I didn’t say anything more.
A little before ten she went up to dress for the dance. I’d found out that she liked tennis and horseback riding, that she didn’t care for badminton, that she liked swimming, that if it weren’t for good old dad she’d pull out and leave the house flat on its foundations, that she thought her stepmother was poisoning her father’s disposition, and that someone should give her stepmother back to the Indians. I hadn’t said anything one way or another.
The next morning Ashbury started to lift weights, found his muscles were sore, said there was no use going at the thing too damn fast, put on his big lap robe, came over and sat down beside me on the canvas mat, and smoked a cigar. He wanted to know what I’d found out.
I told him nothing. He said, “Alta’s fallen for you. You’re good.”
We had breakfast, and about eleven o’clock Alta Ashbury showed up. Mrs. Ashbury always had breakfast in bed.
When we took our walk that afternoon, Alta told me more about her stepmother. Mrs. Ashbury had high blood pressure, and the doctor said she mustn’t be excited. The doctor was standing in with her, gave in to her, wheedled her and petted her. She thought her dad should kick Bernard Carter out of the house. She didn’t know what there was about me that made her talk so much, unless it was because I was so understanding, and because she was so worried about her dad she could cry.
She warned me that if Mrs. Ashbury ever wanted anything, no matter how unreasonable, I wasn’t to cross her at all, because, as surely as I did, the doctor would make an examination, find her blood pressure had gone up, blame the whole thing on me, and I’d go out on my ear. I gathered she didn’t want me to go out on my ear.
I felt like a heel.
At two o’clock Bertha Cool picked me up, and the Jap kneaded me as though I’d been a batch of bread dough. When I got away from those stubby fingers I felt like a shirt that had been put through a washing machine, run through a wringer, and dried on a mangle.
I staggered in to supper. It was the same as the previous night, only Alta looked as though she’d been crying. She hardly spoke to me. After dinner I hung around, giving her a chance to talk with me in case there was anything she wanted to confide.