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Page 71
The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward.
"Then she--isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, she
flushed painfully.
Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in her
eyes.
"Well, no," she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She's
a fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do.
Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn't
he be always throwing it up to her?"
The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophy
of life.
"Have--have you a baby here?" she asked timidly.
"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. She
turned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny red
atom, so like the others that only mother love could have
distinguished it.
"This is mine," she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?"
The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child.
"He--he's very little," she said.
"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last six
months--eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. The
little devil!"
She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleeping
form. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thing
to say.
"Does--does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. But
apparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. The
mandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and,
vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door.
Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, with
tired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table.
The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From the
blankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan--of
hurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, so
relentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Then
she gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down the
hall.
The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill,
high wail, a rising and falling note of distress--the voice of a new
soul in protest. She went past with averted face.
Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl up
bodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood back
and smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips.
"Well," she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's no
picnic, is it?"
The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of her
features in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodless
refinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had been
through the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyes
were hard.
"Go away," she said petulantly.
Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.
"You sleep now," she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can have
a cup of tea."
The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz's
face.
"I don't want to sleep," she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to live
and so am I!"
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