He draped himself grotesquely in his toweling bathrobe and a pink and white couch-cover, and sat lumpishly in a wing-chair.  The bedroom was uncanny in its half-light, which turned the curtains to lurking robbers, the dressing-table to a turreted castle.  It smelled of cosmetics, of linen, of sleep.  He napped and woke, napped and woke, a hundred times.  He heard her move and sigh in slumber; he wondered if there wasn’t some officious brisk thing he could do for her, and before he could quite form the thought he was asleep, racked and aching.  The night was infinite.  When dawn came and the waiting seemed at an end, he fell asleep, and was vexed to have been caught off his guard, to have been aroused by Verona’s entrance and her agitated “Oh, what is it, Dad?”

His wife was awake, her face sallow and lifeless in the morning light, but now he did not compare her with Tanis; she was not merely A Woman, to be contrasted with other women, but his own self, and though he might criticize her and nag her, it was only as he might criticize and nag himself, interestedly, unpatronizingly, without the expectation of changing—­or any real desire to change—­the eternal essence.

With Verona he sounded fatherly again, and firm.  He consoled Tinka, who satisfactorily pointed the excitement of the hour by wailing.  He ordered early breakfast, and wanted to look at the newspaper, and felt somehow heroic and useful in not looking at it.  But there were still crawling and totally unheroic hours of waiting before Dr. Patten returned.

“Don’t see much change,” said Patten.  “I’ll be back about eleven, and if you don’t mind, I think I’ll bring in some other world-famous pill-pedler for consultation, just to be on the safe side.  Now George, there’s nothing you can do.  I’ll have Verona keep the ice-bag filled—­might as well leave that on, I guess—­and you, you better beat it to the office instead of standing around her looking as if you were the patient.  The nerve of husbands!  Lot more neurotic than the women!  They always have to horn in and get all the credit for feeling bad when their wives are ailing.  Now have another nice cup of coffee and git!”

Under this derision Babbitt became more matter-of-fact.  He drove to the office, tried to dictate letters, tried to telephone and, before the call was answered, forgot to whom he was telephoning.  At a quarter after ten he returned home.  As he left the down-town traffic and sped up the car, his face was as grimly creased as the mask of tragedy.

His wife greeted him with surprise.  “Why did you come back, dear?  I think I feel a little better.  I told Verona to skip off to her office.  Was it wicked of me to go and get sick?”

He knew that she wanted petting, and she got it, joyously.  They were curiously happy when he heard Dr. Patten’s car in front.  He looked out of the window.  He was frightened.  With Patten was an impatient man with turbulent black hair and a hussar mustache—­Dr. A. I. Dilling, the surgeon.  Babbitt sputtered with anxiety, tried to conceal it, and hurried down to the door.