Lora sat on her cushion, not moving. But he was going, no doubt about it; already he was halfway across the room; in another instant his hand would be on the doorknob.
“Pete!” she cried, scrambling to her feet.
He glared at her with his deep-set eyes.
“Look here,” he said, “you’d better let me go. I’m no good for you. You’re no maid of pleasure, nor wife on half rations either. That shouldn’t make any difference, not to me, but it does. What you want is a husband and a little house at Oak Park with a garage and peony bushes. I have other plans. Good night.”
Lora felt that she would never swallow again. Could she speak?
“Don’t go,” she said.
“Good night, I tell you.”
“No. Don’t go.”
He took his hand from the doorknob and turned towards her, his broad shoulders and his head bent a little forward as he peered at her across the room.
“If I stay, I stay.” He laughed, a short roar of a laugh. “I’ll bet you have no idea what that means.”
This to Lora, who that very afternoon, after Cecelia’s departure for her weekend at Eastview, had made the bed up with smooth clean sheets, though they were ordinarily changed on Monday! As she did that there had been nothing definite in her head, there had been no room for anything definite, it had been so filled with a wild and sweet bewilderment. Her hands, smoothing out the sheets, had not needed to know where their orders came from; nor did her tongue now, as she gave Pete look for look and said quietly:
“Come and sit down again.”
A little more than a month later, around the middle of May, Lora went to see a doctor. It was not easy to select one; there was nobody she dared ask, not even Pete, she thought. Finally, one evening on her way home from work, after having funked it for nearly two weeks, she stopped at a house three blocks down the street from the apartment which bore a sign in neat black and gold: Adrian Stephenson, M.D. She walked up and down on the sidewalk, passing the entrance half a dozen times, before she could screw her courage to the point of mounting the steps and ringing the bell.
She was shocked and indignant at the casualness of Dr. Stephenson’s manner. He was a ruddy bulky man, his hair almost white and his dark eyes almost concealed under the drapery of his brows, with a tenor voice and an engaging homely urbanity; and he asked her if she had had a cold recently and whether her bowels were regular. He also inquired regarding morning nausea and a score of other phenomena. There was no examination; he didn’t even take her pulse. When he asked if she was married the only answer he got was Lora’s quick flush that included even her ears.
“Nothing to brag about,” he said finally, looking at his watch. “Anybody might skip a period any time. Cold, or excitement, or a little congestion. Nature has her little pranks. Watch yourself and don’t do anything foolish and take one of these pills three times a day for four days and if necessary come back here four weeks from today at ten o’clock in the morning.”
“I can’t; I work.”
“All right, seven o’clock then.”
She paid him three dollars, and left, walking slowly and reluctantly down the street toward the apartment. Cecelia would be there, and she didn’t want to talk to her or listen to her. She wanted less, just now, to go to the room where Pete would be. She had overcome her dread and consulted the oracle, not without a vast swallowing of qualms and panic hesitations — and here she was, no better off than before. Another whole month of this business? Not even sure of what to hope for. That doctor was an ignorant old fool; surely there was some way of telling. Oh, she thought, and all her heart was in it— Oh, if she could only talk it over with Cecelia! But she pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head.
Four weeks later it was settled; Dr. Stephenson confessed that it would be most extraordinary for nature to carry a prank to this extreme, with all the corroborating symptoms. Yes, no doubt of it, another miracle had been performed, as he playfully put it. Then, as Lora sat and stared helplessly at him, he volunteered an offer to act as guide and counsellor during the pre-natal period, and got out of a drawer of his desk a card on which to record her name and address and other pertinent information. Lora stood up abruptly and shook her head.
“Thanks, no, it isn’t necessary. I shall probably be going home — that is — I don’t know what I’m going to do exactly—”
He insisted on the name and address with such emphasis that after she got out to the sidewalk again she kept looking back over her shoulder, wondering if she were being followed. Then she felt the absurdity of it and resolutely kept her face straight ahead until she reached her own address; but there the impulse again overcame her, she couldn’t resist a swift anxious glance to the left as she entered the vestibule.
