aked the radio.

"Please," she said, in anything but a pleading tone, and turned it off.

Well, I thought, this is certainly going too far. I opened my mouth to
voice the angry words but a look at her stopped me. I couldnt help but
feel her imperviousness was fragile, that harsh speech might shatter a
calm too taut to be anything but hysterical. I drove on without speaking
until the hummocks gave way again to smooth desert. "We'll soon be in
Yuma," I announced. "Arent you going to tell me your name?"

"It isnt important," she repeated.

"But it's important to me," I told her boldly. "I want to know who the
beautiful lady was whom I drove from Los Angeles to Yuma."

She shook her head irritably and we crossed the bridge into Arizona.

"All right, this is Yuma. Now where?"

"Here."

"Right here in the middle of the road?"

She nodded. I looked helplessly at her, but her gaze was still fixed
ahead. Resignedly I got out, took her bags from the turtle and set them
beside the road, opened the door. She descended, smoothed her gloves,
straightened the edge of her veil, brushed an immaterial speck from her
coat and, after the briefest of acknowledging nods, picked up her grips.

"But ... can't I carry them for you?"

She did not even answer this with her usual headshake, but began walking
resolutely back over the way we had come. Bewildered, I watched her a
moment and then got into the car and turned it around, trying to keep
her in sight in the rearview mirror as I did so. It was an awkward
procedure on a highway heavy with traffic. By the time I had reversed my
direction she was gone.

_27._ Due either to Le ffacase's perverse sense of humor or, what is
more likely, his excessive meanness with money, my collect telegram
asking for funds to return from Yuma received the following ridiculous
reply: KNOW NO SANGUINARY WEENER INTELLIGENCER NO ELEEMOSYNARY
INSTITUTION EAT CAKE. The meaning of the last two words escaped me and
it was possible they were added purely to make the requisite ten. At all
events Le ffacase's parsimony made a very inconvenient and unpleasant
trip back for me, milestoned by my few valuable possessions pawned with
suspicious and grasping servicestation owners.

When I left, a map of the downtown district would have resembled the
profile of a bowl. Now it was a bottle with only a narrow neck still
clear. The weed had flung itself upon Pasadena and was curving back
along Huntington Drive, whil