Part 3 (2/2)

WALTER KENT. [_With a none-of-your-impudence air._] I'll give you ten yards start and race you to the billiard room.

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_ 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.

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