Her ladyship lapsed into contemplative silence, soothed by the brandy.

But Connie was not keen on going to London, and being steered into the smart world by Lady Bennerley. She didn’t feel really smart, it wasn’t interesting. And she did feel the peculiar, withering coldness under it all; like the soil of Labrador, which his gay little flowers on its surface, and a foot down is frozen.

Tommy Dukes was at Wragby, and another man, Harry Winterslow, and Jack Strangeways with his wife Olive. The talk was much more desultory than when only the cronies were there, and everybody was a bit bored, for the weather was bad, and there was only billiards, and the pianola to dance to.

Olive was reading a book about the future, when babies would be bred in bottles, and women would be ‘immunized’.

‘Jolly good thing too!’ she said. ‘Then a woman can live her own life.’ Strangeways wanted children, and she didn’t.

‘How’d you like to be immunized?’ Winterslow asked her, with an ugly smile.

‘I hope I am; naturally,’ she said. ‘Anyhow the future’s going to have more sense, and a woman needn’t be dragged down by her FUNCTIONS.’

‘Perhaps she’ll float off into space altogether,’ said Dukes.

‘I do think sufficient civilization ought to eliminate a lot of the physical disabilities,’ said Clifford. ‘All the love–business for example, it might just as well go. I suppose it would if we could breed babies in bottles.’

‘No!’ cried Olive. ‘That might leave all the more room for fun.’

‘I suppose,’ said Lady Bennerley, contemplatively, ‘if the love–business went, something else would take its place. Morphia, perhaps. A little morphine in all the air. It would be wonderfully refreshing for everybody.’

‘The government releasing ether into the air on Saturdays, for a cheerful weekend!’ said Jack. ‘Sounds all right, but where should we be by Wednesday?’

‘So long as you can forget your body you are happy,’ said Lady Bennerley. ‘And the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So, if civilization is any good, it has to help us to forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it.’

‘Help us to get rid of our bodies altogether,’ said Winterslow. ‘It’s quite time man began to improve on his own nature, especially the physical side of it.’

‘Imagine if we floated like tobacco smoke,’ said Connie.

‘It won’t happen,’ said Dukes. ‘Our old show will come flop; our civilization is going to fall. It’s going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!’

‘Oh do! DO be impossible, General!’ cried Olive.

‘I believe our civilization is going to collapse,’ said Aunt Eva.