Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/243

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anything to feed him. We're just trying to get you two used to each other."

The babies were collected again after twenty minutes. There was nothing to do now but lie blissfully still and think about the baby. It was cool in the room. Cool and very white and clean. No flies got through the careful screening, and the dark neighbors of the sanitarium were very quiet.

Dot cast an interested glance along the lines of her figure. Her stomach was flat! They had bound her tightly, and her hand roved lovingly over the place where had been the precious but uncomfortable lump. It didn't feel perfectly normal, of course; there was a little pain now and again, and her body protested if she tried to move, but that was nothing. Nothing. She had her baby.

She wondered what Eddie was doing. He would probably not be able to see her till evening. What would he think of the baby? It was so sweet, so pathetically tiny and defenseless. How could he help but love it? The best thing, however, was to go slow, see how he felt about it first before going into any ecstasies. If he still didn't like the baby, any enthusiasm she showed would probably alienate him still further.

No visitors came all morning. Dot and the other women held a desultory conversation. The topic was, of course, childbirth. The Jewess was the main speaker. The other woman preferred a book to conversation, but Dot regretted that she wasn't permitted more opportunity to air her experience.

The Jewess had a sister-in-law who had had eleven abortions. Dot was promised a glimpse of her; she was coming to visit that very evening. Dot would know her by the big diamond she wore. Her husband, the brother of Dot's informant, was very good to her. They had an apartment on Riverside Drive. How much was Dot's