ment. She displayed the baby's wardrobe. She smiled.
Maude went, feeling that Dot was even dumber than she and Ted had ever dreamed. "A typical peasant," thought Maude. "Too damn simple to feel uncomfortable."
When Maude slammed the big door downstairs, Dot went to her room and with a tiny groan collapsed on the bed. If her baby hurt her, nobody should know about it. Not now when he was still unborn, or not later when he was a man who laughed at her advice. Nobody should ever know when her baby hurt her—least of all Maude. But it wasn't really the baby, it was the scheme to hasten his arrival which hurt. It hurt, and she had had to entertain Maude.
Isn't there anybody up there who looks after the comfort of pregnant women, God? Couldn't somebody give, say, an hour a day to mapping out a few hours of calm for them? They are so at the mercy of chance visitors, of climate, of financial conditions. Couldn't it be arranged, God, please?
Eddie came in carrying dinner. Ham, eggs, potato chips, baked beans, bread, and two cherry tarts. Dot felt too wretched to stand at the stove frying the ham and eggs. The sight of her warm, unhappy face and the dejection with which her eyes were filled, caused Eddie himself to doubt that he wanted dinner. But maybe she would eat something.
He prepared the dinner. He had never heard of parboiling; so the ham proved too salty to be enjoyed by the most ravenous of mortals. The yolk of each and every egg had scattered into a wide, jagged splotch of hot gold. The potato chips were soggy. The beans had scorched. Dot nibbled obligingly at everything. She consumed half a cherry tart and drank a glass of iced coffee.
A sudden flush of heat, not traceable to the temperature of the room, sent her to the sofa away from the
