door close with a rushing thud. Then she went back to the bedroom and lay down to think it all out.
She was going to have her baby despite Eddie's grouches and everything else. She was going to have her baby. She felt that the whole undertaking had been moved to another plane. There was somebody looking after her child's well-being now. A good doctor was going to listen to her baby's heartbeats. Again and again her mind went over what Dr. Stewart had told her. "Your baby," he had said. Her baby. Oh, dear God, if there was only some one who could share her delight, some one who cared enough for that feeble little glow of life to picture it a year, two years from now, when it would be a little boy who could say "Mommie." Too bad Eddie didn't want it.
She had to cool her enthusiasm against his return. He had just begun to accept her again, and excitement over the kid that was coming to break up his night's rest would surely alienate him. She dressed and went around the corner to Dyckman Street. Eddie's supper had to be ready for him. Not that he had ever said anything about it, but Dot thought that a man's supper ought to really be ready for him.
She bought a pound of round steak and a can of corn. She had potatoes and butter and coffee and sugar and milk. Oh, bread. A small loaf of bread. How about breakfast? Were there eggs?
She forgot about the eggs, for suddenly a dreadful wave of dizziness swept over her. She dropped into a chair and watched the world go black before her eyes. The voice of the grocery clerk sounded very far away.
"Let me get you a drink."
She got home somehow or other. She remembered climbing the four flights of stairs. It seemed that never would she have her bundles safe on the kitchen table and her body limp on the sofa. Somehow she managed. And
