“Does—­does he look like his father?” she asked timidly.  But apparently Liz did not hear.  She had moved down the ward.  The mandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski’s bed, and, vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door.

Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, with tired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table.

The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass.  From the blankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan—­of hurt, defiant blue eyes.  She had never before seen life so naked, so relentless.  She shrank back against the wall, a little sick.  Then she gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down the hall.

The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill, high wail, a rising and falling note of distress—­the voice of a new soul in protest.  She went past with averted face.

Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl up bodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed.  Then she stood back and smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips.

“Well,” she said kindly, “it’s over, and here you are!  But it’s no picnic, is it?”

The girl on the bed turned her head away.  The coarsening of her features in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodless refinement.  With her bright hair, she looked as if she had been through the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold.  But her eyes were hard.

“Go away,” she said petulantly.

Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.

“You sleep now,” she said soothingly.  “When you wake up you can have a cup of tea.”

The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz’s face.

“I don’t want to sleep,” she said.  “My God, Liz, it’s going to live and so am I!”

II

Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she had oiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him a teaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, and went to her room to put on a fresh uniform.  The first thing she did, when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of her mother tucked in its frame, and survey herself.  When she saw her cap and the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, she frowned.

Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully in a glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over and kissed them.  After that she felt better.

She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought her colour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustled with each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally she tucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap, which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions.