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 ... MRS. FARRANT. [_Brilliantly._] I think a statesman may be a little inhuman. LADY DAVENPORT. [_With keenness._] Do you mean superhuman? It's not the same thing, you know. MRS. FARRANT. I know. LADY DAVENPORT. Most people don't know. MRS. FARRANT. [_Proceeding with her cynicism._] Humanity achieves ... what? Housekeeping and children. FRANCES TREBELL. As far as a woman's concerned. MRS. FARRANT. [_A little mockingly._] Now, Mamma, say that is as far as a woman's concerned. LADY DAVENPORT. My dear, you know I don't think so. MRS. FARRANT. We may none of us think so. But there's our position ... bread and butter and a certain satisfaction until ... Oh, Mamma, I wish I were like you ... beyond all the passions of life. LADY DAVENPORT. [_With great vitality._] I'm nothing of the sort. It's my egoism's dead ... that's an intimation of mortality. MRS. FARRANT. I accept the snub. But I wonder what I'm to do with myself for the next thirty years. FRANCES TREBELL. Help Lord Horsham to govern the country. JULIA FARRANT _gives a little laugh and takes up the subject this time._