As she spoke the bell of the telephone instrument on the table beside her rang imperatively and she lifted the receiver. Magda, watching her face as she took the message, saw it suddenly blanch.
“Coppertop! . . . He’s ill!” she gasped.
“Ill?” Magda could hardly credit it. Two hours ago they had left the child in perfect health.
“Yes.” Gillian swallowed, moistening her dry lips. “They’ve sent for the doctor. It’s croup. Oh!”—despairingly, and letting the receiver fall unheeded from her grasp—“What am I to do? What am I to do?”
Magda stepped forward, the filmy draperies of the dress in which she was to dance floating cloudily about her as she moved. She picked up the receiver as it hung dangling aimlessly from the stand and replaced it on its clip.
“Do?” she said quietly. “Why, you’ll go straight home, of course. As quickly as the car can take you. Virginie”—turning to the maid—“fly and order the car round at once.”
Gillian looked at her distractedly.
“But you? Who’ll play for you? I can’t go! I can’t leave you!” Her voice was shaken by sobs. “Oh, Coppertop!”
Magda slipped a comforting arm round her shoulder.
“Of course you’ll go—and at once, too. See, here’s your coat”—lifting it up from the back of the chair where Gillian had thrown it. “Put it on.”