Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/127

 tween going to that dirty office and being mercilessly pawed or submitting to the unbearable pain of childbirth. The second way seemed by far the more desirable, perhaps because it was a delayed punishment while the other was directly upon her. Whether that was the reason or not, Dot preferred the natural course; but then there would be Eddie looking gloomy and blue. This time next week it would be over, and they would be abie to talk to each other again and go to the movies and laugh. There is no law that can stop a woman from having a baby once Nature has given her the opportunity, but Dot doubted that any woman had ever had one without her husband's sanction. It would indeed be over in a week from now, for Eddie would continue to look dismal until the possibility of his being a father had passed. She would go as soon as Eddie got the fifty dollars. Too bad he didn't want a baby. She would be able to face the unbelievable agony of which Maude had spoken if he were only with her. But he wasn't. They weren't allies in the crisis. He was far off somewhere thinking his own thoughts, probably calling her a fool for having got into this mess. She would go back to Dr. Griegman, and he, for the small sum of fifty dollars, would put Eddie back in a good humor again. She turned wearily on the couch, and Eddie looked up at her.

Poor kid! Trying to make up her mind. Well, she'd have to come to a decision by herself. A man would have a hell of a nerve to tell her to go ahead and have the baby. It was her job to bear the pain, her job to tend the little thing for years to come. What right had a man to say what she should do?

Advice in the opposite direction was an impossibility. It was murder as Eddie saw it, murder to snuff out the little germ of life that flickered so uncertainly, that little germ that grew to be a kid in overalls with a dirty face