charmed,", murmured Mrs. Vane, as she rustled into the box. "Isn't it a lovely night? Dear Prince Waldenech met me in the hall, and he asked so affectionately after Dodo. Charming, wasn't it? Yes. And do you know Mr. Spencer, dear Miss Grantham? Shall we tell Miss Grantham and Mr. Broxton our little secret, Maud? Cupid has been busy here," she whispered, with a rich elaborateness to Miss Grantham. "Isn't it charming? We are delighted. Yes, Mr. Spencer, Miss Grantham and Mr. Broxton, of course—Mr. Spencer."
Mr. Spencer bowed and smiled, and conducted himself as he should. He was a fashionable rector in a rich parish, who had long felt that the rich deserved as much looking after as the poor, and had been struck with Maud's zeal for the latter, and thought it would fit in very well with his zeal for the former, had won Maud's heart, and now appeared as the happy accepted lover.
Mrs. Vane was anxious to behave in the way it was expected that she should, and, finding that Miss Grantham sat with her back to the stage and talked, took up a corresponding attitude herself. Miss Grantham quickly decided that she did not know about the death of Dodo's baby, and determined not to tell her. In the first place, it was to be supposed that she did not know either, and in the second, she was amused by the present company, and knew that to mention it was to break up the party.
Mr. Spencer had a little copy of the words, with the English on one side and the Italian on the other. When he came to a passage that he thought indelicate, he turned his attention to the Italian. Maud sat between him and Miss Grantham.
"I am so delighted, Maud," Miss Grantham was saying, "and I am sure Dodo will be charmed. She doesn't know yet, I suppose? When is it to be?"
"Oh, I don't quite know," said Maud confusedly. "Algy, that is Mr. Spencer, is going to leave London, you know, and take a living at Gloucester. I shall like that. There is a good deal of poverty at Gloucester."
Miss Grantham smiled sympathetically.
"How sweet of you," she said; "and you will go and work among the poor, and give them soup and prayer-books, won't you? I should love to do that. Mrs. Vivian will tell you all about those things, I suppose?"
"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."
Mr. Spencer dropped his English and Italian version.
"Let me see you to your carriage," he said. "Let me give you an arm, Mrs. Vane."
Maud turned to Jack, and for once showed some of Dodo's spirit.
"Mr. Broxton," she said, "I have an idea you knew. Perhaps I am wrong. If I am, I beg your pardon; if not, I consider you have behaved in a way I didn't expect of you, being a friend of Dodo's. I think—" she broke off, and followed the others. Jack felt horribly uncomfortable.
He and Edith and Miss Grantham stood in silence for a moment.
"It was horrible of you, Grantie," said Edith, "to let them sit here, and tell them nothing about it."
"My dear Edith, I could do nothing else," said Miss Grantham, in an even, calm voice. "There would have been a scene, and I can't bear scenes. There has been a scene as it is, but you are responsible for that. You are rather jumpy to-night. Where have you been?"
"I have been to see Mrs. Vivian," said Edith. "I wanted to know about this. I told her I was coming back here, and she gave me this for you, Mr. Broxton."
She handed him a note. Then she picked up her big score, and sat down again with her pencil.
The note contained only two lines, requesting Mr. Broxton to come and see her in the morning. Jack read it and tore it up. He felt undecided how to act. Edith was buried in her score, and gave no sign. Miss Grantham had resumed her place, and was gazing languidly, at the box opposite. He picked up his hat, and turned to leave. Edith looked up from her score.
"I think I ought to tell you," she said, "that Mrs. Vivian and I talked about you, and that note is the result. I don't care a pin what you think."
Jack opened his eyes in astonishment. Edith had always struck him as being rather queer; and this statement seemed to him very queer indeed. Her manner was not conciliatory.
He bowed.
"I feel complimented by being the subject of your conversation," he replied with well-bred insolence, and closed the door behind him.
Miss Grantham laughed. A scene like this pleased her; it struck her as pure comedy.
"Really, Edith, you are very jumpy; I don't understand you a bit. You are unnecessarily rude. Why did you say you did not care a pin what he thought?"
"You won't understand, Grantie," said Edith. "Don't you see how dangerous it is all becoming? I don't care the least whether I am thought meddlesome. Jack Broxton is awfully in love with Dodo, anyone can see that, and Dodo evidently cares for him; and that poor, dear, honest fool Chesterford is completely blind to it all. It was bad enough before, but the baby's death makes it twice as bad. Dodo will want to be amused; she will hate this retirement, and she will expect Mr. Broxton to amuse her. Don't you see she is awfully bored with her husband, and she will decline to be entirely confined to his company. While she could let off steam by dancing and riding and so on, it was safe; she only met Mr. Broxton among fifty other people. But decency, even Dodo's, will forbid her to meet those fifty other people now. And each time she sees him, she will return to her husband more wearied than before. It is all too horrible. I don't suppose she is in love with Jack Broxton, but she finds him attractive, and he knows it, and he is acting disgracefully in letting himself see her so much. Everyone knows he went abroad to avoid her—everyone except Dodo, that is, and she must guess. I respected him for that, but now he is playing the traitor to Chesterford. And Mrs. Vivian quite agrees with me."
"Oh, it's awfully interesting if you're right," said Miss Grantham reflectively; "but I think you exaggerate. Jack is not a cad. He doesn't mean any harm. Besides, he is a great friend of Chesterford's."
"Well, he's got no business to play with fire," said Edith. "His sense of security only increases the real danger. If Chesterford knew exactly how matters stood it would be different, but he is so simple-hearted
