Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/115

 "Good for you," she cried.

"Good!" Dot looked grieved at her friend's perversity. "It's hell."

"Why, what's the matter? You're married, ain't you?"

"Sure, but Eddie— I don't want a kid. Say, Sue, what do you do to get out of a mess like this?"

Sue, in turn, looked a trifle grieved. It was cruel and tactless of Dot to come to a girl on the brink of marriage and ask such a question.

"I really don't know anything about it," said Sue, a bit coldly.

Dot didn't "get" Sue's position at all.

"Gee, there must be something," she said. "Look, Sue, Pat's in a drug store. He can get me something, can't he?"

"Why, that's against the law, Dot. Pat would lose his job." Sue looked properly shocked at her friend's request.

"Well," said Dot, "all right. I'm sorry I asked."

Silence for a moment; then Dot spoke of the gorgeous winter coats in Koch's window.

It was just before she left to go home and fix Eddie's supper that Sue relented.

"Pat did get something once for the wife of a friend of his," she said. "I'll call him up, and you can send Eddie over to the store tonight and he'll let him have it."

Dot was grateful and said so. She went home feeling lighter of heart than she had felt for days. Everything was going to be right again.

Only Pat's wonderful remedy didn't help. Religiously Dot took it and each night when Eddie came home she sadly admitted that success had not crowned her efforts.

"All that rotten-tasting stuff," she thought, "just to keep a little crib out of the bedroom."

"She's afraid of being tied down," thought Eddie.

After a week, Dot stopped taking the stuff. She would almost have let things drift. She was tired of medicine