LADY EMILY: What sort of woman shall we have—a poor victim, or a common vampire? SELINA: Let us have both—the one to prove him a villain, and the other a fool. MOLYNEUX: Why are you so vindictive? SELINA: Because I was so much bored. “I am brave enough to admit, Miss Selina, that I take some things seriously.” NINIAN: The best thing about him. MRS. MARTINEAU: But even with all the details that we have supplied, I don’t see how he lost his reputation as a politician. LADY EMILY: It is probably only a temporary eclipse. No one’s political career is ever over. LORD WILLIAM: If you will allow me to get in a word edgeways, I will tell you the whole story. It was last night—I heard all about it at my Club at lunch to-day—Jordan had promised to make a most important speech. The Prime Minister, depending on him, left the House, but when the time came he was nowhere to be found. The situation was critical, and the Government only just squeaked through. So you see his position in his party isn’t very rosy for the moment. NINIAN: Probably it was cowardice, thought the ship was sinking. MRS. MARTINEAU: But where was he? LORD WILLIAM: With a woman. MRS. MARTINEAU: What sort of a woman? LORD WILLIAM: A woman he had picked up. MRS. MARTINEAU: Where? LORD WILLIAM: I really don’t know one street from another. MOLYNEUX: There isn’t very much variety. LORD WILLIAM: Jordan wasn’t the sort of man to get as far even as a circus. Now in my day it wasn’t etiquette to begin lower than a circus-rider. MOLYNEUX: We didn’t know what economy meant. LORD WILLIAM: If Jordan was drunk he was probably quite right to pick without choosing. At the time he could tell nothing, and by morning his purse must have been his sole criterion. ANN (_who has been listening to the conversation with ever-increasing anguish and now rises_): It’s not true! [_There is a dead silence._ ANN: It is a wicked shameful lie. LORD WILLIAM: There is our little Ann up in arms to defend her friends. Very laudable, very characteristic. Nothing but saints in your world, eh, Ann? ANN (_trembling with passion_): Don’t you believe me? MRS. MARTINEAU: Where was he then? ANN: Do you want to know where he was? If you want to—I’ll tell you. He _was_ with a woman—he was with me. MRS. MARTINEAU: And may one ask why he was with you at such a critical moment in his career? ANN: Why? MRS. MARTINEAU: Did you have a headache, dear? Was that what made him run round at the crucial moment in the Debate? SELINA: Fancy Mr. Jordan forgetting _himself_. MRS. MARTINEAU: How did you let him know, darling, that you needed him so badly? SELINA: Did he just come round and say, “You wanted me; here I am?” How delightfully romantic. MRS. MARTINEAU: He clearly must have said, “They call me a statesman, rather let it be said of me, ‘He was a friend!’” SELINA: “I had not loved these, dear, so much—” No, that is the wrong way round, isn’t it? ANN: You don’t understand. He——