The combined smell of ether and carbolic acid made Gloria a little
faint and dizzy as she walked through the hospital.
A fresh-cheeked nurse led her to a bare little room at the end of a
long hall on the third floor.
"As soon as they bring Mrs. Gregory down from the operating room,
I'll let you know," she said, and went away.
There was a pile of magazines on a fumed-oak table in the middle of
the room. Gloria picked one up, and settled down with it, in an
uncomfortable wicker rocking chair.
She turned the pages idly. Then she took off her hat and tossed it
onto the table. She leaned back against the chair and went to sleep.
She was awakened by the clatter of dishes and silver. Outside the
door of the waiting-room was a large cart, laden with trays of food
for the patients.
Gloria glanced at her wrist-watch. It was five-thirty. Surely it
must be time for them to be bringing Mother Gregory back from the
operating room....
At last, Gloria got up and walked out into the hall. A few yards
away from where she stood was another cart. From it came a tiny
sound, like the cheeping of small hungry robins. She walked over to
the cart.
On it, with their little pink hands waving in the air, were four
little babies tucked into a nest of soft white wool. Gloria looked
at them curiously.
"Aren't they the cutest things you ever saw?" asked a gay voice
behind Gloria. She turned to see the little fresh-faced nurse
standing there.
"It's their feeding time. That's why they're howling," she
explained. "I'd let you hold one of them for a minute, but it's
against the rules of the hospital."
Gloria shrank away from her.
"Oh, I wouldn't want to hold one!" she cried. "I'd be afraid of
hurting it! I don't know how to hold a baby!"
The little nurse stared.
"A woman doesn't have to learn how to hold a baby. She just knows
how, the minute she takes it in her arms. It's born in her," she
said.
She gave Gloria a queer, puzzled look as she trundled the baby cart
away.
"That is, it's born in most women," she added. "Of course, there are
a few that don't like babies, 'specially. But I think they're
unnatural and..."
Without finishing her sentence she vanished around a corner.
Presently another nurse came into sight.
"Are you Mrs. Gregory?" she asked. Gloria nodded.
"Dr. Seymour wanted me to tell you that the operation is over, and
that your mother-in-law came through it very well," she said. "And
he says if you'd like to see her, it's all right for you to, now."
"Will you take me to her room, then?" Gloria asked.
Mother Gregory lay on a narrow high bed in a white-walled room. Her
face was colorless and covered with sweat. She snored through her
parted lips.
As Gloria stood looking down at her, she half-opened her eyes. Her
lips moved. She was trying to say something.
Gloria bent her head to listen.
"Dick," she whispered, "Dick."
Then she lapsed into her stupor again.
Gloria tiptoed out of the room.
... There must be more to this baby business than she knew!
Here was Mother Gregory, thinking of her son the minute she came out
from under the anesthetic! He was still her baby ... the principal
thing in life to her.
And what was it the little pink-cheeked nurse had said? ... That
women who didn't want babies were unnatural women.
Gloria wondered if she were unnatural. She wondered what it would be
like to have a baby of her own.
When she got home Ranghild was setting the table. There was an
appetizing odor of dinner in the house.
Gloria ran upstairs. The door of Dick's room was closed. Miss
Briggs was talking in her low and lovely voice.
Gloria knelt down, and put her ear to the crack of the door. She
held her breath and listened.
Footfalls on the stairs--Ranghild to tell her that dinner was
ready--brought Gloria sharply to her feet.
"Will you fix a tray for Mr. Gregory and bring it up to him?" she
asked calmly, although she was sure Ranghild had seen her
eavesdropping at Dick's door. "And there may be a guest for supper,
too. Wait a minute and I'll let you know...."
She opened the door of Dick's room and went in.
Miss Briggs had stopped talking. And she and Dick fixed their eyes
on Gloria. She remembered the old saying:
"Two's company, three's a crowd."
But she smiled at Miss Briggs and asked how Dick had behaved himself
all afternoon.
"Wonderfully well," Miss Briggs answered. "He slept for more than an
hour."
"She read me to sleep," said Dick. "She has a voice that's as
soothing as rain on a roof."
Miss Briggs blushed with pleasure.
"Oh, dear," thought Gloria, "I wonder if Dick knows how the poor
thing adores him?"
Aloud she said, "Our dinner's ready, Miss Briggs. Will you come
downstairs and eat with me?"
Gloria saw that Miss Briggs was going to refuse to stay. Before she
could, Gloria went on:
"And then, perhaps, you'll read Dick to sleep again afterward?" she
asked. "He has a hard time getting to sleep lately. And Mrs. O'Hara
wants to stop giving him sleeping powders."
"Very well, I'll stay," Miss Briggs agreed stiffly.
But she turned on Dick a look of exaltation, as if she were telling
him there was nothing she wouldn't do for him ... even to eating a
meal with his silly little wife!
Gloria caught the look as she went out into the hall to tell Ranghild
to use the best napkins and to put on the salad forks. Then she and
Miss Briggs went downstairs.
"Where can I put these?" Dick's secretary asked as they went into the
dining-room. She held up a tight package of bills and letters,
rolled together by a rubber band.
Gloria took them from her and laid them on the sideboard.
"Dick says you pay all my bills for him. I'm afraid you think I'm
awfully extravagant," she said amiably.
Miss Briggs smiled her secret, tight-lipped smile.
"It's not part of my job to think about the bills I pay," she said
grimly. "I'm just a bookkeeper."
"I see," Gloria answered. "By the way, I'm getting a little surprise
ready for Dick.... All winter long he's been planning a rose garden
and vegetable garden for the back yard. Of course, he's too sick to
attend to it, and I thought I'd go ahead with it myself."
She stopped and looked down at her plate thoughtfully. Then she
raised her eyes candidly to Miss Briggs.
"If I do I've got to have some money," she said. "It costs a small
fortune for top-soil and rose bushes. Now, what I want to know is
whether you'd let me have the money without telling Dick about it.
You see I want to surprise him by having the garden all started by
the time he's well."
Miss Briggs hesitated. Her blue eyes were troubled.
"I've never drawn any of Mr. Gregory's money out of the bank without
asking him first," she said. "How much money would you want?"
"Two hundred dollars," Gloria said promptly. "I want to have a
trellis made for the side of the garage, too.... There's no reason
why you shouldn't let me have the money, Miss Briggs. Dick would be
spending it on the yard himself if he were up and around. I'm just
going to do it for him."
"That's true," Miss Briggs said. "Shall I send you a check for the
money, or do you want it in cash?"
"Cash," Gloria replied.
Miss Briggs buttered a piece of bread thoughtfully.
"I only want to do what's right..." she murmured.
After the meal she went upstairs and read Dick to sleep.
Down in the living-room Gloria sat, listening to the low droning
sound of her voice.
"She's the kind of woman Dick should have had for a wife," she said
to herself. "If he'd had any sense he'd have married her years ago."
She drove Miss Briggs home. On the way back she went into a drug
store and telephoned Stanley Wayburn.
"I'll have that money for you to-morrow, Stan," she said. "Meet me
at two o'clock at the usual place."