Lottie had scarcely divested herself of hat and wraps when she entered her mother's bedroom, the child in her arms. Mrs. Payson's eyes were on the door—had been from the moment she heard the flurry of homecoming downstairs. As Lottie stood in the doorway a moment the sick woman's eyes dilated. She made as though to sit up. The nurse took the child from Lottie as she bent over to kiss her mother. Then, suddenly, she dropped to her knees at the side of the bed. "Oh, mama, it's so good to be home." She took one of the flaccid hands in her own firm vital grasp.
"H'm. Well, that's some good come of your leaving, anyway. You look handsome, Lottie. How've you got your hair done?"
"Just as I always had it, mama."
"Your face looks fuller, somehow. Let's see the young one."
The nurse turned and leaned over the bed. But at this final test of her good nature Claire, travel worn, bewildered, hungry, failed them. She opened wide her mouth, lurched in muscular rebellion, and emitted a series of ear-piercing screams against the world; against this strange person in white who held her; against that which stared at her from the bed.
"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Payson. "Take it away. I knew it. Don't you think for one minute I'm going to have any foreign baby screaming around this house, sick as I am. Not for a minute. I hope you're satisfied, Lottie. Running an orphan asylum in this house. Well, I've still got something to say."
But strangely enough she had little to say, after that. She showed small interest in the newcomer and they kept the baby out of the sick room. The little world of her bedside interested the sick woman more. She fancied them all in league against her. She would call Lottie to her bedside and send the nurse out of the room on some pretext or other that deceived no one.
"Lottie, come here. Listen. That woman has got to go. Why, she won't let me get up! I'm perfectly well."
"But perhaps you haven't quite got your strength, mama. You know it takes a while."
"I'll never get my strength back lying here. Was I ever a person to stay in bed?"