and carried the sick child into the parlor. “I’ll have to go down to my
office to get some medicine, Kronborg. The drug store won’t be open.
Keep the covers on her. I won’t be gone long. Shake down the stove and
put on a little coal, but not too much; so it’ll catch quickly, I mean.
Find an old sheet for me, and put it there to warm.”
The doctor caught his coat and hurried out into the dark street. Nobody
was stirring yet, and the cold was bitter. He was tired and hungry and
in no mild humor. “The idea!” he muttered; “to be such an ass at his
age, about the seventh! And to feel no responsibility about the little
girl. Silly old goat! The baby would have got into the world somehow;
they always do. But a nice little girl like that—she’s worth the whole
litter. Where she ever got it from—” He turned into the Duke Block and
ran up the stairs to his office.
Thea Kronborg, meanwhile, was wondering why she happened to be in the
parlor, where nobody but company—usually visiting preachers—ever
slept. She had moments of stupor when she did not see anything, and
moments of excitement when she felt that something unusual and pleasant
was about to happen, when she saw everything clearly in the red light
from the isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner—the nickel trimmings
on the stove itself, the pictures on the wall, which she thought very
beautiful, the flowers on the Brussels carpet, Czerny’s “Daily Studies”
which stood open on the upright piano. She forgot, for the time being,
all about the new baby.
When she heard the front door open, it occurred to her that the pleasant
thing which was going to happen was Dr. Archie himself. He came in and
warmed his hands at the stove. As he turned to her, she threw herself
wearily toward him, half out of her bed. She would have tumbled to the
floor had he not caught her. He gave her some medicine and went to the
kitchen for something he needed. She drowsed and lost the sense of his
being there. When she opened her eyes again, he was kneeling before the
stove, spreading something dark and sticky on a white cloth, with a big
spoon; batter, perhaps. Presently she felt him taking off her nightgown.
He wrapped the hot plaster about her chest. There seemed to be straps
which he pinned over her shoulders. Then he took out a thread and needle
and began to sew her up in it. That, she felt, was too strange; she must
be dreaming anyhow, so she succumbed to her drowsiness.
Thea had been moaning with every breath since the doctor came back, but
she did not know it. She did not realize that she was suffering pain.
When she was conscious at all, she seemed to be separated from her body;
to be perched on top of the piano, or on the hanging lamp, watching the
doctor sew her up. It was perplexing and unsatisfactory, like dreaming.
She wished she could waken up and see what was going on.
The doctor thanked God that he had persuaded Peter Kronborg to keep out
of the way. He could do better by the child if he had her to himself. He
had no children of his own. His marriage was a very unhappy one. As he
lifted and undressed Thea, he thought to himself what a beautiful thing
a little girl’s body was,—like a flower. It was so neatly and
delicately fashioned, so soft, and so milky white. Thea must have got
her hair and her silky skin from her mother. She was a little Swede,
