[_Enter_ Lady Doldrummond.--_She is a tall, slight, but not angular woman. Her hair is brown, and brushed back from her temples in the simplest possible fashion. Self-satisfaction (of a gentle and ladylike sort) and eminent contentment with her lot are the only writings on her smooth, almost girlish countenance. She has a prim tenderness and charm of manner which soften her rather cutting voice._] _Lady Dol._ What! Cyril not here? How do you do, Sir Digby? I am looking for my tiresome boy. I promised to take him to pay some calls this afternoon, and as he may have to talk I must tell him what to say. He has no idea of making himself pleasant to women, and is the shyest creature in the world! _Soame._ You have always been so careful to shield him from all responsibility, Lady Doldrummond. Who knows what eloquence, what decision, what energy he might display, if you did not possess these gifts in so pre-eminent a degree as to make any exertion on his part unnecessary, and perhaps disrespectful. _Lady Dol._ Ah! mothers are going out of fashion. Even Cyril occasionally shows a certain impatience when I venture to correct him. As if I would hurt anyone's feelings unless from a sense of duty! And pray, where is the pleasure of having a son if you may not direct his life? _Lord Dol._ Cyril might ask, where is the pleasure of having parents if you may not disobey them. _Lady Dol._ [_To_ Soame.] When Herbert is alone with me he never makes flippant remarks of this kind. [_To_ Lord Doldrummond.] I wonder that you like to give your friends such a wrong impression of your character. [_Turning to_ Sir Digby.] But I think I see your drift, Sir Digby. You wish to remind me that Cyril is now at an age when I must naturally desire to see him established in a home of his own. _Soame._ You have caught my meaning. As he is now two-and-twenty, I think he should be allowed more freedom than may have been expedient when he was--say, six months old. _Lady Dol._ I quite agree with you, and I trust you will convince Herbert that women understand young men far better than their fathers ever could. I have found the very wife for Cyril, and I hope I may soon have the pleasure of welcoming her as a daughter. _Soame._ A wife! Good heavens! I was suggesting that the boy had more liberty. Marriage is the prison of all emotions, and I should be very sorry to ask any young girl to be a man's gaol-keeper. _Lord Dol._ Sir Digby is right. _Lady Dol._ The presence of a third person has the strangest effect on Herbert's moral vision. As I have trained my son with a care and tenderness rarely bestowed nowadays even on a girl, I think I may show some resentment when I am asked to believe him a being with the instincts of a ruffian and the philosophy of a middle-aged bachelor. No, Sir Digby, Cyril is not _my_ child if he does not make his home and his family the happiest in the world! _Soame._ Yes?