LUCY DAVENPORT. Will you wear my skirt? Oh . . Grandmamma's thinking me vulgar. LADY DAVENPORT. [_Without prejudice._] Why, my dear, freedom of limb is worth having . . and perhaps it fits better with freedom of tongue. FARRANT. [_In the proper avuncular tone._] I'll play you both . . and I'd race you both if you weren't so disgracefully young. AMY O'CONNELL _has reached an open window_. AMY O'CONNELL. I shall go for a walk with my neuralgia. MRS. FARRANT. Poor thing! AMY O'CONNELL. The moon's good for it. LUCY DAVENPORT. Shall you come, Aunt Julia? MRS. FARRANT. [_In flat protest._] No, I will not sit up while you play billiards. MRS. O'CONNELL _goes out through the one window, stands for a moment, wistfully romantic, gazing at the moon, then disappears_. FARRANT _and_ WALTER KENT _are standing at the other, looking across the lawn_. FARRANT. Horsham still arguing with Maconochie. They're got to Botany now. WALTER KENT. Demonstrating something with a . . what's that thing? WALTER _goes out_. FARRANT. [_With a throw of his head towards the distant_ HORSHAM.] He was so bored with our politics . . having to give his opinion too. We could just hear your piano. _And he follows_ WALTER. MRS. FARRANT. Take Amy O'Connell that lace thing, will you, Lucy? LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Her tone expressing quite wonderfully her sentiments towards the owner._] Don't you think she'd sooner catch cold? _She catches it up and follows the two men; then after looking round impatiently, swings off in the direction_ MRS. O'CONNELL _took. The three women now left together are at their ease._ FRANCES TREBELL. Did you expect Mr. Blackborough to get on well with Henry? MRS. FARRANT. He has become a millionaire by appreciating clever men when he met them. LADY DAVENPORT. Yes, Julia, but his political conscience is comparatively new-born. MRS. FARRANT. Well, Mamma, can we do without Mr. Trebell? LADY DAVENPORT. Everyone seems to think you'll come back with something of a majority. MRS. FARRANT. [_A little impatient._] What's the good of that? The Bill can't be brought into the Lords . . and who's going to take Disestablishment through the Commons for us? Not Eustace Fowler . . not Mr. Blackborough . . not Lord Charles . . not George! LADY DAVENPORT. [_Warningly._] Not all your brilliance as a hostess will keep Mr. Trebell in a Tory Cabinet. MRS. FARRANT. [_With wilful avoidance of the point._] Cyril Horsham is only too glad. LADY DAVENPORT. Because you tell him he ought to be. FRANCES TREBELL. [_Coming to the rescue._] There is this. Henry has never exactly called himself a Liberal. He really is elected independently. MRS. FARRANT. I wonder will all the garden-cities become pocket-boroughs. FRANCES TREBELL. I think he has made a mistake. MRS. FARRANT. It makes things easier now . . his having kept his freedom. FRANCES TREBELL. I think it's a mistake to stand outside a system. There's an inhumanity in that amount of detachment . .