By Ethel Cook Eliot
- Ariel Dances
- Green Doors
ETHEL COOK ELIOT
GREEN DOORS
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
Boston 1933
Copyright, 1933,
BY ETHEL COOK ELIOT
All rights reserved
Published February, 1933
Reprinted February, 1933 (twice)
Reprinted April, 1933
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATED TO
MY FATHER
GREEN DOORS
Chapter One
“Hello! What’s up with you?”
Doctor Lewis Pryne was obviously surprised at theintrusion of a mere friend on office hours. “How did youpersuade Miss Frazier to bring you in? You aren’t—orare you—looking for a doctor?”
Dick Wilder’s smile was tinged with awed diffidence.
“No, I’m not wanting treatment myself,” he said.“All the same, I did get a regulation appointment fromyour secretary via the telephone, and I’ve been out therein your reception office meekly waiting my turn forhours. But first I have a message for you, from Cynthia.They want you for the week-end in Meadowbrook.Harry’s counting on golf with you, and the children—”
Lewis broke in dryly. “Sorry, Dick, but I’m mostfrightfully busy just now. If you insist on staying tochat, I’ll send you a bill—regulation fee for a first appointment.But if you vanish at once, I’ll let you off.Give my fondest love to Cynthia, tell her I’ll call herup; thanks, good-by.”
But though the doctor rose, his visitor sat. “You’re4hard, Lewis, hard,” he murmured. “But it’s all rightwith me. I expect a bill. I’m here to offer you a lovelynew patient on a silver platter. It is rather—ah—private,though.”
His embarrassment was due plainly to the presenceof the secretary, Miss Frazier. She had escorted him intothe presence of the famous psychiatrist and she was nowhovering near the door on tiptoes, it seemed, to escorthim out again.
Lewis sighed, but with good nature. “Miss Frazierneedn’t bother you,” he explained. “She is my confidentialsecretary and it saves time having her here tomake a record as we go along. How many people areout there, Miss Frazier?”
“Only two, Doctor. Mrs. Dickerman and—”
“A sullen but gorgeous fellow who doesn’t want tobe spoken to,” Dick finished for her. “Or is he one ofthe really unhinged ones and not responsible for hismanners?”
Lewis smiled—fleetly—at his secretary. He said toDick, “That will be Mr. Neil McCloud. He is perfectlysane. He’s lost the power of speech, that’s