The fine edge of the Nurse’s joy was dulled.  It is a characteristic of great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and here before her was dry-eyed despair.  It was Liz who finally decided her.

“I guess I’ll sit up with her to-night,” she said, approaching the table with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospital carpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers.  “I don’t like the way she watches the ceiling.”

“What do you mean, Elizabeth?” asked the Nurse.

“Time I had the twins—­that’s before your time,” said Liz—­“we had one like that.  She went out the window head first the night after the baby came, and took the kid with her.”

The Nurse rose with quick decision.

“We must watch her,” she said.  “Perhaps if I could find—­I think I’ll go to the telephone.  Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, and if Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o’clock, take it from her.  The child’s stuffed like a sausage every time I’m out for five minutes.”

Nurses know many strange things:  they know how to rub an aching back until the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change the bedding and the patient’s night-dress without rolling the patient over more than once, which is a high and desirable form of knowledge.  But also they get to know many strange people; their clean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of the world and coming away unsoiled.  And so the Nurse went downstairs to the telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding.

The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed with the Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in her manicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking the telephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom.

“Yes,” she said indolently.

The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie’s voice took on a warmer tinge.

“Oh, yes,” she said.  “How are you?...  Claribel?  Yes; what about her?...  What!”

“Yes,” said the Nurse.  “A girl—­seven pounds.”

“My Gawd!  Well, what do you think of that!  Excuse me a moment; my cigarette’s set fire to the sheet.  All right—­go ahead.”

“She’s taking it pretty hard, and I—­I thought you might help her.  She—­she——­”

“How much do you want?” said Rose, a trifle coldly.  She turned in the bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow.  “Twenty enough?”

“I don’t think it’s money,” said the Nurse, “although she needs that too; she hasn’t any clothes for the baby.  But—­she’s awfully despondent—­almost desperate.  Have you any idea who the child’s father is?”

Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand and balancing the telephone with the other.

“She left me a year ago,” she said.  “Oh, yes; I know now.  What time is it?”

“Two o’clock.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Rosie.  “I’ll get the fellow on the wire and see what he’s willing to do.  Maybe he’ll give her a dollar or two a week.”