FRANCES TREBELL. [With a little more bitterness than the abstraction of the subject demands.] I’m sure it is just as out of touch with humanity as any other ... more so, perhaps.  If I were a country I wouldn’t be governed by arid intellects.

MRS. FARRANT.  Manners, Frances.

FRANCES TREBELL.  I’m one myself and I know.  They’re either dead or dangerous.

      GEORGE FARRANT comes back and goes straight to MRS. O’CONNELL.

FARRANT. [Still robustly.] Billiards, Mrs. O’Connell.

AMY O’CONNELL. [Declining sweetly.] I think not.

FARRANT.  Billiards, Lucy?

LUCY DAVENPORT. [As robust as he.] Yes, Uncle George.  You shall mark while
Walter gives me twenty-five and I beat him.

WALTER KENT. [With a none-of-your-impudence air.] I’ll give you ten yards start and race you to the billiard room.

LUCY DAVENPORT.  Will you wear my skirt?  Oh ...  Grandmamma’s thinking me vulgar.

LADY DAVENPORT. [Without prejudice.] Why, my dear, freedom of limb is worth having ... and perhaps it fits better with freedom of tongue.

FARRANT. [In the proper avuncular tone.] I’ll play you both ... and I’d race you both if you weren’t so disgracefully young.

AMY O’CONNELL has reached an open window.

AMY O’CONNELL.  I shall go for a walk with my neuralgia.

MRS. FARRANT.  Poor thing!

AMY O’CONNELL.  The moon’s good for it.

LUCY DAVENPORT.  Shall you come, Aunt Julia?

MRS. FARRANT. [In flat protest.] No, I will not sit up while you play billiards.

      MRS. O’CONNELL goes out through the one window, stands for a moment,
      wistfully romantic, gazing at KENT are standing at the other,
      looking across the lawn.

FARRANT.  Horsham still arguing with Maconochie.  They’re got to Botany now.

WALTER KENT.  Demonstrating something with a ... what’s that thing?

      WALTER goes out.

FARRANT. [With a throw of his head towards the distant HORSHAM.] He was so bored with our politics ... having to give his opinion too.  We could just hear your piano.

      And he follows WALTER.

MRS. FARRANT.  Take Amy O’Connell that lace thing, will you, Lucy?

LUCY DAVENPORT. [Her tone expressing quite wonderfully her sentiments towards the owner.] Don’t you think she’d sooner catch cold?

      She catches it up and follows the two men; then after looking round
      impatiently, swings off in the direction MRS. O’CONNELL took.  The
      three women now left together are at their ease.

FRANCES TREBELL.  Did you expect Mr. Blackborough to get on well with Henry?

MRS. FARRANT.  He has become a millionaire by appreciating clever men when he met them.