The Doctor Takes a Wife (8 page)

She was an exquisitely beautiful woman, gracious and poised. She settled Phil in a pine-paneled den with a
half dozen
pleasant souls prepared to discuss the merits of remodeling an old house as against those of building a new one.

“In either case,” Phil contributed, “you no sooner get set but what the thing begins to fall down.”

“You
’
re a married man, then,” decided the other doctor in the circle.

“No. But my friends tell me all their troubles.”

“Imagine us with a new bachelor,” marveled a cute redhead in green.

“But what a waste
...
” mourned the other woman. “No free and available dames here.”

“He
’
ll be around a while,” said the redhead. “Won
’
t you, Dr. Scoles?”

“In a general sense, yes. I
’
m attached to the Group as of tomorrow morning. But I won
’
t live out here in these medical Elysian fields.”

“Give yourself—and Lowry—time,” drawled the lantern-jawed, sardonic doctor. His name was Miller; he was a pediatrician. “If you
’
re his
protégé...”

“Oh, I couldn
’
t claim that,” said Phil hastily. “He and my father were friends. This invitation was his gesture of hospitality, that
’
s all.”

“You should make something of it,” Dr. Miller advised. “McNaire also could help you at the Group.”

“I
’
ll remember that,” said Phil politely. But his attention had drifted. Across the hall he could see the group still gathered about the buffet in the dining room. There was a girl—a woman
—
He
’
d not met her, he was sure. She was blonde. Her hair, so pale that it had faint greenish tones, was brushed into gle
am
ing
waves which framed her face. Her eyes, he thought, were gray, though they might have blue tones—or green. In any case, they were shadowed eyes. She was talking very little. And her face, her manner, had a fascinating stillness. Her beauty had a secretive,
sp
hinxlik
e
look—which he knew, of course, did not necessarily conceal any secrets.

On the other hand, it might

He knew one thing—she was the most beautiful, the most mysterious woman, he had ever seen! She stood among a group, she held a plate of food in her hand; she ate that food, and talked to the people about her—and yet it was as if she stood thoughtful and alone in some empty, columned hall. She was like a painting, a statue—not yet awakened to life.

Phil tried to guess her age—past twenty-five, under thirty, was the nearest he could come. If she were married
—
but it seemed out of the picture that she would be, at least not to any of the men at this party, nice though they were, a friendly, hearty bunch—

But that pale-haired girl, with her perfectly oval face, her veiled eyes, her still, unsmiling mouth, her remoteness—

She wore a dress of sapphire blue, and her throat was slender and white, her arms round, and they would be soft
—
cool
...

She stood in a group of men, but Phil could detect no excitement in their faces at being with her and
talking t
o her. They gave only grave attention to what she said—and that was odd, with so beautiful a woman. Who
was
she? And why...

He was ready to ask the redhead beside him for the answer when one of the men in the dining room was called away; he started briskly for the hall, saying loudly to the woman he was leaving, “I
’
ll take that up with you later, Doctor!”

“Oh, no!” groaned Phil. She couldn
’
t be! He would rather have found her married to that bubbling, fat chap who stood beside her. He simply could not imagine that serenity serving in a noisy clinic, or those white fingers doing gross anatomy.

He leaned toward the redhead. “Who is the blonde in blue?” His jerking head indicated the dining room

The redhead laughed, and nudged her husband
’
s arm. “We said there weren
’
t any single girls here—we all forgot
Arning
,” she announced.

Her husband, the sardonic pediatrician, growled something about
Arning
being wed to her profession. “I don
’
t like brainy women,” he confessed to his friends.

“That
’
s why he married me,” agreed his pert little wife.

“You
’
ve still got him fooled, too,” said Captain Geno, nicely.

“
Shhhh
!”
laughed Mrs. Miller. Then she smiled at Phi
l.
“She
’
s not a medical doctor ... but, oh
,
dear, she
is
brainy, I
’
m afraid. Darling, you tell Scoles who she is. I
’
ll get the terms all wrong.”

“She
’
s a microbiologist,” Miller obliged. “I guess it
’
s just a matter of men resenting a woman being so damned smart. Her name
’
s Page
Arning
; she
’
s been assigned to the Group on a grant from the National Institute to study diseases caused by micro-organisms. I believe her project is to determine if birds as well as mosquitoes carry the virus of encephalitis.”

Phil
’
s face must have been funny. For a minute he was stunned to speechlessness. “But, gee whiz,” he gasped, “why should a girl who looks like that
...
”

Dr. Miller turned on his hassock to look more closely at Dr.
Arning
. “Why, she is kinda pretty,” he decided.

“That
’
s my boy!” his wife approved.

“Would you like to meet her, Doctor?” asked the Air Force man.

“I guess so,” said Phil doubtfully. “I always thought I
’
d like to know a girl with that kind of face. Is anything wrong with her, Miller?”

The doctor wiped his fingers on his napkin. He made a thorough job of doing it before he answered. “I guess it
’
s her brains put me off,” he admitted. “I don
’
t know her well. And I wouldn
’
t want to say anything that might interfere with the beautiful friendship you hope will result from Geno
’
s introduction—”

Phil laughed, though his cheeks were red. The others giggled and chuckled, too, and waited for Miller to turn the spit he
’
d put through the new man.

“She
’
s supposed to be doing her research for the benefit of the underprivileged—that
’
s a component of her grant. She doesn
’
t seem the type, frankly, to be deeply concerned with the grubby poor—but she may be, for all I know. Naturally, she washes up before coming to a party like this. I rarely encounter her at the hospital. She works in the lab exclusively. And she
’
s been with us only since the first of the year. The Bulletin said she
’
d been doing some work in Europe—and India, wasn
’
t it, Jean?”

His wife nodded. “Don
’
t you remember? I asked her if she
’
d brought back any
saris,
and she said
‘
No.
’
” For a moment Mrs. Miller
’
s impudent, mobile face took on the withdrawn coolness which marked Dr.
Arning
’
s lovely countenance.

“Woman
’
s rude,” growled Miller.

“No,” his wife demurred. “I think she
’
s afraid of people.”

“Shy, maybe,” suggested the second woman in the group. “Very smart people often are.”

“Well, anyway,” said Dr. Miller, standing up, “the Group thinks she will be our next Nobel Prize winner.”

Phil whistled, and grinned at Captain Geno. “Maybe I don
’
t want to meet her after all.”

“Oh, come along. I
’
ve talked to her a couple of times with absolutely no ill effect.”

By this time, Dr.
Arning
had finished her supper and had gone into the living room, where they found her seated on the couch with Dr. Schleicher, a brain surgeon. He surrendered his place to Phil, and Dr.
Arning
waited calmly for the newcomer to present a conversational gambit.

He was put to it to find one, having never before met a phenomenal creature of this sort. He decided that he
’
d better forget she was a beautiful woman—(but her eyes
were
gray, and the blue dress gave them the most dizzying blue tones!)—He
’
d try to meet her on a mutual plane of professional interest. So the poor sap, in the usual manner of a male seeking recognition, babbled fatuously to the woman of his plans
...

Back in Idaho, he
’
d sounded crazy to me. But even I had seen the idealistic side of his project, and had had to admit that it was unselfish of him to give up his assured success as a surgeon to dedicate himself in such a fashion to the uncertainties of research.

Any other girl would have cried, “Oh, that
’
s wonderful!” whether she knew what he was talking about, or not. But this girl—her eyelids, were of that thin, bluely transparent sort, her lashes dark for a blonde, and brushy, her red lips were parted lusciously—yet not one flicker of interest warmed her exquisite face.

But what could Phil do but go on talking? He was trapped there on a pale green damask couch with a beautiful woman he
’
d asked to meet.

“I find I
’
m in your line of work, Dr.
Arning
.”

“Oh?” Her voice was velvety soft.

Phil tugged at his tie. The room was warm
...
“That is, I hope to be. I
’
m certified for some research work at Boone. You see, I got fed up with taking care of ranchers
’
wives—after all, any competent doctor can do that sort of thing. I was in a place where there was no opportunity for individual research—we don
’
t have a medical school in the state! Can you imagine such isolation? I had it brought home to me that it was not enough for a doctor to go through medical school, do his internships and a couple of residencies, and then settle down. Certainly it wasn
’
t right for a doctor who recognized the need for deeper study
—
and when that recognition came to me, there wasn
’
t a thing for me to do but pull up stakes, and get the hell out of my cozy little office.”

He stopped, appalled at the sounds he was making. Had he fallen into such slovenly ways of speech? His colloquialisms had not extended to calling her “pardner,” but he thought they might
...

She extended a lovely hand toward a silver cup filled with cigarettes. Phil fumbled the lighting of one, and then he hooted like a teen-age boy at his clumsiness.

“The Boone Group,” said that ice-maiden of science, “does a great deal for rural doctors. Twice a year, I believe, they offer a series of lectures and brush-up demonstrations—” She was kind. She was coldly disinterested in all rural doctors.

And Phil was angry at being called one, though he was one, of course—in her sense. “It
’
s an economic fact, you know,” he said loudly, “that cities could not exist without farmers. And it is the ultimate simplicity of rationalization”
—
he wiped his damp brow—“to recognize the importance of medical care for those farmers. Since this country has taken on the defense and nourishment of the whole world
...”

He handed her the silver ashtray which interested her much more than his justification of “rural doctors” as a breed. She used his proffered tray without a flicker of those thick eyelashes. In fact, she scarcely looked at Phil at all. He said a little more about the need for clinics like Berry and Chappell in the growing settlements of the far west, while she went on being coldly disinterested, and showing it.

After a little more of this, Dr. Schleicher came back with a small, dark man who had a question for Dr.
Arning
. He asked it, and she brightened visibly in her discussion with this very unattractive man. She had not, she said, found any animal a proper host except mice. But, oh, yes, one must always be ready to
try
the others! Now, polio, for instance, did much the best with cotton rats
...