Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/276

 ready to be discharged. Dot wondered if ever in her life again she would be waited upon. Probably not. There would very likely be no serious illness which would send her to the hospital, and she would try not to have any more children. No, never again would a tray be brought to her bedside. Hospitals were the only places where that was done, and she never expected to enter another.

Dot went to the bathroom and washed her face and hands. She brushed her teeth and combed her hair. Tomorrow night she would be doing this in her own bathroom!

The ward was dark when she returned to her bed. Dot lay very still and tried to sleep. The party across the way was rapidly rising to a glorious peak. The husky, deep voice of a dusky woman reached Dot's ears.

Dot smiled. The woman who sang would be a creamy shade of tan with black bobbed hair and gold circlets in her ears. She would have flashing white teeth, and perhaps she'd wear a red dress. Once a girl like that had come to the Poppyland Dance Hall. It was only by her escort's looks that the manager had been sure she was colored. They had been put out, of course. It had ruined Sue Cudahy's whole evening. Sue had felt sort of contaminated; so they had all gone over to Maude McLaughlin's to forget the unpleasant episode.

Dot fell asleep, but her thoughts continued unbroken. She fancied that the colored girl with the golden circlets was lying in the bed next to her. They talked about childbirth.