Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/118

 Dot was overawed at the easy, almost doctorlike way that Maude gave out her information. She sat with her legs crossed carelessly, the child in her arms, a cigarette in her mouth. Once she removed the cigarette for the express purpose of kissing the baby. Dot was enchanted with Maude's worldliness.

"Gee, you know a lot," she murmured, devoutly. "Did the doctor tell you or did you read it in a book?"

Maude laughed a little. "Dot, you're wonderful," she said. "I don't know whether to kiss you or to kill you. You might go to hell, Kid, but it won't be from lack of faith."

"What do you mean, Maude?"

Maude sighed. "You must be kidding me," she said. "Nobody could be so thick, but anyhow I'll write you an address where you can go and get fixed up. Don't let them charge you over fifty dollars."

Dot gasped. "Fifty dollars!"

Maude looked at her in surprise.

"Holy God, Kid," she said, "you didn't expect to beat that price, did you? I know a girl who pays three hundred for every one she has."

"Three hundred!"

Maude shrugged. "It's a bootleg operation, Kid. If it was legal it wouldn't be worth more than ten dollars, but the country says 'No abortions'; so dumb doctors who couldn't cure a split lip get rich on doing them."

Maude's words didn't reach Dot's consciousness. She was thinking of the price. Fifty dollars! Could Eddie raise fifty dollars?

Maude followed her train of thought.

"You can have a baby for nothing," she said. "The hospitals are wide open to the woman who wants to have a baby, but to the woman who doesn't want one—that's a different thing. High prices, fresh doctors. It's a man's