It was not a sinister silence. No silence is sinister until it acquires
a background of understandable menace. Here there was only the night
quiet of Maternity, the silence of noiseless rubber heels on the
hospital corridor floor, the faint brush of starched white skirts
brushing through doorways into darkened and semi-darkened rooms.
But there was something wrong with the silence in the "basket room" of
Maternity, the glass-walled room containing row on row, the tiny hopes
of tomorrow. The curtain was drawn across the window through which,
during visiting hours, peered the proud fathers who did the hoping. The
night-light was dim.
The silence should not have been there.
Lorry Kane, standing in the doorway, looked out over the rows of silent
baskets and felt her blonde hair tighten at the roots. The tightening
came from instinct, even before her brain had a chance to function, from
the instincts and training of a registered nurse.
Thirty-odd babies grouped in one room and--_complete silence_.
Not a single whimper. Not one tiny cry of protest against the annoying
phenomenon of birth.
Thirty babies--_dead_? That was the thought that flashed, unbidden, into
Lorry's pretty head. The absurdity of it followed swiftly, and Lorry
moved on rubber soles between a line of baskets. She bent down and
explored with practiced fingers.
A warm, living bundle in a white basket.
The feeling of relief was genuine. Relief, even from an absurdity, is a
welcome thing. Lorry smiled and bent closer.
Staring up at Lorry from the basket were two clear blue eyes. Two eyes,
steady and fixed in a round baby face. An immobile, pink baby face
housing two blue eyes that stared up into Lorry's with a quiet
concentration that was chilling.
Lorry said, "What's the matter with you?" She spoke in a whisper and was
addressing herself. She'd gone short on sleep lately--the only way,
really, to get a few hours with Pete. Pete was an interne at General
Hospital, and the kind of a homely grinning carrot-top a girl like Lorry
could put into dreams as the center of a satisfactory future.