VENABLES. Your husband has been writing the speech here, and by his
own wish he read it to me three days ago. The occasion is to be an
important one; and, well, there are a dozen young men in the party at
present, all capable of filling a certain small ministerial post. [He
looks longingly at the mower, but it sends no message to his aid.]
And as he is one of them I was anxious that he should show in this
speech of what he is capable.

MAGGIE. And hasn't he?

[Not for the first time MR. VENABLES wishes that he was not in
politics.]

VENABLES. I am afraid he has.

COMTESSE. What is wrong with the speech, Charles?

VENABLES. Nothing--and he can still deliver it. It is a powerful,
well-thought-out piece of work, such as only a very able man could
produce. But it has no SPECIAL QUALITY of its own--none of the little
touches that used to make an old stager like myself want to pat Shand
on the shoulder. [The COMTESSE's mouth twitches, but MAGGIE declines
to notice it.] He pounds on manfully enough, but, if I may say so,
with a wooden leg. It is as good, I dare say, as the rest of them
could have done; but they start with such inherited advantages, Mrs.
Shand, that he had to do better.

MAGGIE. Yes, I can understand that.

VENABLES. I am sorry, Mrs. Shand, for he interested me. His career