On the right is the
entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is
faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-
rooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are
seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite
fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm.
Watteau would have loved to paint them.]
MRS. MARCHMONT. Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret?
LADY BASILDON. I suppose so. Are you?
MRS. MARCHMONT. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't
they?
LADY BASILDON. Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know
why I go anywhere.
MRS. MARCHMONT. I come here to be educated
LADY BASILDON. Ah! I hate being educated!
MRS. MARCHMONT. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the
commercial classes, doesn't it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always
telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I
come here to try to find one.
LADY BASILDON. [Looking round through her lorgnette.] I don't see
anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose.
The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the
whole time.
MRS. MARCHMONT. How very trivial of him!
LADY BASILDON. Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about?
MRS. MARCHMONT. About myself.
LADY BASILDON. [Languidly.] And were you interested?
MRS.
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