The Door Between Read Online Free PDF Page A

desperately, “that we’ll never be married. That’s what I meant by a feeling. It’s—it’s really appalling.”
    “For heaven’s sake, Eva,” cried Karen, “don’t act like a silly girl! If you want so much to marry him, marry him and have it over with!”
    Eva was silent. Then she said: “I’m sorry, Karen, if my thoughts seem silly to you.” She rose.
    “Sit down darling,” said Dr. MacClure quietly. “Karen didn’t mean anything by what she said.”
    “I’m sorry,” murmured Karen. “I – It’s nerves, Eva.”
    Eva sat down. “I – I guess I’m not myself either these last few days. Richard seems to think we ought to wait a while. He’s right, too! There’s no sense in rushing things. A man can’t change his whole life overnight, can he?”
    “No,” said Dr. MacClure. “You’re a wise girl to have found that out so soon.”
    “Dick’s so – I don’t know, comfortable . He makes me feel good all over.” Eva laughed happily. “We’ll go to all the funny little places in Paris and do all the crazy things people do on honeymoons.”
    “You’re sure of yourself, aren’t you Eva?” asked Karen, resting her dark head on Dr. MacClure’s shoulder.
    Eva wriggled ecstatically. “Sure? If what I feel isn’t sureness … It’s the most blessed thing! I dream about him now. He’s so big and strong, so much of a baby …”
    Karen smiled in the darkness, twisting her small head to look up at Dr. MacClure. The doctor sat up and, with a sigh, buried his face in his hands. Karen’s smile faded, her eyes becoming more than usually veiled; there was anxiety in them, and something else on her pretty and ageless face that Eva had seen rather frequently of late.
    “Here I am,” said Eva briskly, “talking about myself while you two … Do you know you both look simply awful? Don’t you feel well, either, Karen?”
    “Oh, I feel quite as usual. But I think John’s badly in need of a vacation. Maybe you can talk him into one.”
    “You do look dreadfully peaked, daddy,” scolded Eva. “Why don’t you close up that dungeon of yours and go abroad? Goodness knows I’m not a doctor, but an ocean voyage would do you a world of good.”
    “I suppose it would,” said the doctor suddenly. He got up and began to patrol the grass.
    “And you ought to go with him, Karen,” said Eva decisively.
    Karen shook her head, smiling faintly. “I could never leave this place, dear. I’m made with deep roots. But John ought to go.”
    “Will you, daddy?”
    Dr. MacClure stopped short. “Look here, honey, you go ahead with your young man and be happy and stop worrying about me. You are happy, aren’t you?”
    “Yes,” said Eva.
    Dr. MacClure kissed her while Karen looked on, still faintly smiling, as if all the time she were thinking of something else.
     
    At the end of June Dr. MacClure yielded to the determined campaign against him and dropped his work for a vacation in Europe. He had lost weight and his suit had begun to hang on him in a despairing sort of way.
    “Be sensible, Doctor,” said Eva’s fiancé rather brusquely. “You can’t go on this way. You’ll keel over one of these days. You’re not made of iron, you know.”
    “I’m finding that out,” said Dr. MacClure with a wry smile. “All right, Dick, you win. I’ll go.”
    Richard and Eva saw him off; Karen, whose lassitude kept her chained to her house, did not come, and Dr. MacClure said his good-byes to her privately in the garden in Washington Square.
    “Take good care of Eva,” said the big man to Richard, while the gong was clamoring on shipboard.
    “Don’t worry about us. You take care of yourself, sir.”
    “Daddy! You will?”
    “All right, all right,” said Dr. MacClure grumpily. “Lord, you’d think I was eighty! Good-bye, Eva.”
    Eva threw her arms about him and he hugged her with some of his old simian strength. Then he shook hands with Richard and they hurried off the boat.
    He stood waving at them