Dr. Mary in the lead, they left the office.
Gregory felt as if he were on a mischievous adventure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In winter Gregory Allen always looked forward to summer, except for missing Puck, as a rest from the weary round of Margaret's enthusiasms, her uninteresting friends, and the boring parties to which he went because it was less trouble to go than to fuss about not going. During the winter he never made any close friends, but always thought he might do so in the summer. And then, after the first few weeks of freedom to come and go as he pleased, he began to miss Puck with her long, serious discussions of the doings of Lady Jane, and the well-managed house. In these moods he went to the club of Beaux Arts graduates, knowing beforehand that it would be no more interesting than either of the other two clubs to which he belonged. But he always felt that something interesting ought to develop, although it never did. The members who frequented it were men like himself, neither rich nor famous nor pushed out of the race, comfortable, moderately successful financially, with modest summer homes on Long Island, to which they sent their families from May to September. They had all adjusted their lives as he had, and beyond the round of their work, were as unmagnetic as the routine of their days. They all accepted each other as they were, and believed they were common-sense, practical men.
As for women, Gregory met very few in the course of his work; and, once relieved from his duty as Margaret's husband to the members of The Fortnightly, he could no more imagine looking any of them up during the summer, even if they had been in town, than he could have picked up a stray companion of the streets and spent a pleasant evening in some crowded dance-hall. He could no more imagine meeting Caroline Ainsworth or Mabel Dawson on the street and going home to dinner with them, than he could imagine doing something careless and impromptu with Margaret. Gregory smiled as he pictured himself walking off with Mabel Dawson or Caroline Ainsworth.
At Nineteenth Street the doctor turned east, crossed Gramercy Park and stopped before an old brownstone front on the north side.
"Here we are." They followed through a wide, cool hall, flagged in black and white marble, to a huge door on the right. Dr. Mary threw it open and swept them in with a flourish.
"There, you doubting Thomases. Not so bad, is it?"
Gregory and Jean looked at each other and laughed.
"Mary, I'm glad I didn't bet you that set of Dostoievsky. I would have been broke for a month."