It was very hard. She didn't want to think, but she must. She must begin with something she knew. She knew who she was. She was Rose—Rodney's Rose. Here was his mouth down close to the pillow saying her name over and over and over again. And she was in her own bed. But what had happened? She must try to remember. She remembered something she had said—said to herself over and over again an illimitable while ago. "It's coming. The miracle's beginning." What had she meant by that?
And then she knew. The urgency of a sudden terror gave her her voice.
"Roddy," she said. "There was going to be a—baby. Isn't there?"
Something queerly like a laugh broke his voice when he answered. "Oh, you darling! Yes. It's all right. That isn't why I'm crying. It's just because I'm so happy."
"But the baby!" she persisted. "Why isn't it here?"
Rodney turned and spoke to some one else. "She wants to see," he said. "May she?"
And then a woman's voice (why, it was the nurse, of course! Miss Harris, who had come last night) said in an indulgent soothing tone, "Why, surely she may. Wait just a minute."
But the wait seemed hours. Why didn't they bring the baby—her baby? There! Miss Harris was coming at last, with a queerly bulky, shapeless bundle. Rodney stepped in between and cut off the view, but only to slide an arm under mattress and pillow and raise her a little so that she could see. And then, under her eyes, dark red and hairy against the whiteness of the pillow, were two small heads—two small shapeless masses leading away from them, twitching, squirming. She stared, bewildered.
"There were twins, Rose," she heard Rodney explaining triumphantly, but still with something that wasn't quite a laugh, "a boy and a girl. They're perfectly splendid. One weighs seven pounds and the other six."
Her eyes widened and she looked up into his face so that the pitiful bewilderment in hers was revealed to him.