"Oh, she took me to an awful slum before we left London," said Maud, in a sort of rapture—"you know we have been away at Manchester for a week with my father—and I gave them some things I had worked. I am doing a pair of socks for Dodo's baby."
Miss Grantham turned her attention to the stage.
"The Jewel song is perfectly lovely," she remarked. "I wish Edith was here. Don't you think that girl sings beautifully? I wonder who she is."
At that moment the door of the box opened, and Edith entered. She grasped the situation at once, and felt furiously angry with Miss Grantham and Jack. She determined to put a stop to it.
"Dear Mrs. Vane, you can't have heard. I only knew this evening, and I suppose Mrs. Vivian's note has missed you somehow. I have just left her, and she told me she had written to you. You know Dodo's baby has been very ill, quite suddenly, and this morning—yes, yes—"
Mrs. Vane started up distractedly.
"Oh, my poor Dodo," she cried, "I never knew! And here I am enjoying myself, when she—Maud, did you hear? Dodo's baby—only this morning. My poor Dodo!"
She began crying in a helpless sort of way.
Maud turned round with a face full of horror.
"How awful! Poor Dodo! Come, mother, we must go."