"All right, Sue." Dot knew that she could depend on Edna to see that Sue didn't make a night of it.
She had no appetite at all for lunch. She wanted to go home. She longed for the sight of her delft-blue living-room and for a cup of coffee such as came only from her own little percolator. She thought of the dinner which Edna would have ready for her and was horrified to find that it awakened not the slightest desire. Well, she'd have to make a bluff at enjoying it if her appetite was not aroused by the cheering sight of her own home.
Bill came and took the tray away. Dot rouged and powdered again. She started another story in the magazine and laid it aside without finishing it. She strolled past the nursery, trying to get a peep at her baby. She failed in her effort. She tried to hold a conversation with the woman whose child had died. This effort also failed. There was absolutely nothing she could do.
"Why don't you lie down and take a nap?" Miss Parsons suggested.
Dot thanked her and curled up on the bed. She lay there for forty minutes and then got up. It was useless. She could not sleep, but anyhow forty minutes had passed.
She was going home, and nobody seemed to realize the importance of it. Miss Parsons advised a nap, and Eddie seemed to think that he was going to keep her cooped up in the sanitarium till five o'clock. Even the baby thought this was the same as other days.
It was a quarter of three when Eddie came in. He had had to go home first and gather up the baby's clothes and get into his new blue suit. He had shaved and had washed his hands with Gre-solvent. Dot untied the very neat bundle which Eddie had made of the baby's things and counted them over carefully. He hadn't forgotten anything. Everything was all right, except that he had brought Mrs. Cudahy's bootees instead of Miss Eiden's.
