Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/248

 Mrs. Lensky sat down and sulked. Miss Parsons had no right to talk to her that way. Mrs. Lensky guessed that Miss Parsons didn't know what the name Lensky meant in the cloak-and-suit world. Hm! She could have had the best private room in the house and a special nurse if she'd wanted it, but she had preferred the company of other mothers and had taken this instead. Mrs. Lensky guessed that there were a lot of things Miss Parsons didn't know.

Dot looked the anthology over. She looked it over twice. She decided she might just as well pick one poem out and begin. She picked "Portrait of a Lady" by T. S. Eliot.

When Miss Parsons brought Dot's baby in at four o'clock, she found the baby's mother deep in gentle sleep and thought it rather a shame that she had to awaken her.

Eddie walked in a few minutes after five. He had gone home first and had shaved and changed into his new blue suit. To Dot's anxious question he answered that he had had sandwiches and coffee.

"You look wonderful, Kid," he said in honest amazement.

Miss Parsons brought him a chair and got a vase foi the bouquet of which Eddie had gratefully relieved himself upon first glance at Dot's table.

He sat down on the edge of the chair and tried to keep his eyes fixed on Dot. The two other women, so much at ease in their nightgowns, so unaffected by the presence of a male stranger, confused him. Surely he ought not to look at them, but he couldn't keep his back turned when Mrs. Lensky, who was once again in bed, thought it only courteous to inform him that he had a wonderful son. There had been no introductions made, but Mrs. Lensky was at heart a sociable woman.