ween the windows, is_ WALTER KENT. _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.