Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/135

 that are a cinch. Do you still want her to be operated on after what I told you about burn doctors and all?"

"It's up to her."

Suddenly a climax had been reached in the scene. Two pairs of eyes turned upon Dot. The two people in the world who cared for her were awaiting her answer. She was startled by the abruptness of the move. The decision which she had reached again and again now seemed foolish. After all, it was her body that was to be the battle-field. She had been wrong. It was her place to do what she pleased, not to stand by and wait for Eddie to pass judgment. Deciding in favor of Griegman when every impulse cried against it had been absurd. She felt terribly happy and peaceful as she said, "I'll have the baby."

And then she looked at Eddie's face. It was a mask of gloom and despair. She had chosen wrong, perhaps, but she would stand or fall by that decision.

She had no way of knowing that Eddie had just seen himself arguing with a conductor that Junior was only three years old, and that then Junior, conductor, and car had faded into space as a vision of Dot, cold and stiff on a hospital bed, had come into his mind.

He smiled sourly. "Satisfied, Edna?" he asked. "These women who want to be Jesus Christ sure do beat me."