Leaning against the far wall was a six-foot square canvas, unfinished, of a dream-scape of rolling hills and pale feathery trees. She looked away, blinked, and looked back. It could have been a mistake. She sincerely hoped that it was; but it seemed to her that the masses of those hills, and the foliage, made a pretty clear picture of a… a—
“No,” she whispered. “I haven’t got that kind of a mind!”
There was a beautifully finished clay figurine standing proudly amongst a litter of plasticine, modeling tools, a guitar tuner and a flat glass of beer. It was a nude, in an exquisitely taut pose; a girl with her head flung back and a rapt expression on her face, and she was marsupial. On the bookcase was a four-foot model of a kayak made of whalebone and sealskin. Books overflowed the shelves and every table and chair in the place. There were none in the sink; it was too full of dishes, being sung to by a light cloud of fruit flies. It was more than she could stand. She slipped out of her coat, moved a fishbowl with some baby turtles in it, and an 8 mm projector, off the drainboard and went to work. After she had done all the dishes and reorganized the china closet, where ivy was growing, she rummaged a bit and found a spray gun, with which she attacked the fruit flies. It seemed to be a fairly efficient insecticide, although it smelled like banana oil and coagulated all over the sink. It wasn’t until the next day that she identified the distinctive odor of it. It was pastel fixatif.
She tiptoed over to the arch and looked in at Robin. He had hardly moved. She knew he was probably good for twelve hours sleep.
She bent over him and gently pushed some of his rough hair away from his eyes. She had never seen eyes, before, which had such smooth lids.
Robin smiled while he slept. She wished she knew why.
Carefully she removed his shoes. She had to step very close to the couch to do it, and something crunched under her foot. It was a radio tube. She shook her head and sighed, and got a piece of cardboard—there was no dustpan—and a broom and swept up the pieces. Among them she found a stuffed canary and a fifty-dollar bill, both quite covered with “Aug,” or dust whiskers. She wondered how many times Robin had sat on that couch, over that bill, eating beans out of the can and thinking about some glorious fantasy of his own.
She sighed again and put on her coat. As she reached the door she paused, debating whether, if she left a note anywhere in this monumental clutter, he would find it. She wanted him to call her as soon as he awoke, so she could have an idea as to his prognosis. She knew well that in his condition, with his particular treatment, that the imbalances should be all adjusted within twelve hours. But still—
Then why not wake him and remind him to call?
She suddenly realized that she was afraid to—that she was glad he was asleep and… and harmless. She felt that she could name what it was she was afraid of if she tried. So she didn’t try.
“Blast!” she, said half aloud. She hated to be hesitant, ever, about anything. She hated to be puzzled, or afraid.
She would leave word with the landlady to wake him early in the morning, she decided abruptly.
She felt like a crawling coward.
She turned to the door, and Robin said brightly, “Good-by, Peg darlin’. Thanks for everything. You’ve been swell. I’ll call you when I wake up.”
“You young demon!” she ejaculated. “How long have you been awake?”
“I haven’t been asleep,” he said, coming to the archway. He chuckled. “I’m sorry to say you are right about the canvas. I forgot about the disgusting thing’s being so conspicuous.”
“Oh, that’s all… why did you pretend to be asleep?”
“I felt something coming and didn’t want it to.”
“I… don’t know what you mean; but why didn’t you let it come?”
He looked at her somberly. Either it was something new, or she had never noticed the tinge of green in his eyes. “Because you wouldn’t have fought me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The lower half of his face grinned. “You like most of the things I do,” he said. “I like you to humor me in those things. Those things are”—he put his fingertips to his chest, then flung them outward—”like this—fun, from here out. I don’t want to be humored from here in.”
Over his shoulder she saw the big canvas. From this distance it was even more specific. She shuddered.
“Good-by, Peg.”
It was a studied dismissal. She nodded, and went out, closing the door softly behind her. Then she ran.
Dr. Margaretta Wenzell was highly intelligent, and she was just as sensitive. Twice she appeared at Mel Warfield’s laboratory at the hour appointed for Robin’s succeeding treatments. Once Robin did not speak to her. The second time she went, Robin did not show up. On inquiry, she learned from the information desk at the medical center that Robin had been there, had asked if she were in Dr. Warfield’s office, and having been told that she was, had turned around and walked out. After that she did not go again. She called up Warfield and asked him to forward Robin’s case history and each progress report. Mel complied without asking questions; and if Dr. Wenzell spent more time poring over them than their importance justified, it was the only sign she gave that it mattered to her.
It mattered—very much. Never had Peg, in consultation or out, turned a patient over to another doctor before. And yet, she was conscious of a certain relief. Somehow, she was deeply certain that Robin had not ceased to like her. Consciously, she refused to give any importance to his liking for her, but in spite of that she derived a kind of comfort from an arduously-reached conclusion that Robin had reasons of his own for avoiding her, and that they would come out in good time.
She was astonished at the progress reports. She could deduce the probable changes in Robin from the esoteric language of the reaction-listings. Here a sharp drop in the 17-kesteroids; there a note of an extraordinary effect of the whole metabolism, making it temporarily immune to the depressing effect of the adrenal cortices in colossal overdoses. An entry in the third week of the course caused Peg two sleepless nights of research; the pituitrin production was fluctuating wildly, with no apparent balancing reaction from any other gland—and no appreciable effect on the patient. A supplementary report arrived then, by special messenger, which eased her mind considerably. It showed a slight miscalculation in a biochemical analysis of Robin’s blood which almost accounted for the incredible activity of the pituitaries. It continued to worry her, although she knew that she could hardly pretend to criticize Mel Warfield’s vast experience in the practice of hormone therapy.
But somehow, somewhere deep inside, she did question something else in Mel. Impersonality had to go very closely with the unpredictable psycho-somatic and physiological changes that occurred during gland treatments; and in Robin’s case, Peg doubted vaguely that Mel was able to be as detached as might be wished. She tried not to think about it, and was bothered by the effort of trying. And every time she felt able to laugh it off, she would remember Mel’s odd statement in the laboratory that day—but then, he had taken such a quick and warm liking to the boy. Could he possibly resent him on her behalf? Again she felt that resurgence of fury at Mel—and at herself; and again she wished that she could be left alone; she wanted to laugh at herself in the rôle of femme fatale, but laughter was out of order.
The progress reports were by no means the only source of information about Robin, however. In the tenth day of his treatment, she noticed an item in the “Man About Town” column in the Daily Blaze: