orge and I have become happily
unconscious of each other.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With sudden energy of mind._] Till I was forty I never
realised the fact that most women must express themselves through men.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Looking at_ FRANCES _a little curiously._] Didn't your
instinct lead you to marry ... or did you fight against it?

FRANCES TREBELL. I don't know. Perhaps I had no vitality to spare.

LADY DAVENPORT. That boy is a long time proposing to Lucy.

_This effectually startles the other two from their conversational
reverie._

MRS. FARRANT. Walter? I'm not sure that he means to. She means to marry him
if he does.

FRANCES TREBELL. Has she told you so?

MRS. FARRANT. No. I judge by her business-like interest in his welfare.

FRANCES TREBELL. He's beginning to feel the responsibility of manhood ...
doesn't know whether to be frightened or proud of it.

LADY DAVENPORT. It's a pretty thing to watch young people mating. When
they're older and marry from disappointment or deliberate choice, thinking
themselves so worldly-wise....

MRS. FARRANT, [_Back to her politely cynical mood._] Well ... then at least
they don't develop their differences at the same fire-side, regretting the
happy time when neither possessed any character at all.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Giving a final douche of common sense._] My dear, any two
reasonable people ought to be able to live together.

FRANCES TREBELL. Granted three sitting rooms. That'll be the next
middle-class political cry ... when women are heard.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Suddenly as practical as her mother._] Walter's lucky ...
Lucy won't stand any nonsense. She'll have him in the Cabinet by the time
he's fifty.

LADY DAVENPORT. And are you the power behind your brother, Miss Trebell?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Gravely._] He ignores women. I've forced enough good
manners on him to disguise the fact decently. His affections are two
generations ahead.

MRS. FARRANT. People like him in an odd sort of way.

FRANCES TREBELL. That's just respect for work done ... one can't escape from
it.

_There is a slight pause in their talk. By some not very devious
route_ MRS. FARRANT'S _mind travels to the next subject._

MRS. FARRANT. Fanny ... how fond are you of Amy O'Connell?

FRANCES TREBELL. She says we're great friends.

MRS. FARRANT. She says that of me.

FRANCES TREBELL. It's a pity about her husband.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Almost provokingly._] What about him