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 either dead or dangerous.

George Farrant comes back and goes straight to Mrs. O'Connell.

Farrant. [Still robustly.] Billiards, Mrs. O'Connell.

Amy O'Connell. [Declining sweetly.] I think not.

Farrant. Billiards, Lucy?

Lucy Davenport. [As robust as he.] Yes, Uncle George. You shall mark while Walter gives me twenty-five and I beat him.