"Of course he did say something about my waiting here while he got rid of a violent ex-patient who carries around a—"
"That gold squirt gun story," she interrupted, "is his pet dodge for getting rid of patients."
"He doesn't seem to want to get rid of me."
"No," she agreed cheerfully, jerking her knife out of the floor, "he seems to want to keep you."
"I think he wants to send me to a mental hospital," Phil ventured, rather hoping to be disagreed with, but she merely nodded.
"I don't envy you," she added, inserting the knife in a sheath in her skirt. "Father favors old-fashioned treatments like convulsive therapy and simulated snake pits. Well, if the assistant torturers are on their way, I'd better be on mine." She took three quick steps, then looked back at him coldly, thinning her lips. "Care to come along?" she asked. "Not that I like you even faintly—I detest men; I'm seething with what my grandmother would have called masculine protest—but I always enjoy frustrating Father."
Phil had an acute sense of a lady-or-the-doctor dilemma, but he lost no time saying, "Yes."
She nodded once and headed for the back of the room. "Will you try for the elevator?" he ventured to ask.
"Of course not!" she snapped at him.
"But he said the only other way—" Phil began.