“Well, anyway, don’t leave it here. Take it away.”
Thereupon one of the two speakers seized the little thing and brought it into the dancing-hall.
It was an odd little baggage, with long, black, curly hair, and it weighed barely six pounds.
The two gentlemen went round the room and asked each lady if the child were hers. None claimed it.
Meanwhile two women entered the room that served as dressing-room and turned directly toward the bed where, as a last resort, the baby had been put. One of them asked, just as a few minutes before the man in the dancing-hall had asked:
“Whose child is this?”
The other woman replied:
“For Heaven’s sake what is it doing there? This is Lillie’s baby. It is only six weeks old and she brought it here with her. This really is no place for a baby of that age. Look out; you will break its neck if you hold it that way. The child is only six weeks old, I tell you.”
At this moment a woman ran from the other end of the hall. She uttered a cry and grasped the child. Blushing deeply she prepared to take it away, when one of the dancers said to her:
“She has made her entrance into society. Now she will have to stay here.”