So when he had asked me, “Which Russian novel?” it was possible that he had not had so firm a platform as I had thought.

When he called “Ready,” and I opened the door, I was armed with this new skepticism.

I said, “Who do you agree with, Naphta or Settembrini?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“In The Magic Mountain. Do you like Naphta best or Settembrini?”

“To be honest, I’ve always thought they were a pair of windbags. You?”

“Settembrini is more humane but Naphta is more interesting.”

“They tell you that in school?”

“I never read it in school,” I said coolly.

He gave me a quick look, the eyebrow raised.

“Pardon me. If there’s anything in there that interests you, feel free. Feel free to come down here and read in your time off. There’s an electric heater I could set up, since I imagine you are not experienced with woodstoves. Shall we think about that? I can rustle you up an extra key.”

“Thank you.”

Pork chops for supper, mashed potatoes, canned peas. Dessert was an apple pie from the bakery, which would have been better if he had thought to heat it up.

He asked me about my life in Toronto, my university courses, my grandparents. He said that he supposed I had been brought up on the straight and narrow.

“My grandfather is a liberal clergyman sort of in the Paul Tillich mode.”

“And you? Liberal little Christian granddaughter?”

“No.”

“Touché. Do you think I’m rude?”

“That depends. If you are interviewing me as an employer, no.”

“So I’ll go on. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“In the forces I suppose.”

I said, In the Navy. That struck me as a good choice, accounting for my never knowing where he was and not getting regular letters. I could manage that he did not get shore leave.

The doctor got up and fetched the tea.

“What sort of boat is he on?”

“Corvette.” Another good choice. After a while I could have him torpedoed, as was always happening to corvettes.

“Brave fellow. Milk or sugar in your tea?”

“Neither one thanks.”

“That’s good because I haven’t got any. You know it shows when you’re lying, you get hot in the face.”

If I hadn’t got hot before I did then. My flush rose from my feet up and sweat trickled down under my arms. I hoped the dress would not be ruined.

“I always go hot when I drink tea.”

“Oh I see.”

Things could not get any worse so I resolved to face him down. I changed the subject on him, asking about how he operated on people. Did he remove lungs, as I had heard?

He could have answered that with more teasing, more superiority—possibly his notion of flirtation—and I believed that if he had done so I would have put on my coat and walked out into the cold. And perhaps he knew that. He began to talk about thoracoplasty, and explain that it was, however, not so easy on the patient as collapsing and deflating a lung. Which interestingly enough even Hippocrates had known about. Of course removal of the lobe had also become popular recently.

“But don’t you lose some?” I said.

He must have thought it was time to joke again.

“But of course. Running off and hiding in the bush, we don’t know where they get to—Jumping in the lake—Or did you mean don’t they die? There’s cases of things not working. Yes.”

But great things were coming, he said. The surgery he went in for was going to become as obsolete as bloodletting. A new drug was on the way. Streptomycin. Already used in trial. Some problems, naturally there would be problems. Toxicity of the nervous system. But there would be a way found to deal with that.

“Put the sawbones like me out of business.”

He washed the dishes, I dried. He put a dish towel round my waist to protect my dress. When the ends were efficiently tied he laid his hand against my upper back. Such firm pressure, fingers separated—he might almost have been taking stock of my body in a professional way. When I went to bed that night I could still feel that pressure. I felt it develop its intensity from the little finger to the hard thumb. I enjoyed it. That was more important really than the kiss placed on my forehead later, the moment before I got out of his car. A dry-lipped kiss, brief and formal, set upon me with hasty authority.

The key to his house showed up on the floor of my room, slipped under the door when I wasn’t there. But after all I couldn’t use it. If anybody else had made me this offer I would have jumped at the chance. Especially if it included a heater. But in this case his past and future presence would be drawing all ordinary comfort out of the situation and replacing it with a pleasure that was tight and nerve-racking rather than expansive. I would not be able to stop shivering even when it wasn’t cold, and I doubted whether I could have read a word.

I thought that Mary would probably appear, to scold me for missing Pinafore. I thought of saying that I had not been well. I’d had a cold. But then I remembered that colds in this place were a serious business, involving masks and disinfectant, banishment. And soon I understood that there was no hope of hiding my visit to the doctor’s house, in any case. It was a secret from nobody, not even, surely, from the nurses who said nothing, either because they were too lofty and discreet or because such carryings-on had ceased to interest them. But the aides teased me.

“Enjoy your supper the other night?”

Their tone was friendly, they seemed to approve. It looked as if my particular oddity had joined up with the doctor’s familiar and respected oddity, and that was all to the good. My stock had risen. Now, whatever else I was, I at least might turn out to be a woman with a man.

Mary did not put in an appearance all week.

“Next Saturday,” were the words that had been said, just before he administered the kiss. So I waited again on the front porch and this time he was not late. We drove to the house and I went into the front room while he got the fire going. There I noticed the dusty electric heater.

“Didn’t take me up on my offer,” he said. “Did you think I didn’t mean it? I always mean what I say.”

I said that I hadn’t wanted to come into town for fear of meeting Mary.

“Because of missing her concert.”

“That’s if you’re going to arrange your life to suit Mary,” he said.

The menu was much the same as before. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, corn niblets instead of peas. This time he let me help in the kitchen, even asking me to set the table.

“You may as well learn where things are. It’s all fairly logical, I believe.”

This meant that I could watch him working at the stove. His easy concentration, economical movements, setting up in me a procession of sparks and chills.

We had just begun the meal when there was a knock at the door. He got up and drew the bolt and in burst Mary.

She was carrying a cardboard box which she set on the table. Then she threw off her coat and displayed herself in a red-and-yellow costume.

“Happy late Valentine’s Day,” she said. “You never came to see me in the concert so I brought the concert to you. And I brought you a present in the box.”

Her excellent balance allowed her to stand on one foot while she kicked off first one boot, then the other. She pushed them out of her way and began to prance around the table, singing at the same time in a plaintive but vigorous young voice.