Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/178

 that pulled down tight on her head over her eyes and nose and showed only a very red, very provocative mouth to the boys on the street corners. There were still boys on the street corners, but they didn't notice her now. They didn't dream that a few short months before they would have shouted "Hello, girlie" to her as she passed. Yes, she with her feet in flat-heeled, broad-toed shoes, her cape wrapped protectingly around the precious lump, her slow, labored walk. She didn't use any rouge now; she just powdered. Rouge was foolish under the circumstances.

But she watched the other girls. She saw them in bright spring hats and boyish suits making for the subway. She saw them hopping in and out of cars, trailing an extra wrap carelessly upon their arms. She saw them in dazzling white, strolling beside smiling men carrying tennis rackets. She had never played tennis, but she felt now that she would like to. There were other girls. Millions of girls. The girl she always saw at the movies who was so terribly pretty. The girl next door who wore tight-fitting dresses and whose figure was so delightfully slim.

She noticed everybody now. She knew that she was a mess to look at. She couldn't sew well enough to make dresses that would artfully conceal her condition. She doubted that any one could. But what difference did it make after all? She was going to have her baby, only now that the appointed time was near, she was impatient. So painfully impatient.

Edna brought Dot a letter one night. It had come to Dot in careof "Mrs. Driggs." Inside there had been another sealed envelope addressed to "Dorothy." There had been no message for Edna. The letter was in the handwriting of Jim Haley.

"Guess he wants to make up with you," Edna remarked as she handed the letter to Dot. "Perhaps somebody told him about the baby."