LADY OLDLACE: It seems a device for missing the quintessential. SWITHIN: Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can allow that our friend performed good menial service. WINIFRED: I could not have done the thing. SWITHIN: In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage. LADY OLDLACE: One hardly felt one breathed. VIRGINIA: I confess it moved me to tears. SWITHIN: There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us. WINIFRED: Surely there were passages of a distinct and most exquisite pathos. LADY OLDLACE: As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos. VIRGINIA: In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it by the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My tears were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument. SWITHIN: I must make confession. He played on me too. OSIER: We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch of a master hand. ARDEN: An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound you a Stradivarius. DAME DRESDEN: Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What could have detained you? ARDEN: Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant instrument. I do not readily vibrate. DAME DRESDEN: A discordant instrument is out of place in any civil society. You have lost what cannot be recovered. ARDEN: There are the notes. OSIER: Yes, the notes. SWITHIN: You can be satisfied with the dog's feast at the table, Mr. Arden! OSIER: Ha! VIRGINIA: Never have I seen Astraea look sublimer in her beauty than with her eyes uplifted to the impassioned speaker, reflecting every variation of his tones. ARDEN: Astraea! LADY OLDLACE: She was entranced when he spoke of woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man. OSIER: Yes, yes. I have the words [reads]: 'Woman is to the front of man, holding the vestal flower of a purer civilization. I see,' he says. 'the little taper in her hands transparent round the light, against rough winds.' DAME DRESDEN: And of Astraea herself, what were the words? 'Nature's dedicated widow.' SWITHIN: Vestal widow, was it not? VIRGINIA: Maiden widow, I think. DAME DRESDEN: We decide for 'dedicated.' WINIFRED: Spiral paid his most happy tribute to the memory of her late husband, the renowned Professor Towers. VIRGINIA: But his look was at dear Astraea. ARDEN: At Astraea? Why? VIRGINIA: For her sanction doubtless. ARDEN: Ha! WINIFRED: He said his pride would ever be in his being received as the successor of Professor Towers. ARDEN: Successor! SWITHIN: Guardian was it not? OSIER: Tutor. I think he said. (The three gentlemen consult Osier's notes uneasily.)