AGNES. Yes, I understand.
[He sits looking through the letters impatiently, then tearing them up and throwing the pieces upon the table.]
LUCAS. Lord Warminster—my godfather: "My dear boy, for God's sake—!" [Tearing up the letter and reading another.] Sir Charles Littlecote: "Your brilliant future . . . blasted . . ." [Another letter.] Lord Froom: "Promise of a useful political career unfulfilled . . . cannot an old friend . . . ?" [Another letter.] Edith Heytesbury. I didn't notice a woman had honoured me. [In an undertone.] Edie—![Slipping the letter into his pocket and opening another.] Jack Brophy: "Your great career—" Major Leete: "Your career—" [Destroying the rest of the letters without reading them.] My career! my career! That's the chorus, evidently. Well, there goes my career! [She lays her work aside and goes to him.]
AGNES. Your career? [Pointing to the destroyed letters.] True that one is over. But there's the other, you know—ours.
LUCAS. [Touching her hand.] Yes, yes, Still, it's just a little saddening, the saying good-bye—[disturbing the scraps of paper]—to all this.
AGNES. Saddening, dear? Why, this political career of yours—think what it would have been at best? Accident of birth sent you to the wrong side of the House; influence of family would always have kept you there.
LUCAS. [Partly to himself.] But I made my mark. I did make my mark.
AGNES. Supporting the Party that retards; the Party that preserves for the rich, palters with the poor. [Pointing to the letters again.] Oh, there's not much to mourn for there!
LUCAS. Still, it was—success.
AGNES. Success!