questioned whether she was as smart as she had always believed.