She had been driven up a dizzy ascent to a quiet brow where a tower and a carillon and bronze tablets kept alive the memory of Will Rogers, and she had had little chance to explore, because she had had to argue endlessly with the proprietor of a lunch place about box lunches for next summer. She had sat in the offices of hotel managers and listened, though Teresa had cautioned her against that. “Don’t let them get started on their sales talk. They’ll recite whole pages from their folders, and then, when you’re completely numb and past resisting, they’ll end up by sticking another dollar on the rate.” On the whole she had done very well, as well as Teresa had done the previous year. She had been weary at night, glad to lie in a hot tub, fragrant with pine salts, glad to wrap herself in a silk negligée and stretch out on the bed with a book, after the interminable reports to Washington had been dropped down the mail chute. And twice at night she had been too tired to write a letter to Mike.
