"No," he said all at once, "I want to see for myself." He walked into the room where Angela was now lying on the operating table in the centre of the room. A six-globed electrolier blazed close overhead. At her head was Dr. Willets, administering the anæsthetic. On the right side was Dr. Lambert, his hands encased in rubber gloves, bloody, totally unconscious of Eugene, holding a scalpel. One of the two nurses was near Angela's feet, officiating at a little table of knives, bowls, water, sponges, bandages. On the left of the table was Miss De Sale. Her hands were arranging some cloths at the side of Angela's body. At her side, opposite Dr. Lambert, was another surgeon whom Eugene did not know. Angela was breathing stertorously. She appeared to be unconscious. Her face was covered with cloths and a rubber mouth piece or cone. Eugene cut his palms with his nails.
So they have to operate, after all, he thought. She is as bad as that. The Cæsarian operation. Then they couldn't even get the child from her by killing it. Seventy-five per cent. of the cases recorded were successful, so the book said, but how many cases were not recorded. Was Dr. Lambert a great surgeon? Could Angela stand ether—with her weak heart?
He stood there looking at this wonderful picture while Dr. Lambert quickly washed his hands. He saw him take a small gleaming steel knife—bright as polished silver. The old man's hands were encased in rubber gloves, which looked bluish white under the light. Angela's exposed flesh was the color of a candle. He bent over her.
"Keep her breathing normal if you can," he said to the young doctor. "If she wakes give her ether. Doctor, you'd better look after the arteries."
He cut softly a little cut just below the centre of the abdomen apparently, and Eugene saw little trickling streams of blood spring where his blade touched. It did not seem a great cut. A nurse was sponging away the blood as fast as it flowed. As he cut again, the membrane that underlies the muscles of the abdomen and protects the intestines seemed to spring into view.
"I don't want to cut too much," said the surgeon calmly—almost as though he were talking to himself. "These intestines are apt to become unmanageable. If you just lift up the ends, doctor. That's right. The sponge, Miss Wood. Now, if we can just cut here enough"—he was cutting again like an honest carpenter or cabinet worker.
He dropped the knife he held into Miss Wood's bowl of water. He reached into the bleeding, wound, constantly sponged by the nurse, exposing something. What was that? Eugene's heart jerked. He was reaching down now in there with his middle finger—his fore and middle fingers afterwards, and saying, "I don't find the leg. Let's see. Ah, yes. Here we have it!"
"Can I move the head a little for you, doctor?" It was the young doctor at his left talking.
"Careful! Careful! It's bent under in the region of the coccyx. I have it now, though. Slowly, doctor, look out for the placenta."
Something was coming up out of this horrible cavity, which was trickling with blood from the cut. It was queer a little foot, a leg, a body, a head.