The Door Between Read Online Free Page B

half-truculently.
    “This is Dr. Richard Barr Scott, daddy,” said Eva composedly.
    “Ha,” said Dr. MacClure.
    Dr. Scott mumbled: “’Dyado,” and put his hands into his pockets. Eva knew that he was very angry indeed, and was very glad.
    “Heard of you,” grunted Dr. MacClure.
    “Good of you,” scowled Dr. Scott.
    And already they measured each other, potential antagonists, and Eva was so happy she felt faint.
3
    And so, if life began for Karen Leith at forty, and for Dr. MacClure at fifty-three, it began for Eva MacClure at twenty, in the romantic setting of Karen Leith’s garden-party in May.
    Eva grew, she burgeoned; she became a woman fulfilled overnight, complete and self-assured. All her problems dropped away like useless leaves.
    The joy of the hunt obsessed her. She threw herself into the ancient game as if she had been playing it for years – a game in which the huntress stood still, and the prey came seeking its doom, helplessly. Dr. MacClure was not the only physician in New York to be confused; young Dr. Scott actually grew haggard.
    They were engaged in June.
    “There’s only one thing, daddy,” said Eva to Dr. MacClure shortly after. It was a sweltering night, and they were in Karen’s garden. “It’s about me and Richard.”
    “What’s the matter?” demanded Dr. MacClure.
    Eva stared at her hands. “I wonder if I ought to tell him – you know, that you and I …”
    Dr. MacClure looked heavily at her; he seemed more than usually tired these days, and he had aged considerably. Then he said: “Yes, Eva?”
    Eva was troubled. “That you’re not really my father. It doesn’t seem right not to tell him, but –”
    Dr. MacClure sat still. Karen, beside him, murmured: “Don’t be a fool, Eva. What good can it do?” Somehow, in her flowered frock, with her hair combed tightly back, Karen seemed older, her advice sounder.
    “I don’t know, Karen. It just doesn’t –”
    “Eva,’ said Dr. MacClure in the gentle voice no one but his two women had ever heard. He took her hands in his own, engulfing them. “You know, darling, that I couldn’t love you more if you were my own daughter.’
    “Oh, daddy, I didn’t mean –”
    “Forget it,” said Karen a little sharply. “Don’t tell him, Eva.”
    Eva sighed. The event had taken place in her childhood, to her a blank prehistoric time. Years later Dr. MacClure had sensibly told her about her adoption, and the vague trouble it had caused her had never entirely disappeared.
    “I won’t if you say so,” she said doubtfully, for it seemed to her that silence was wrong; and yet she was glad to be advised to keep silent – afraid of anything, no matter how slight, which might threaten her new-found happiness.
    Dr. MacClure lay back on the bench, closing his eyes. “It’s better that way,” he said.
    “Have you fixed the date?” asked Karen quickly, glancing at the doctor.
    “Not definitely,” said Eva, shaking off her dismal mood. “I suppose I’ve been acting like an idiot – all one grin – but I do wish we were married. I get the queerest feeling sometimes – as if …”
    “You’re the strangest child,” murmured Karen. “Almost as if it were never going to happen?”
    “Yes,” said Eva with a little shiver. “I – I don’t think I could stand that, after all the … Marrying Dick is the only thing in the world I want.”
    “Where is he?” asked Dr. MacClure dryly.
    “Oh, at some hospital. There’s a bad case of –”
    “Tonsils?” said the doctor.
    “Daddy!”
    “Aw, now, honey,” he said instantly, opening his eyes, “don’t mind me. But I want to prepare you for the life of a doctor’s wife. I want – ”
    “I don’t care,” said Eva defiantly. “It’s Dick I’m interested in, not his work. I’ll attend to that when I get around to it.”
    “I’ll bet you will,” chuckled Dr. MacClure, but his chuckle died very quickly and he closed his eyes again.
    “Sometimes I think,” said Eva