“But if someone should go with me?”
She stood up and gathered her letters. “Let’s not argue, dear. I wouldn’t think of it. You’re too young to be that far away from your family; the Ashton boy got into a lot of trouble in Paris and I don’t want to see it happen to you. You won’t understand: I can’t expect you to understand, but you must take my word for it. Hadn’t you better get the flowers and go to the sanatorium?”
Now as he left the car in the shade of a cottonwood he reflected that it was a good thing he hadn’t told her about Mexico. He had almost said something about it, but she had interrupted. At any rate—he rang the bell at the white stuccoed gate—one thing was certain: he would run away in spite of any objection that Teddy might raise at the last minute. He trusted Teddy to come along if it should get too hot for them in town, but he would need a little managing to crash through promptly. Teddy or no Teddy, however, he must get out of all this or before he knew it he would be on the train with all his text-books packed into the baggage-car. He thought of the new school. A horrible place most likely, with the walls as white as the gate here, whitewashed and lined with dreadful grinning scientific instructors, all understanding him. Understanding him! That was the limit.
He held out the flowers to the assistant and gave the name of his mother’s friend.
“She’s a little better,” the assistant said. “You may see her if you care to.”
“No thanks. I—I’m too busy.” He hurried out again and climbed into the car. The place always made him nervous, and he could not even remember which of his mother’s sick friends was Mrs. Meriwether. He could not face the idea of following a nurse down the corridor to find out. He was afraid of the place; all the quiet little white rooms with windows opening on the green patio. He had spent many hours here and there, sitting on little straight-backed chairs while his mother visited people. Which was Mrs. Meriwether? There was one woman who was thinner every time they came: she always wore pink or blue voile bed-jackets and her hands were skinny and very clean, with shining red fingernails. She kept talking about her fingernails and her lotions and the doctors who were in love with her. Some of the patients were in love with her too, she said. Mary was always very gentle about her afterwards, and never said much on the way home.
Perhaps that was Mrs. Meriwether, or perhaps she was the other one, the jolly one with red hair whose room always smelled sickeningly of ether.
He looked around and found that he had driven all the way down town, and he hadn’t intended to take the car down. He started around the plaza, meaning to go back. As he passed the Cathedral he heard an unfamiliar voice calling; it sounded like his name. There it was again—“Blake! Blake!”
He stopped suddenly and the Oklahoma Ford that had been plodding along behind him turned out so sharply that the fenders kissed and made a ringing noise.
“Damn fool!” called the driver from Oklahoma. Blake looked after him nervously and then turned to see who had called. There was a line of cars parked at the kerb, but he could see no one. Exasperated, he backed and looked closely.