Finally, the younger woman broke out: “Oh, I’ll go crazy if I just stay here! I’m going upstairs to see the nurse again.”
In an instant she was back, her face whiter than before.
“It’s a boy—alive, all right—half an hour ago. Would you think they’d let us sit here and never tell us—” Her voice changed. “A little boy—” She sat down.
“How is Lydia?” asked Lydia’s sister.
“—a little boy,” said Madeleine. She addressed the other woman peremptorily. “I want him! You can have Ariadne!” She flushed as she spoke, and added defiantly: “I know I always said I didn’t want children!”
“How is Lydia?” Marietta broke in with an angry impatience.
“Very low, the nurse said; Dr. Melton wouldn’t give any hope.”
Marietta’s face twitched. Her large white hands clasped each other hard.
“I’m going into the doctor’s office to telephone my husband,” went on Madeleine; “there’s not a minute to lose.”
After she was alone, Mrs. Mortimer’s thin, dark face settled into tragic repose. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes, from which a slow tear ran down over her sallow cheeks. There was no sound but the patter of summer rain on the porch roof outside.