The Door Between Read Online Free Page A

queerest way she knew he was looking at the back of her head, “is that you’ve been smothered by your environment. Brains, genius, fame – all around you, keeping you down. Get yourself a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of new duds and a husband, and you’ll never feel another ache or pain.”
    The most stifling silence fell. It was not at all the kind of silence that falls between physicians and patients. But then physicians rarely conduct moonlight examinations of young females in Japanese gardens near water.
    What was even more peculiar was Eva’s sudden feeling that she was no longer a patient. As if his self-assurance had passed over to her, leaving her full of strength and him a little empty … It came like a stroke of lightning. One moment the Japanese cicadas had been scratching away, and the next the world turned upside down. Inside the despair of months was magically gone, dissolved in the boiling spot that now churned her whole body.
    It was peculiar, too, that now the young man was silent she wished she might hear his voice again; and at the same time she was conscious of a wonderful power that said he might speak, but because of her it would be a different tone.
    Eva had never experienced a dangerous moment before. But she knew instinctively that this was such a moment, and that danger was the pleasantest thing she had ever tasted.
    She heard him breathing on the grass behind her, breathing rather harder than a physician should. And she was glad; and all at once in a freeing gush happy, for she knew that the wonderful power was a power women feel at certain moments with certain men, a power she had never felt with any one before.
    And she held him in the palm of her hand; she knew that calmly, although he lay beside her and her back was straight and inscrutable to him. She knew that she had only to turn around to make something sweet and impossible happen.
    But now that she had her moment, she felt an irresistible urge to hold it at bay. She began slowly and deliberately, back still turned to him, to pull her discarded stockings on to her legs. He did not move. Then she slipped her shoes on, concentrating on the task. The fireflies flickered in and out of sight. The voices were planets away. The gulps in the pool punctuated everything – the silence, the strain, the sweet hostility.
    Physician!
    And Eva rose lazily and only then did she turn and look at him, knowing how nice she must appear with her slender figure twisted at the waist in its sheath of voile. But now she was above him, and he had to look up at her slim height, cool and amused and inwardly trembling. Eva felt like a lady-knight triumphant over the body of a dragon; and she suppressed a giggle and an impulse to put her foot on his chest.
    But she felt like doing a mad thing. She had never felt quite so strong and irresponsible before.
    “Well, you’re the doctor,” she said, looking down at him.
    He stared up at her with wide-open man’s eyes, curiously a little angry. The moment stood still; she could almost feel his arms hard and convulsed about her, with the garden spinning and sound and life and darkness dropped off the edge of consciousness. She even relished the taste of his anger, joyful in her knowledge that she had surprised his defenses … She could see his body contract, getting ready to spring up from the grass.
    “Eva!” roared Dr. MacClure’s voice.
    Eva went cold all over. Dr. Scott scrambled to his feet and began brushing himself off in a futile, powerful way.
    “Oh, there you are,” growled Dr. MacClure, stamping across the bridge. Then he caught sight of the young man and stopped short. Eva stood between them, clutching her handkerchief.
    The coldness vanished and the happiness with its boiling returned. Eva could have laughed aloud between the two men looking each other over, the middle-aged one inspecting the young one with his remarkable sharp light blue eyes, and the young one returning the inspection