"Isn't there anything that can be done to relieve her of this pain?" Eugene asked wearily at one point. His own nerves were torn. "She can't stand anything like that. She hasn't the strength."
She shook her head placidly. "There isn't a thing that anyone can do. We can't give her an opiate. It stops the process. She just has to bear it. All women do."
"All women," thought Eugene. Good God! Did all women go through a siege like this every time a child was born? There were two billion people on the earth now. Had there been two billion such scenes? Had he come this way?—Angela? every child? What a terrible mistake she had made—so unnecessary, so foolish. It was too late now, though, to speculate concerning this. She was suffering. She was agonizing.
The house surgeon came back after a time to look at her condition, but was not at all alarmed apparently. He nodded his head rather reassuringly to Miss De Sale, who stood beside him. "I think she's doing all right," he said.
"I think so, too," she replied.
Eugene wondered how they could say this. She was suffering horribly.
"I'm going into Ward A for an hour," said the doctor. "If any change comes you can get me there."
"What change could come," asked Eugene of himself, "any worse than had already appeared?" He was thinking of the drawings, though, he had seen in the book—wondering if Angela would have to be assisted in some of the grim, mechanical ways indicated there. They illustrated to him the deadly possibilities of what might follow.
About midnight the expected change, which Eugene in agonized sympathy was awaiting, arrived. Myrtle had not returned. She had been waiting to hear from Eugene. Although Angela had been groaning before, pulling herself tense at times, twisting in an aimless, unhappy fashion, now she seemed to spring up and fall as though she had fainted. A shriek accompanied the movement, and then another and another. He rushed to the door, but the nurse was there to meet him.
"It's here," she said quietly. She went to a phone outside and called for Dr. Willets. A second nurse from some other room came in and stood beside her. In spite of the knotted cords on Angela's face, the swollen veins, the purple hue, they were calm. Eugene could scarcely believe it, but he made an intense effort to appear calm himself. So this was childbirth!