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A lesson in life for Gordon Brown: beware quiet women. Ruth Kelly, a mild-mannered member of Labour's female officer class, rained on the PM's parade, ensuring that her speech on bus services and Crossrail became a valediction surrounded by intrigue.
One of nature's grey and beige wearers, she treated herself to diva crimson for her swansong and looked indecently happy to be getting out of Camp Brown. In her rolling contralto, she spoke of "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - two towering figures" - but no more lavish praise for Mr Brown passed her pink lips.
As she passed 40, she wanted to spend more time as "a mother and a wife". "All my children have been born under Labour," she said tenderly. It raised the odd thought that the Kellys, like Pandas, could only mate in especially propitious circumstances. Indeed, a young Ms Kelly cradling her first child was one of the earliest pictures from the Blair Babe days. How long ago that seems.
Conference applauded uncertainly. The sisterhood of Labour's travelling pantsuits has never had much time for Ms Kelly, who is anti-abortion and refuses to make life easy for the Government on moral issues - a rare Sarah Palin among its feminist ranks.
