“And you have a baby!”
“Quite a darling. Here, look at it.”
She pushed the corner of the blanket back from a queer little wrinkled face. Two tiny crumpled fists lay close to the red cheeks.
“Is it a girl?”
“Yes—that’s why I wanted to see you. Can I call it Horatia?”
“After me—but why after me?”
“Because,” said Grace, smiling a little pathetically, “I’d like to have her be like you. Bring her up so that she would be.”
Horatia recovered her poise. She sat down by the bedside.
“I shall be very proud to have that cunning thing have my name,” she answered, “and please, may I know about it?”
“There’s not much to know. It happened. Sometimes such things do happen. At first I thought I wouldn’t have it. Then as I faced the idea of abortion, I couldn’t. Something bigger than me—something racial, I suppose—took hold of me. So I made plans—dressed cleverly and two months ago went on my vacation—buried myself in a lodging house as Mrs. Gordon. Then I came to the hospital when it was about to come. Nobody knows what fun I had creating a character for the records.”