[Her eyebrows lifting a shade.] Education!
FARRANT. Then Trebell went away to work.
BLACKBOROUGH. I've missed the music, I fear.
MRS. FARRANT. But it's been Bach.
BLACKBOROUGH. No Chopin?
MRS. FARRANT. For a minute only.
BLACKBOROUGH. Why don't these new Italian men write things for
the piano! Good-night, Lady Davenport.
LADY DAVENPORT. [As he bows over her hand.] And what has
Education to do with it?
BLACKBOROUGH. [Non-committal himself.] Perhaps it was a subject
that compromised nobody.
LADY DAVENPORT. Do you think my daughter has been wasting her
time and her tact?
FARRANT. [Clapping him on the shoulder.] Blackborough's frankly
flabbergasted at the publicity of this intrigue.
MRS. FARRANT. Intrigue! Mr. Trebell walked across the House ...
actually into your arms.
BLACKBOROUGH. [With a certain dubious grimness.] Well ... we've
had some very interesting talks since. And his views upon Education
are quite ... Utopian. Good bye, Miss Trebell.
FRANCES TREBELL. Good-bye.
MRS. FARRANT. I wouldn't be so haughty till after the election, if I
were you, Mr. Blackborough.
BLACKBOROUGH. [Indifferently.] Oh, I'm glad he's with us on the
Church question ... so far.
MRS. FARRANT. So far as you've made up your minds? The electoral
cat will jump soon.
BLACKBOROUGH. [A little beaten by such polite cynicism.] Well ...
our conservative principles! After all we know what they are.
Good-night, Mrs. O'Connell.
AMY O'CONNELL. Good-night.
FARRANT. Your neuralgia better?
AMY O'CONNELL. By fits and starts.
FARRANT. [Robustly.] Come and play billiards. Horsham and
Maconochie started a game. They can neither of them play. We left
them working out a theory of angles on bits of paper.
WALTER KENT. Professor Maconochie lured me on to golf yesterday.
He doesn't suffer from theories about that.
BLACKBOROUGH. [With approval.] Started life as a caddie.
WALTER KENT. [Pulling a wry face.] So he told me after the first
hole.
BLACKBOROUGH. What's this, Kent, about Trebell's making you his
secretary?
WALTER KENT. He thinks he'll have me.
BLACKBOROUGH. [Almost reprovingly.] No question of politics?
FARRANT. More intrigue, Blackborough.
WALTER KENT. [With disarming candour.] The truth is, you see, I
haven't any as yet. I was Socialist at Oxford ... but of course that doesn't
count. I think I'd better learn my job under the best man I can find ...
and who'll have me.
BLACKBOROUGH. [Gravely.] What does your father say?
WALTER KENT. Oh, as long as Jack will inherit the property in a
Tory spirit! My father thinks it my wild oats.
A Footman has come in.
THE FOOTMAN. Your car is round, sir.
BLACKBOROUGH. Ah! Good-night, Miss Davenport. Good-bye
again, Mrs. Farrant ... a charming week-end.
He makes a business-like departure, FARRANT follows him.
THE FOOTMAN. A telephone message from Dr. Wedgecroft, ma'am.
His thanks; they stopped the express for him at Hitchin and he has
reached London quite safely.
MRS. FARRANT. Thank you.
[The Footman goes out. MRS. FARRANT exhales delicately as if the
air were a little refined by BLACKBOROUGH'S removal.]
MRS. FARRANT. Mr. Blackborough and his patent turbines and his
gas engines and what not are the motive power of our party nowadays,
Fanny.
FRANCES TREBELL. Yes, you claim to be steering plutocracy. Do
you never wonder if it isn't steering you?
MRS. O'CONNELL, growing restless, has wandered round the room
picking at the books in their cases.
AMY O'CONNELL. I always like your books, Julia. It's an intellectual
distinction to know someone who has read them.
MRS. FARRANT. That's the Communion I choose.
FRANCES TREBELL. Aristocrat ... fastidious aristocrat.
MRS. FARRANT. No, now. Learning's a great leveller.
FRANCES TREBELL. But Julia ... books are quite unreal. D'you think
life is a bit like them?
MRS. FARRANT. They bring me into touch with ... Oh, there's
nothing more deadening than to be boxed into a set in Society! Speak
to a woman outside it ... she doesn't understand your language.
FRANCES TREBELL. And do you think by prattling Hegel with
Gilbert Wedgecroft when he comes to physic you--
MRS. FARRANT. [Joyously.] Excellent physic that is. He never leaves
a prescription.
LADY DAVENPORT. Don't you think an aristocracy of brains is the
best aristocracy, Miss Trebell?
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
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