The girl sprang past Sheila toward the door. “Come! What are we waiting for?”
“But he doesn’t know you are here yet,” parried the nurse.
“Let’s go and tell him, then. He always adored surprises.” The dimples in her cheeks danced in anticipation while she took Sheila’s hand and tried to drag her nearer the door. But at the threshold something in the woman’s face stopped her. She hesitated. “Maybe—maybe he doesn’t like surprises any more.” Again the impulsive hands were thrust into the nurse’s. “Tell me, tell me honestly—You said you sent for me. Was it—Didn’t he want me—to come?”
And Sheila, remembering what the boy had loved about her, gave her back the truth: “No, he has grown afraid of you. That’s another thing you will have to bring back to him with the songs and the sunlight—his love for you.”
Her hand was flung aside and the girl flew past her, back to the wicker chair under Old King Cole. Burying her head in her arms, she burst into uncontrollable sobs, while Sheila stood motionless in the doorway and waited. She must have waited an hour before the girl raised her eyes, wet as her own. For Sheila knew that a woman’s soul was being born into the world, and none understood better than she what the agony of travail meant to the child who was giving it birth.
“Come,” said Sheila, gently.
The girl rose uncertainly; all the divine assurance of youth was gone. “I think I see,” she began unsteadily. “I think I can.”
“I know you can.” And this time there was no doubt in Sheila’s heart.
She saw to it that the little mother had been called away before they reached the Surgical, so that the room was empty except for the occupant of the cot. “Hello, boy!” she called, triumphantly, from the doorway. “I have brought you the best present a soldier ever had,” and she pushed Clarisse into the room and closed the door.
For a moment those two young creatures looked at each other, overcome with confusion and the self-consciousness of their own great change.