_He is just what the average English father would like his son to be. You can see the light shooting out through the windows and mixing with moonshine upon a smooth lawn. On your left is a door. There are many books in the room, hardly any pictures, a statuette perhaps. The owner evidently sets beauty of form before beauty of colour. It is a woman's room and it has a certain delicate austerity. By the time you have observed everything_, MRS. FARRANT _has played Chopin's prelude opus 28, number 20 from beginning to end_. LADY DAVENPORT. Thank you, my dear Julia. WALTER KENT. [_Protesting._] No more? MRS. FARRANT. I won't play for a moment longer than I feel musical. MISS TREBELL. Do you think it right, Julia, to finish with that after an hour's Bach? MRS. FARRANT. I suddenly came over Chopinesque, Fanny; . . what's your objection? [_as she sits by her._] FRANCES TREBELL. What . . when Bach has raised me to the heights of unselfishness! AMY O'CONNELL. [_Grimacing sweetly, her eyes only half lifted._] Does he? I'm glad that I don't understand him. FRANCES TREBELL. [_Putting mere prettiness in its place._] One may prefer Chopin when one is young. AMY O'CONNELL. And is that a reproach or a compliment? WALTER KENT. [_Boldly._] I do. FRANCES TREBELL. Or a man may . . unless he's a philosopher. LADY DAVENPORT. [_To the rescue._] Miss Trebell, you're very hard on mere humanity. FRANCES TREBELL. [_Completing the reproof._] That's my wretched training as a schoolmistress, Lady Davenport . . one grew to fear it above all things. LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Throwing in the monosyllable with sharp youthful enquiry._] Why? FRANCES TREBELL. There were no text books on the subject. MRS. FARRANT. [_Smiling at her friend._] Yes, Fanny . . I think you escaped to look after your brother only just in time. FRANCES TREBELL. In another year I might have been head-mistress, which commits you to approve of the system for ever. LADY DAVENPORT. [_Shaking her wise head._] I've watched the Education fever take England . . . FRANCES TREBELL. If I hadn't stopped teaching things I didn't understand . . ! AMY O'CONNELL. [_Not without mischief._] And what was the effect on the pupils? LUCY DAVENPORT. I can tell you that. AMY O'CONNELL. Frances never taught you. LUCY DAVENPORT. No, I wish she had. But I was at her sort of a school before I went to Newnham. I know. FRANCES TREBELL. [_Very distastefully._] Up-to-date, it was described as. LUCY DAVENPORT. Well, it was like a merry-go-round at top speed. You felt things wouldn't look a bit like that when you came to a standstill. AMY O'CONNELL. And they don't? LUCY DAVENPORT. [_With great decision._] Not a bit. AMY O'CONNELL. [_In her velvet tone._] I was taught the whole duty of woman by a parson-uncle who disbelieved in his Church. WALTER KENT. When a man at Jude's was going to take orders . . . AMY O'CONNELL. Jude's?