e much of me
during the week, and dismissed me with a fervent God bless you!

AGNES. [Surprised.] He remains here, then?

LUCAS. It seems so.

AGNES. What are those, dear?

LUCAS. The Duke has made himself the bearer of some letters, from
friends. I've only glanced at them: reproaches--appeals--

AGNES. Yes, I understand.

[He sits looking through the letters impatiently, then tearing them up
and throwing the pieces upon the table.]

LUCAS. Lord Warminster--my godfather: "My dear boy, for God's sake--!"
[Tearing up the letter and reading another.] Sir Charles Littlecote:
"Your brilliant future . . . blasted . . ." [Another letter.] Lord Froom:
"Promise of a useful political career unfulfilled . . . cannot an old
friend . . . ?" [Another letter.] Edith Heytesbury. I didn't notice a
woman had honoured me. [In an undertone.] Edie--![Slipping the letter
into his pocket and opening another.] Jack Brophy: "Your great career--"
Major Leete: "Your career--" [Destroying the rest of the letters
without reading them.] My career! my career! That's the chorus,
evidently. Well, there goes my career! [She lays her work aside and
goes to him.]

AGNES. Your career? [Pointing to the destroyed letters.] True that one
is over. But there's the other, you know--ours.

LUCAS. [Touching her hand.] Yes, yes, Still, it's just a little
saddening, the saying good-bye--[disturbing the scraps of paper]--to
all this.

AGNES. Saddening, dear? Why, this political career of yours--think
what it would have been at best? Accident of birth sent you to the
wrong side of the House; influence of family would always have kept you
there.

LUCAS. [Partly to himself.] But I made my mark. I did make my mark.

AGNES. Supporting the Party that retards; the Party that preserves for
the rich, palters with the poor. [Pointing to the letters again.] Oh,
there's not much to mourn for there!

LUCAS. Still, it was--success.

AGNES. Success!

LUCAS. I was talked about, written about, as a Coming Man--the Coming
Man!

AGNES. How many "coming men" has one known? Where on earth do they all
go to?

LUCAS. Ah, yes, but I allowed for the failure, and carefully set myself
to discover the causes of them. And, as I put my fingers upon the
causes and examined them, I congratulated myself and said "Well, I
haven't that weak point in my armour, or that;" and Agnes, at last I
was fool enough to imagine I had no weak point, none whatever.

AGNES. It was weak eno