Lewis could not move. Could not speak. He thought his heart would break for Petra. But though she was stone blind, she had heard him come into the passage, hesitate by the telephone, and then his every step to the kitchen door. And now she whispered, “Are you there?”
At that he took the last pace—in a stride. The long race was over. She was no longer a flying, mysterious shadow. Petra was flesh and blood within his arms. But their first kiss had a taste he had not dreamed for it. It was salt with both their tears.
As they drew apart, but not their hands—palm against palm they still held each other securely—Neil’s laugh was ringing in their ears. Quite heartily Neil was laughing, out there on the porch, sitting on the foot of Teresa’s cot, at something she just had said.
THE END
Green Doors
By ETHEL COOK ELIOT
Author of “Ariel Dances”
In this warm and colorful novel Dr. Lewis Pryne, asked by the beautiful Clare Farwell to psycho-analyze her stepdaughter, finds himself falling in love with the girl instead. Clare is Petra’s third stepmother and their interest in the same man teems with conflict and event.
Those who responded so happily to the author’s previous novel, “Ariel Dances,” will find an even deeper and more vital pleasure here. For again Mrs. Eliot has given us a story of fresh charm and has added an authentic element of joy which is born in a richly motivated soil of character and human aspirations toward the “durable satisfactions of life.”
The scene shifts between the doctor’s city office and Clare’s country home. The office atmosphere is now and again stark with human suffering. Luxury and an easy graciousness of living characterize the country home. But the final shift of scene is to the “green doors” through which Lewis and Petra and several others move toward the reality and meaning of their lives.