The Doctor Takes a Wife (14 page)

Page glanced up at him, a curl provocative under the brim of the gray bonnet. “I don
’
t suppose,” she said demurely, “that you
’
d care for a resume of the dissertation?” A giggle escaped her.

He wiped his eyes and opened the outside door for her. “Maybe you could get some interest into it—but I
’
m doubtful.”

“It got me my doctorate,” she pertly reminded him.

“I
’
ll bet nobody read it. Say, I didn
’
t bring my car
...”

“
This coat and hat are rainproof.”

So much ice had melted under the warmth of their laughter that Page let him gather her hand into the crook of his arm, and they stepped off briskly down the gle
am
ing
sidewalk. She walked well, and the brim of that cute little bonnet was just above his right shoulder.

“How about having a sandwich and some hot chocolate sent up to my room?” he asked when they came into the hotel lobby. “I could take a snack myself.”

“Well
...”
Her cheeks were red.

“Come on. It
’
ll be fun. You need a little relaxation before you try sleeping
...
and you said you
’
d had no dinner.”

“I am hungry,” she admitted.

His mouth quirked as he gave his order to a bellboy, and then guided her to the elevator. She said nothing when he pushed his floor button.

Serenely—but her manner was different from her usual icy poise—she went into his room, and let him take her hat and coat. She glanced at her hair in a mirror, and examined the books lined up on his desk. Only about half of these were medical, and she picked up one to look into, though her eyes were studying the photograph of a young woman which his letter-writing materials had pushed to the far edge of the desk-top.

Phil came and took the thick book out of her hands, and rescued the silver frame. “My sister,” he said. “Lives in Germany with her Army officer husband. Come sit in the armchair and put your feet up.”

She obeyed while he was busy with the waiter and their tray. When the man left Phil used the thick medical book to prop the door half-open. When he came back to her, he saw a flush st
ainin
g her cheeks. “I know I
’
m a fool,” she said grudgingly.

He gave her a napkin, and turned to pour their chocolate. “Knowing you are one is half the battle,” he said quietly. “Knowing if there is a reason
...”
He came toward her, his eyebrow quirked.

She glanced up, then looked down at the cup he was giving her. “There is a reason,” she said softly.

He wheeled the little table closer to her knee, and set a second chair close. Rain still washed the window, car lights ribboned the drives of the park. Out in the hotel the usual evening noises went on cosily; someone had a radio playing. In a room at the far end of the hall, two men and a woman talked and laughed. Now and then the elevator rose in the shaft
...
went down
...

Page tasted her chocolate, wiped the stain of its richness from her upper lip—smiled at Phil—took a sandwich. “I
’
m starved,” she confessed. “Nothing since breakfast
...”

He glanced at his watch. It was past eleven. “I
’
m glad to hear that you eat breakfast,” he growled.

“I don
’
t always
...”
She glanced at him. “And don
’
t give me a medical lecture, because I
’
m never ill. But this morning I ate a good breakfast—at ten. I overslept. That is, I did my sleeping at the wrong end of the night.”

His brown eyes twinkled. That kiss—and that slap
—
and even this morning she
’
d still been upset enough to go off without her purse and keys. He guessed he was not drawing a complete blank with Dr.
Arning
.

She was still babbling about the big breakfast which she had eaten because she
’
d decided lunch wouldn
’
t be necessary, and she had some cultures she wanted to work with...

Phil put his hand on her forearm—she was wearing a plain dress of dark gray jersey, with a necklace of small bright green beads against her throat. At his touch, the color drained from her cheeks, and he nodded. “You were going to tell me why you were afraid of men,” he said in his deep voice.

“Oh—”

“The reason,” he prompted, “that you don
’
t want me to kiss you, or touch you, or be alone with you. You said there
was
a reason!”

“Yes,” she said softly, “there
’
s a reason
...”

He gave her a second sandwich, and waited. Not many women looked so pretty while eating a ham sandwich
...

“You must know,” she said slowly, “that it is not any woman
’
s first choice to spend long and lonely hours in a tiled laboratory.” She looked away from his ruddy, attentive face to the black-satin window pane. “Or so many long and lonely hours at night
...
” She spoke now almost in a whisper.

Phil reached for his cigarettes and lit one. “But you
’
re a beautiful girl, Page. You
’
re clever—you could have friends—a lot of them—and all sorts.”

“Friends,” she repeated thoughtfully. “But one isn
’
t safe with friends. You can
’
t trust them. You go out to parties, you meet and like a person
...
and
...”
Her voice faded away.

Then she looked at Phil, and spoke tensely. “I
’
m safe in my small hotel room! I can
trust
my slides and test tubes, Dr. Scoles!”

“Is safety what you want?”

“It
’
s what I have to have.” She spoke with sudden passion, “I can
’
t live without it—I must stay safe!”

“Germ-proof,” said Phil thoughtfully.

“I hope most people think I am simply showing proper scientific detachment. I wouldn
’
t want everyone to know it is fear—and—well—a need for self-protection.”

He glanced at her. “What sort of fear?”

“Cowardly,” she answered readily. “Craven—but I
’
ve been so badly hurt, Philip—so badly!”

His hand lay briefly upon hers. “Do you want to tell me?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes ... I believe I do. You
—
well—you
’
ve stayed around. You keep on talking to me, and bothering with me. I know you haven
’
t liked me
...”

“But I do, Page!”

“...
or approved of the woman I am. But you
’
ve
said
so, and—”

“I
’
ve mentioned what I approved of, too,” he reminded her.

“Yes
...”
Her face was light with a shy, sweet smile. “Are you so kind to everyone, Dr. Scoles?” she asked, with a return to her usual manner of earnest inquiry
—
only now there was a little-girl timidity in it.

“I wasn
’
t crazy about that
Philip
of yours, but it was a heap better than
Dr.
Scoles
,” he
drawled. What was there in this girl that brought out all the cowboy in him! “As for being kind—you
’
re a beautiful woman, Page
.
”

The color drained like sand from her face, and her big eyes became almost black.

“Hey!” he said quickly, moving toward her.

But she drew back, recovered somewhat, and bit at her lower lip.
“
You see,” she said hesitantly, “once, another man was kind to me. He too said I was beautiful. And—I trusted him.”

She leaned back in the chair, and half-closed her eyes. Phil sat quietly, smoking, listening. His presence was so unobtrusive that the girl talked as if she spoke to herself.

“We were in Medical school together. That is, I was doing my advanced biology work in the Medical school; he was qualifying for his M.D. He was tall, blond—not handsome. He wore glasses, and had pale eyebrows and lashes—he had Swedish blood. We neither of us had much money. My family didn
’
t approve of the work I was doing. I
’
d got a fellowship—and Carl had to do some outside work, to make ends meet.

“He—he said I was pretty, and I liked him. I wanted to help him get through school. I helped with some of his lab work, things like that—we didn
’
t have time or money for real dating—shows and dinner together. But we liked each other, and it seemed only sensible—from a money angle—to live together in one room rather than pay for two. So—we did
...”

She paused, and Phil rubbed ash from his cigarette against the tray, but made no other move, or any sound.

“We knew we hadn
’
t the money to marry, or to have a family—but we thought we had a right to—live—while we were young. I had been raised in a strictly moral family, the sort that goes to church three times every Sunday
—
so I knew that what I was
doing was wrong, but it seemed justified. Carl was pretty good at medicine. Nothing sensational, but I was determined that he would be! I thought I could be the inspiration for a doctor who would do really great things for humanity. I washed and ironed his shirts for that reason, and made our money go as far as it would. I wanted to share that part of his medical life so that the later rewards would be sweet for both of us. I realize now that I lived with an ideal—as well as with a man who was not yet my husband, though my conscience said that he would be as soon as he graduated and got his internship. Even before I got my Doctor
’
s, I was offered a couple of positions, but I waited to see where Carl would locate. I wanted to find a place near him, so that we could be together and make our home
—
even though I
’
d have to take not quite so good a position. I didn
’
t even mention my offers to him.

“I didn
’
t know if he
’
d had any answers to some letters of application I
’
d written for him. He didn
’
t say so, and finally, the day before we were to get our degrees, I asked him about it. I knew that the other medics had received appointments, and surely some sort of answer-had been given to his applications
...

"He seemed angry with me for asking him; he called it nagging. He reminded me that he had not asked me to write those letters, and said he had no intention of doing hospital work. He was going home—he came from a small town in Nebraska. I—my family—lived in Illinois.” She dropped her eyes, and her whole body seemed to sag forward. “He was going to serve as assistant to the doctor who
’
d helped him through Medical school, had paid his tuition—and he was going to marry the doctor
’
s daughter. He thought I knew that. He
’
d been engaged to her since college; she
’
d been waiting for him to finish Medical school.” She inhaled a deep, shivering breath.

“Well, I just sat there-—on a stool at a drug store counter—we were eating our supper of tomato soup and peanut butter sandwiches. I sat on that tall stool, and the world went on without me. It really did. There was no longer any solidness beneath me; I clutched at the chrome rim of the counter to keep from falling off into that yawning space.

“I must have asked Carl what sort of girl she was
—
because he told me. She was his age, they
’
d gone to high school together. When he
’
d gone to the State college for his pre-med, she
’
d stayed behind, and had helped her mother. There wasn
’
t much to tel
l.
She wasn
’
t brainy, in my sense, and had no thought of a career. No, she was just a home girl, sweet and fine and moral
...

“That word caught at my nerves.
Moral.
Because, of course—with his connivance—I was not moral. I turned and looked at him, and asked him why he hadn
’
t told me of that other girl before, of his obligation to her. And, if he loved her, why had he ever bothered with me?”

Page sat silent then, for a long time. Phil watched her face—even if pity made him protest against her telling the rest, he knew that she would tell it Perhaps this was the first time she
’
d put the story into words. He thought it had lain bundled in her mind, like an old rug. Tonight she had ventured to cut the ropes which tied her memories and was spreading the stuff out to the air—

When she spoke again, it was as if each word hurt her lips. “He told me why he had bothered with me. I had a fine mind, he said. Clear-cut, reasoning—a better grasp of scientific problems than he had
.
My mind had been a great help to him in his work, though ordinarily men despised brainy women. But fortunately I was pretty enough—and innocent—he said that appealed to a man
...”

Phil growled in his throat

“But, he said, I was mostly brain, and that was not what men wanted in a woman they
’
d marry.”

“The guy was a complete heel!” said Phil sharply.

“Yes, of course, he was. I told him so immediately. I
’
m glad I did. Shocked as I was, I
’
m glad I didn
’
t plead with him. He—he argued that he was like any man—the normal, average man, he said. His body required a woman to satisfy his physical needs. I
’
d satisfied his when he was not able, financially, to have a wife
...
Most men wanted just one thing from a woman, he supposed I
’
d known that
.
”