The Lady and Her Doctor by Evelyn Piper Page A

chattering and she turned so pale he was sure she was going to pass out. When he came to her this time she clung to him and he picked her up and carried her to the room with the money desk in it where there was a couch and laid her on it. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, her skin moist. When he put his hand to the front of the black dress to loosen it, she grabbed his hand; then she used her other hand to pull him down to her.
    At first he thought, “Gratitude.” She had tested him and not found him wanting as the saying went. “That’s O.K., gratitude,” he thought, feeling her teeth as she pressed her lips against his in gratitude; then he thought, “Oh, well, hysteria.”
    Then he said to himself, “I’ll be damned. Well, I’ll be damned. Well, I’ll be damned.”
    He said, “Look, don’t blame yourself for this, Miss—say, I can’t go on calling you Miss Folsom, can I?”
    She looked up at him with her light blue eyes, now darker than he had ever seen them, and then closed her eyes. “Sloane.”
    â€œSloan,” he repeated. “Well, don’t blame yourself for this, Sloane. Don’t get thinking you’re some kind of freak. I mean—believe me, I’m a physician and I know what I’m talking about. This sort of thing happens under strain more often than you think, even to shy kids like you. Reading poetry … Like they say, people are funny, Sloane.” She kept her eyes closed. “You get my point, don’t you? What happened to your mother—the shock, the scare and all—and making up your mind about me—this—what just happened—this is part of the—release from tension, that’s all, chalk it up to that.”
    She opened her eyes wide and he saw that they were lighter blue again and that now she was smiling. Her lips twitched.
    She said, “Oh, yes, release from tension.”
    â€œWell, all I wanted to say was these things happen. I wanted you to know these things happen.” He wished, now that she seemed more herself again, she’d pull down her skirts and button up, but she didn’t move.
    â€œAh,” she said, smiling up at him, not moving though, “how funny you are! How sweet. Do you think with my mother’s murder—do you think that Lady Macbeth was worried about the germs on her hands?” She held up her hand and then slid it into his shirt where it was unbuttoned, laying her palm flat against his bare chest. “Unseemly,” she said, “ ungemütlich . How sweet you are!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNever mind. Hold me,” she said, “you’re sweet. Hold me.”
    So he held her. “O.K.,” he said, “O.K., now, O.K.” He told himself that it certainly was one way of breaking the ice, wasn’t it?
    He dropped Miss Folsom at the funeral home and then drove off and parked a block away while she brought the death certificate in so Joe Dinton could go ahead. She returned to the car in about fifteen minutes and when he asked her whether Joe had asked any questions she said, with assurance, no, of course not, as if nobody would ever question her. They started back toward the Haunted House and Milton didn’t see what he could do except drop her there, but, a block away, she suddenly turned and asked him not to leave her, please. Because he hadn’t expected this, because, he thought, he was still so damned well trained, he said he would like to stay with her but he really had to go to his cardiac clinic at Queens General.
    She said, of course. The poor patients, she said. She touched his sleeve. “Take me with you.”
    â€œTake you—”
    â€œLet me go with you.”
    â€œToday?”
    She smiled. “Dr. Krop, visiting a hospital clinic couldn’t possibly be called festive, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
    So Milton took Miss Folsom with him. He had worked in