MRS. MARTINEAU: Perhaps you didn’t like good young men, Lady Emily. LADY EMILY: I did not, and they didn’t like me. SELINA: What was Molly like when he was young, Aunt Emily? LADY EMILY: Much the same. Not bald, of course, but funny—always very funny and available ... there when wanted. SELINA: And when he wasn’t? LADY EMILY: Yes, then too. Curiosity, not unkindness. ANN: He has never loved anyone but you. LADY EMILY: Fiddlesticks.... He never loved me. But with approaching senility he requires a romance to look back on. I don’t know why he chooses me. ANN: Because he loved you. LADY EMILY: Nonsense, but I’m honoured to play my part in this haze of rosy retrospect. SELINA: What a lovely phrase.... [_She hums._ SELINA: ... haze of rosy retrospect. LADY EMILY (_severely_): You manage to give everything a music-hall touch. SELINA: Papa thinks I am very eighteenth-century. LADY EMILY: Your father likes to think himself eighteenth-century. A halo of wit ’round coarseness. SELINA (_who is looking at an illustrated paper_): I love dogs. They are such wonderful company and they never talk about Bolshevism. ANN: It is a devastating topic. Everyone always gets cross and silly. SELINA: And they go on overstating their cases until it becomes an auction of folly. LADY EMILY: It is extraordinary how exacerbating subjects of world importance can be. After an hour of Ninian, I find myself getting frenzied about Smyrna. ANN: Pro-Turk or pro-Greek? LADY EMILY: I forget which. It depends on the other person. SELINA: Yes. When we are with the vicar, who calls the Turks infidels, we are pro-Turk; and when we are with Ninian, who calls the Turks gentlemen, we are pro-Greek. ANN: It sounds so tiring. SELINA: It is. But agreeing with Ninian or the vicar does no good. It doesn’t stop them. ANN: You must make Ninian show you his map of the water power of Austria-Hungary, showing that it must remain an Empire. LADY EMILY: Ninian always proves everything by diagrams and statistics. SELINA: He has designed what he calls a world danger map, showing Socialist danger centres in red—Glasgow in scarlet, and Munich in snow-white. MRS. MARTINEAU: I thought it was a map of scarlet fever. SELINA: So it is. ANN: You are all very unkind about Ninian. He is so public-spirited and conscientious. MRS. MARTINEAU: He is very good-looking. SELINA: The Candovers have kept up a higher standard of imbecility and beauty than any other family in England. [_Enter NINIAN, LORD WILLIAM, MOLYNEUX and TIM._ NINIAN: Well—clothes, servants and babies? Have they all been exhausted? Is there a character still intact? SELINA: We have been talking about Smyrna and Austria-Hungary and the Socialist danger. MRS. MARTINEAU: Will you show me your maps, Lord Candover? NINIAN: I should be most happy. MRS. MARTINEAU: Isn’t there one called the world danger map? NINIAN: Yes ... I have tried to show in black and white.... SELINA: In red and white....