He considered this as good a day as any for the lesson.

Better, because he was really upholding his principles by not going to the ranch meekly submissive, because Mary V had announced that she would be looking for him.

Johnny winced from the thought of Mary V, out on the porch, watching the sky toward Tucson for the black speck that would be his airplane; listening for the high, strident drone that would herald his coming.

She would cry herself to sleep.
But she had deliberately sentenced herself to tears and disappointment, he told himself sternly.

She must have known he was in earnest about not coming.