Sir Timothy and the minister kept up the conversation very much between them, Sir Timothy flattering everything that was American, and the minister finding fault with very many things which were English.  Now and then Mr Boncassen would put in a word to soften the severe honesty of his countryman, or to correct the euphemistic falsehoods of Sir Timothy.  The poet seemed always to be biding his time.  Dolly ventured to whisper a word to his neighbour.  It was but to say that the frost had broken up.  But Silverbridge heard it and looked daggers at everyone.  Then Lady Beeswax expressed to him a hope that he was going to do great things in Parliament this session.  ’I don’t mean to go near the place,’ he said, not at all conveying any purpose to which he had really come, but driven by the stress of the moment to say something that should express his general hatred of everybody.  Mr Lupton was there, on the other side of Isabel, and was soon engaged with her in a pleasant familiar conversation.  Then Silverbridge remembered that he had always thought Lupton to be a most conceited prig.  Nobody gave himself so many airs, or was so careful as to the dyeing of his whiskers.  It was astonishing that Isabel should allow herself to be amused by such an antiquated coxcomb.  When they had finished eating they moved about and changed their places.  Mr Boncassen being rather anxious to stop the flood of American eloquence which came from his friend Mr Gotobed.  British viands had become subject to his criticism, and Mr Gotobed had declared to Mr Lupton that he didn’t believe that London could produce a dish of squash tomatoes.  He was quite sure you couldn’t have sweet corn.  Then there had been a moving of seats in which the minister was shuffled off to Lady Beeswax, and the poet found himself by the side of Isabel.  ’Do you not regret our mountains and our prairies?’ said the poet; ’our great waters and our green savannahs?’ ‘I think more perhaps of Fifth Avenue,’ said Miss Boncassen.  Silverbridge, who at this moment was being interrogated by Sir Timothy, heard every word of it.

‘I was so sorry, Lord Silverbridge,’ said Sir Timothy, ’that you could not accede to our little request.’

‘I did not quite see my way,’ said Silverbridge, with his eye upon Isabel.

’So I understood, but I hope that things will make themselves clearer to you shortly.  There is nothing that I desire so much as the support of young men such as yourself,—­the very cream, I may say, of the whole country.  It is to the young conservative thoughtfulness and the truly British spirit of our springing aristocracy that I look for that reaction which I am sure will at last carry us safely over the rocks and shoals of communistic propensities.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder if it did,’ said Silverbridge.  They didn’t think that he was going to remain down there talking politics to an old humbug like Sir Timothy when the sun and moon, and all the stars had gone up into the drawing-room!  For at that moment Isabel was making her way to the door.