s yet. I was Socialist at Oxford ... but of course that doesn't count.
I think I'd better learn my job under the best man I can find ... and who'll
have me.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_Gravely._] What does your father say?

WALTER KENT. Oh, as long as Jack will inherit the property in a Tory spirit!
My father thinks it my wild oats.

_A Footman has come in._

THE FOOTMAN. Your car is round, sir.

BLACKBOROUGH. Ah! Good-night, Miss Davenport. Good-bye again, Mrs. Farrant
... a charming week-end.

_He makes a business-like departure_, FARRANT _follows him._

THE FOOTMAN. A telephone message from Dr. Wedgecroft, ma'am. His thanks;
they stopped the express for him at Hitchin and he has reached London quite
safely.

MRS. FARRANT. Thank you.

[_The Footman goes out._ MRS. FARRANT _exhales delicately as if the
air were a little refined by_ BLACKBOROUGH'S _removal._]

MRS. FARRANT. Mr. Blackborough and his patent turbines and his gas engines
and what not are the motive power of our party nowadays, Fanny.

FRANCES TREBELL. Yes, you claim to be steering plutocracy. Do you never
wonder if it isn't steering you?

MRS. O'CONNELL, _growing restless, has wandered round the room picking
at the books in their cases._

AMY O'CONNELL. I always like your books, Julia. It's an intellectual
distinction to know someone who has read them.

MRS. FARRANT. That's the Communion I choose.

FRANCES TREBELL. Aristocrat ... fastidious aristocrat.

MRS. FARRANT. No, now. Learning's a great leveller.

FRANCES TREBELL. But Julia ... books are quite unreal. D'you think life is a
bit like them?

MRS. FARRANT. They bring me into touch with ... Oh, there's nothing more
deadening than to be boxed into a set in Society! Speak to a woman outside
it ... she doesn't understand your language.

FRANCES TREBELL. And do you think by prattling Hegel with Gilbert Wedgecroft
when he comes to physic you--

MRS. FARRANT. [_Joyously._] Excellent physic that is. He never leaves a
prescription.

LADY DAVENPORT. Don't you think an aristocracy of brains is the best
aristocracy, Miss Trebell?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With a little more bitterness than the abstraction of the
subject demands._] I'm sure it is just as out of touch with humanity as any
other ... more so, perhaps. If I were a country I wouldn't be governed by
arid intellects.

MRS. FARRANT. Manners, Frances.

FRANCES TREBELL. I'm one myself and I know. They're eithe