XVI
THE SAFE-BLOWER
About the time that Evan Blount was finishing the fourth week of the
campaign of education, the senator's wife began to detect signs of
country weariness in the eyes of Miss Patricia Anners.
"When you are tired of the out-door bignesses, you have only to say the
word," she told the professor's daughter one morning after they had
driven to Lost River Canyon and back in the small car. "As you have
doubtless discovered, the senator and I live either here or at the
capital indifferently during the season, and we shall be only too glad
to entertain you in town whenever you feel like going."
To similar proposals made earlier Miss Anners had always returned prompt
refusals. But for a week or more some impulse which she had not taken
the trouble to analyze seemed to be drawing her toward the city. The
mesa roads were just as inviting, and the free pleasures of motoring, in
a country where speed restrictions were conspicuous only by their
absence, were just as keen. But now Patricia confessed to a restless
longing for the sight of city streets and the brabble of city noises.
"Only you mustn't consider us, or me, so much as you do, Mrs. Blount,"
she protested. "I have a dreadful suspicion that we have already
interfered shamefully with your autumn plans. You are simply too kind
and too hospitable to admit it.
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