that he had taken the very heart out of her courage. She thought
with anguished envy of the women whose husbands loved them, for
whom the heights and depths of this ordeal were as real as for
their wives. It seemed to her that even the severest of pain
could be wholly bearable if, in the midst of it, one felt
cherished. Well, she would go through it alone as she had gone
through everything else since their marriage. She would try to
forget Martin. She WOULD forget him. She must. She would keep her
mind fixed on the deep joy so soon to be hers. Had she not chosen
to suffer of her own free will, because the little creature that
could be won only through it was worth so much more than anything
else the world had to offer? She imagined the baby already
arrived and visualized him as she hoped her child might be at two
years. Suppose he were in a burning house, would she have the
courage to rescue him? What would be the limit of her endurance
in the flames? She laughed to herself at the absurdity of the
question. How well she knew its answer! She wished with
passionate intensity that she could look into the magic depths of
some fairy mirror and see, for just the flash of one instant,
exactly how her boy or girl really would look. How much easier
that would make it to hold fast to the consciousness that she was
not merely in pain, but was laboring to bring forth a warm
flesh-and-blood child. There was the rub--in spite of her
eagerness, the little one, so priceless, wasn't as yet quite
definite, real. She recalled the rosy-checked, curly-haired
youngster her fancy had created a moment ago. She would cling to
that picture; yes, even if her pain mounted to agony, it should
be of the body only; she would not let it get into her mind, not
into her soul, not into the welcoming mother-heart of her.