Catherine’s room, where I had left my white gown. I put it on and pinned it in back at the neck. I looked in the glass and saw myself looking like a fake doctor with a beard. I went down the hail to the delivery room. The door was closed and I knocked. No one answered so I turned the handle and went in. The doctor sat by Catherine. The nurse was doing something at the other end of the room.
“Here is your husband,” the doctor said.
“Oh, darling, I have the most wonderful doctor,” Catherine said in a very strange voice. “He’s been telling me the most wonderful story and when the pain came too badly he put me all the way out. He’s wonderful. You’re wonderful, doctor.”
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“I know it,” Catherine said. “But you shouldn’t say it.” Then Give it to me. Give it to me. She clutched hold of the mask and breathed short and deep, pantingly, making the respirator click. Then she gave a long sigh and the doctor reached with his left hand and lifted away the mask.
“That was a very big one,” Catherine said. Her voice was very strange. “I’m not going to die now, darling. I’m past where I was going to die. Aren’t you glad?”
“Don’t you get in that place again.”
“I won’t. I’m not afraid of it though. I won’t die, darling.”
“You will not do any such foolishness,” the doctor said. “You would not die and leave your husband.”
“Oh, no. I won’t die. I wouldn’t die. It’s silly to die. There it comes. Give it to me.”
After a while the doctor said, “You will go out, Mr. Henry, for a few moments and I will make an examination.”
