The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in a sachet.

Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put it back in its crib.  And then she rustled starchily back to the throne-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the place where it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldstein baby—­bran baths, and the other thing written just below.

III

The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance, the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medical staff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty.

Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms; and, as the song went on, Liz’s eyes fell to her child and stayed there.

At three o’clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along the hall—­Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under a gaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupported and wrapper-clad.  She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however, and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending it with a regal gesture to the elevator-man.

“Here, old sport,” she said, “go and blow yourself to a drink.  It’s Easter.”

Such munificence appalled the ward.

Rosie was not alone.  Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al.  The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie’s arm.

“Gee, Rose, I’m not going in there,” he said.  But Rosie pulled him in and presented him to the Nurse.

Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the open window, had taken to staring at the ceiling again.

When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she had moaned and put her fingers in her ears.

“Well, I found him,” said Rosie cheerfully.  “Had the deuce of a time locating him.”  And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and just now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him.

“We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you,” she said, and took him to the screen.  “Just five minutes, and you must do the talking.”

Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and the mystery of the white screen.  A vision of Claribel as he had seen her last, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure and accusing of voice, held him back.  A faint titter of derision went through the room.  He turned on Rosie’s comfortable back a look of black hate and fury.  Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and he was looking at Claribel—­a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying now with closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek.

The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance.  He put his hat awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on the edge of the stiff chair.