MRS. FARRANT. That's the Communion I choose.

FRANCES TREBELL. Aristocrat ... fastidious aristocrat.

MRS. FARRANT. No, now. Learning's a great leveller.

FRANCES TREBELL. But Julia ... books are quite unreal. D'you think life is a
bit like them?

MRS. FARRANT. They bring me into touch with ... Oh, there's nothing more
deadening than to be boxed into a set in Society! Speak to a woman outside
it ... she doesn't understand your language.

FRANCES TREBELL. And do you think by prattling Hegel with Gilbert Wedgecroft
when he comes to physic you--

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.