"Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?" "Yes --who has called?" "Lord Darlington, my lady." "Show him up-- and I'm at home to any one who calls." "Yes, my lady." "Lord Darlington." "How do you do, Lady Windermere?" "How do you do, Lord Darlington?" "No, I can't shake hands with you." "My hands are all wet with these roses." "Aren't they lovely?" "They came up from Selby this morning." "They are quite perfect." "And what a wonderful fan!" "May I look at it?" "Do." "Pretty, isn't it!" "It's got my name on it, and everything." "I have only just seen it myself." "It's my husband's birthday present to me." "You know to-day is my birthday?" "No?" "Is it really?" "Yes, I'm of age to-day." "Quite an important day in my life, isn't it?" "That is why I am giving this party to-night." "I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady Windermere." "I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on." "They are made for you." "Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office." "I am afraid you are going to annoy me again." "I, Lady Windermere?" "Put it there, Parker." "That will do." "Won't you come over, Lord Darlington?" "I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere." "You must tell me what I did." "Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening." "Ah, now it is." "We are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay ARE compliments." "They're the only things we CAN pay." "No, I am talking very seriously." "You mustn't laugh, I am quite serious." "I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean." "Ah, but I did mean them." "I hope not." "I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington." "I like you very much, you know that." "But I shouldn't like you at all if I thought you were what most other men are." "Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse." "We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere." "Why do you make that your special one?" "Oh, nowadays so many conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad." "Besides, there is this to be said." "If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously." "If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't." "Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism." "Don't you WANT the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?" "No, not the world." "Who are the people the world takes seriously?" "All the dull people one can think of, from the Bishops down to the bores." "I should like YOU to take me very seriously, Lady Windermere," "YOU more than any one else in life." "Why--why me?" "Because I think we might be great friends." "Let us be great friends." "You may want a friend some day." "Why do you say that?" "Oh!" "we all want friends at times." "I think we're very good friends already, Lord Darlington." "We can always remain so as long as you don't " "Don't what?" "Don't spoil it by saying extravagant silly things to me." "You think I am a Puritan, I suppose?" "Well, I have something of the Puritan in me." "I was brought up like that." "I am glad of it." "Lady Julia was stern to me, but she taught me what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong." "SHE allowed of no compromise." "_I_ allow of none." "My dear Lady Windermere!" "You look on me as being behind the age." "Well, I am!" "I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this." "You think the age very bad?" "Yes." "Nowadays people seem to look on life as a speculation." "It is not a speculation." "It is a sacrament." "Its ideal is Love." "Its purification is sacrifice." "Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!" "Don't say that." "I do say it." "I feel it--I know it." "The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?" "You don't think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?" "I won't hear of its raining on your birthday!" "Tell them to do it at once, Parker." "Do you think then" "of course I am only putting an imaginary instance-- do you think that in the case of a young married couple, say about two years married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman of" "well, more than doubtful character-- is always calling upon her, lunching with her, and probably paying her bills" "do you think that the wife should not console herself?" "Console herself?" "Yes," "I think she should," "I think she has the right." "Because the husband is vile" "should the wife be vile also?" "Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere." "It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington." "Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world." "Certainly the greatest harm that they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance." "It is absurd to divide people into good and bad." "People are either charming or tedious." "I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can't help belonging to them." "Now, Lord Darlington." "Don't stir, I am merely going to finish my flowers." "And I must say I think you are very hard on modern life." "There is much against it, I admit." "Women, for instance, nowadays, are rather mercenary." "Don't talk of such people." "Well then, setting mercenary people aside, who, of course, are dreadful, do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven?" "I think they should never be forgiven." "And men?" "Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women?" "Certainly!" "I think life far too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules." "If we had 'these hard and fast rules', we should find life much more simple." "Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, Lady Windermere!" "The adjective was unnecessary, Lord Darlington." "I couldn't help it." "I can resist everything except temptation." "You have the modern affectation of weakness." "It's only an affectation, Lady Windermere." "The Duchess of Berwick and Lady Agatha Carlisle." "Dear Margaret, I am so pleased to see you." "You remember Agatha, don't you?" "How do you do, Lord Darlington?" "I won't let you know my daughter, you are far too wicked." "Don't say that, Duchess." "As a wicked man I am a complete failure." "Why, there are lots of people who say" "I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life." "Of course they only say it behind my back." "Isn't he dreadful?" "Agatha, this is Lord Darlington." "Mind you don't believe a word he says." "No, no tea, thank you, dear." "We have just had tea at Lady Markby's." "Such bad tea, too." "It was quite undrinkable." "I wasn't at all surprised." "Her own son-in-law supplies it." "Agatha is looking forward so much to your ball to-night, dear Margaret." "Oh, you mustn't think it is going to be a ball, Duchess." "It is only a dance in honour of my birthday." "A small and early." "Very small, very early, and very select, Duchess." "Of course it's going to be select." "But we know THAT, dear Margaret, of YOUR house." "It is really one of the few houses in London where I can take Agatha, and where I feel perfectly secure about dear Berwick." "I don't know what society is coming to." "The most dreadful people seem to go everywhere." "They certainly come to my parties the men get quite furious if one doesn't ask them." "Really, some one should make a stand against it." "_I_ will, Duchess." "I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal." "Oh, don't say that, Lady Windermere." "I should never be admitted!" "Oh, men don't matter." "With women it is different." "We're good." "Some of us are, at least." "But we are positively getting elbowed into the corner." "Our husbands would really forget our existence if we didn't nag at them from time to time, just to remind them that we have a perfect legal right to do so." "It's a curious thing, Duchess, about the game of marriage" "a game, by the way, which is going out of fashion- the wives hold all the honours, and invariably lose the odd trick." "The odd trick?" "Is that the husband, Lord Darlington?" "It would be rather a good name for the modern husband." "Dear Lord Darlington, how thoroughly depraved you are!" "Lord Darlington is trivial." "Ah, don't say that, Lady Windermere." "Why do you TALK so trivially about life, then?" "Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it." "What does he mean?" "Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean." "I think I had better not, Duchess." "Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out." "Good-bye!" "And now Lady Windermere, good-bye." "I may come to-night, mayn't I?" "Do let me come." "Yes, certainly." "But you are not to say foolish, insincere things to people." "Ah!" "you are beginning to reform me." "It is a dangerous thing to reform any one, Lady Windermere." "What a charming, wicked creature!" "I like him so much." "I'm quite delighted he's gone!" "How sweet you're looking!" "Where DO you get your gowns?" "And now" "I must tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Margaret." "Agatha, darling!" "Yes, mamma." "Will you go and look over the photograph album that I see there?" "Yes, mamma." "Dear girl!" "She is so fond of photographs of Switzerland." "Such a pure taste, I think." "But I really am so sorry for you, Margaret" "Why, Duchess?" "Oh, on account of that horrid woman." "She dresses so well, too, which makes it much worse, sets such a dreadful example." "Augustus --you know my disreputable brother-- such a trial to us all well, Augustus is completely infatuated about her." "It is quite scandalous, for she is absolutely inadmissible into society." "Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit." "Whom are you talking about, Duchess?" "About Mrs. Erlynne." "Mrs. Erlynne?" "I never heard of her." "And what HAS she to do with me?" "My poor child!" "Agatha, darling!" "Yes, mamma." "Will you go out on the terrace and look for a sunset?" "Yes, mamma." "Sweet girl!" "So devoted to sunsets!" "Shows such refinement of feeling, does it not?" "After all, there is nothing like Nature, is there?" "But what is it, Duchess?" "Why do you talk to me about this person?" "Don't you really know?" "I assure you we're all so distressed about it." "Only last night at dear Lady Jansen's every one was saying how extraordinary it was that, of all men in London," "Windermere should behave in such a way." "My husband what has HE got to do with any woman of that kind?" "Ah, what indeed, my dear?" "That is the point." "He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time, and while he is there ." "she is not at home to any one" "Not that many ladies call on her, dear, but she has a great many disreputable men friends my own brother particularly, as I told you and that is what makes it so dreadful about Windermere." "We looked upon HIM as being such a model husband, but I am afraid there is no doubt about it." "My dear nieces" "You know the Saville girls, don't you?" " such nice domestic creatures plain, dreadfully plain, but so good well, they're always at the window doing fancy work, and making ugly things for the poor, which I think so useful of them in these dreadful socialistic days," "and this terrible woman has taken a house in Curzon Street, right opposite them such a respectable street, too!" "I don't know what we're coming to!" "And they tell me that Windermere goes there four and five times a week they SEE him." "They can't help it and although they never talk scandal, they --well, of course-- they remark on it to every one." "And the worst of it all is that I have been told that this woman has got a great deal of money out of somebody, for it seems that she came to London six months ago without anything at all to speak of," "and now she has this charming house in Mayfair, drives her ponies in the Park every afternoon and all well, all since she has known poor dear Windermere." "Oh, I can't believe it!" "But it's quite true, my dear." "The whole of London knows it." "That is why I thought it was better to come and talk to you, and advise you to take Windermere away at once to Homburg or to Aix, where he'll have something to amuse him, and you can watch him all day long." "I assure you, my dear, that on several occasions after I was first married," "I had to pretend to be very ill, and was obliged to drink the most unpleasant mineral waters, merely to get Berwick out of town." "He was so extremely susceptible." "Though I am bound to say he never gave away any large sums of money to anybody." "He is far too high-principled for that!" "Duchess," "Duchess, it's impossible!" "We are only married two years." "Our child is but six months old." "Ah, the dear pretty little baby!" "How is the little darling?" "Is it a boy or a girl?" "I do hope a girl" "Ah, no, I remember it's a boy!" "I'm so sorry." "Boys are so wicked." "My boy is excessively immoral." "You wouldn't believe at what hours he comes home." "And he's only left Oxford a few months" "I really don't know what they teach them there." "Are ALL men bad?" "Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception." "And they never get any better." "Men become old, but they never become good." "Windermere and I married for love." "Yes, we begin like that." "It was only Berwick's brutal and incessant threats of suicide that made me accept him at all, and before the year was out, he was running after all kinds of petticoats, every shape, every colour," "every material." "In fact, before the honeymoon was over," "I caught him winking at my maid, a most pretty, respectable girl." "I dismissed her at once without a character." "No, I remember" "I passed her on to my sister;" "poor dear Sir George is so short-sighted, I thought it wouldn't matter." "But it did, though- it was most unfortunate." "And now, my dear child," "I must go, as we are dining out." "And mind you don't take this little aberration of Windermere's too much to heart." "Just take him abroad, and he'll come back to you all right." "Come back to me?" "Yes, dear, these wicked women get our husbands away from us, but they always come back, slightly damaged, of course." "And don't make scenes, men hate them!" "It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell me all this." "But I can't believe that my husband is untrue to me." "Pretty child!" "I was like that once." "Now I know that all men are monsters." "The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well." "A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have." "My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry?" "You needn't be afraid, Duchess, I never cry." "That's quite right, dear." "Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones." "Agatha, darling!" "Yes, mamma." "Come and bid good-bye to Lady Windermere, and thank her for your charming visit." "Oh, by the way, thank you for sending a card to Mr. Hopper he's that rich young Australian people are taking such notice of at present." "His father made a great fortune by selling some kind of food in circular tins" "most palatable, I believe" "I fancy it is the thing the servants always refuse to eat." "But the son is quite interesting." "I think he's attracted by dear Agatha's clever talk." "Of course, we should be very sorry to lose her, but I think that a mother who doesn't part with a daughter every season has no real affection." "We're coming to-night, dear." "And remember my advice, take the poor fellow away at once, it is the only thing to do." "Good-bye, once more;" "come, Agatha." "But it is quite true, my dear." "The all of London knows it." "Did you think then in the case of a young married couple say, about two year married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman, of a, well, more than doubtful character is always calling upon and lunching with her" "We looked upon him as being such a model husband." "Well, there is no doubt about it." "No, it is some hideous mistake." "Some silly scandal!" "He loves ME!" "He loves ME!" "I am his wife, I have a right to look!" "Has the fan been sent home yet?" "Cut open my bank book." "You have no right to do such a thing!" "You think it wrong that you are found out, don't you?" "I think it wrong that a wife should spy on her husband." "I did not spy on you." "I never knew of this woman's existence till half an hour ago." "Some one who pitied me was kind enough to tell me what every one in London knows already" "your daily visits to Curzon Street, your mad infatuation, the monstrous sums of money you squander on this infamous woman!" "Margaret!" "don't talk like that about Mrs. Erlynne, you don't know how unjust it is!" "You are very jealous of Mrs. Erlynne's honour." "I wish you had been as jealous of mine." "Your honour is untouched." "You don't think that I" "I think that you spend your money strangely." "That is all." "Oh, don't imagine I mind about the money." "As far as I am concerned, you may squander everything we have." "But what I DO mind is that you who have loved me, you who have taught me to love you, should pass from the love that is given to the love that is bought." "Oh, it is horrible!" "And it is I who feel degraded!" "YOU don't feel anything." "I feel stained, utterly stained." "You can't realise how hideous the last six months seem to me now every kiss you have given me is tainted in my memory." "Don't say that." "I never loved any one in the whole world but you." "Who is this woman, then?" "Why do you take a house for her?" "I did not take a house for her." "You gave her the money to do it, which is the same thing." "Margaret, as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne " "Is there a Mr. Erlynne --or is he a myth?" "He died many years ago." "She is alone in the world." "No relations?" "None." "Rather curious, isn't it?" "Margaret, as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne, she has conducted herself well." "If years ago " "Oh!" "I don't want details about her life!" "I am not going to give you details." "I tell you simply this" "Mrs. Erlynne was once loved, honoured, respected." "She was well born, she had position-- she lost everything threw it away, if you like." "That makes it all the more bitter." "Margaret, misfortunes one can endure they come from outside, they are accidents." "But to suffer for one's own faults" "there is the sting of life." "It was twenty years ago, too." "She was little more than a girl." "She had been a wife for even less time than you have." "I am not interested in her and you should not mention this woman and me in the same breath." "It is an error of taste." "Margaret, you could save this woman." "She wants to get back into society, and she wants you to help her." "Me!" "Yes, you." "How impertinent of her!" "Margaret, I came to ask you a great favour, and I still ask it of you." "I want you to send Mrs. Erlynne an invitation for our party to-night." "You are mad!" "I entreat you." "Margaret..." "People may chatter... do chatter about her, of course, but they don't know anything definite against her." "She has been to several houses" " not to houses where you would go, I admit, but still to houses where women who are in what is nowadays called Society do go." "That does not content her." "She wants you to receive her once." "As a triumph for her, I suppose?" "No; but because she knows that you are a good woman she knows that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a surer happier life than she has had." "She will make no further effort to know you." "Margaret... won't you help a woman who is trying to get back?" "No!" "If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin." "I beg you." "I am going to dress for dinner, and don't mention the subject again this evening." "Margaret..." "Arthur!" "you fancy because I have no mother ot father that I am alone in this world, and that you may treat me as you choose." "You are wrong," "I have friends, many friends." "you are talking foolishly, recklessly." "I won't argue with you, but I insist upon your asking Mrs. Erlynne to-night." "I shall do nothing of the kind." "You refuse?" "Absolutely!" "Ah, Margaret, do this for my sake;" "it is her last chance." "What has that to do with me?" "How hard good women are!" "How weak bad men are!" "None of us men may be good enough for the women we marry" "that is quite true-- you don't imagine I would ever... the suggestion is quite monstrous!" "Why should YOU be different from other men?" "I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over SOME shameful passion." "I am not one of them." "I am not sure of that!" "You are sure in your heart." "Margaret, don't make chasm after chasm between us." "God knows the last few minutes have thrust us wide enough apart." "Sit down and write the card." "Nothing in the whole world would induce me." "Then I will!" "You are going to invite this woman?" "Yes." "Parker!" "Yes, my lord." "I want this note sent to Mrs. Erlynne at No. 84A Curzon Street." "There is no answer!" "Arthur, if that woman comes here," "I shall insult her." "Margaret, don't say that." "I mean it." "Child, if you did such a thing, there's not a woman in London who would not pity you." "There is not a GOOD woman in London who would not applaud me." "We have been too lax." "We must make an example." "I propose to begin to-night." "You gave me this to-day;" "it was your birthday present to me." "If that woman crosses my threshold," "I shall strike her across the face with it." "You couldn't." "You won't do such a thing!" "You don't know me!" "Parker!" "Yes, my lady." "I shall dine in my own room tonight." "I don't want dinner, in fact." "See that everything is ready by half past ten." "And, Parker, be sure to pronounce the names of the guests very distinctly to-night." "Sometimes you speak so fast that I miss them." "I am particularly anxious to hear the names quite clearly, so as to make no mistake." "You understand, Parker?" "Yes, my lady." "That will do!" "Arthur..." "Margaret, you'll ruin us!" "Us!" "From this moment my life is separate from yours." "But if you wish to avoid a public scandal, write at once to this woman, and tell her that I forbid her to come here!" "I will not" "I cannot" "she must come here tonight!" "Then I shall do as I have said." "You leave me no choice." "Margaret!" "So strange Lord Windermere isn't here." "Mr. Hopper is very late, too." "You have kept those five dances for him, Agatha?" "Yes, mamma." "Just let me see your card." "I'm so glad Lady Windermere has revived cards." "They're a mother's only safeguard." "Oh, you dear simple little thing!" "No nice girl should ever waltz with such particularly younger sons!" "It looks so fast!" "You might pass the last two dances on the terrace with Mr. Hopper." "Yes, mamma." "The air is so pleasant there." "Lady Stutfield." "Sir James Royston." "Mrs. Cowper-Cowper." "Ah, good evening, Lady Stutfield." "I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?" "I suppose so, Mr. Dumby." "It's been a delightful season, hasn't it?" "Quite delightful!" "Good evening, Duchess." "I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?" "I suppose so, Mr. Dumby." "It has been a very dull season, hasn't it?" "Oh, dreadfully dull!" "Dreadfully dull!" "Good evening, Mr. Dumby." "I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?" "I think not." "There'll probably be at least two more." "Mr. Rufford." "Lady Jedburgh and Miss Graham." "Mr. Hopper." "How do you do, Lady Windermere?" "How do you do, Duchess?" "Dear Mr. Hopper, how nice of you to come so early." "We all know how you are run after in London." "Oh, capital place, London!" "They are not nearly so exclusive in London as they are in Sydney." "Ah!" "we know your value, Mr. Hopper." "We wish there were more like you." "It would make life so much easier." "Do you know, Mr. Hopper, dear Agatha and I are so much interested in Australia." "It must be so pretty with all the dear little kangaroos flying about." "Agatha has found it on the map." "What a curious shape it is!" "Just like a large packing case." "However, it is a very young country, isn't it?" "Wasn't it made at the same time as the others, Duchess?" "How clever you are, Mr. Hopper." "You have a cleverness quite of your own." "Now I mustn't keep you." "But I should like to dance with Lady Agatha, Duchess." "She has a dance left." "Have you a dance left, Agatha?" "Yes, mamma." "The next one?" "Yes, mamma." "May I have the pleasure?" "Mind you take great care of my little chatterbox, Mr. Hopper." "Margaret, I want to speak to you." "In a moment." "Lord Augustus Lorton." "Good evening, Lady Windermere." "Sir James, would you take me into the ball-room?" "Augustus has been dining with us to-night." "I really have had quite enough of Augustus for the moment." "Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bowden." "Lord and Lady Paisley." "Lord Darlington." "Want to speak to you particularly, dear boy." "I'm worn to a shadow." "Know I don't look it." "None of us men do look what we really are." "Demmed good thing, too." "What I want to know is this." "Who is she?" "Where does she come from?" "Why hasn't she got any demmed relations?" "Demmed nuisance, relations!" "But they make one so demmed respectable." "You are talking of Mrs. Erlynne, I suppose?" "I've only known her for six months." "Till then, I never knew of her existence." "You have seen a good deal of her since then." "Yes, I have seen a good deal of her since then." "I have just seen her." "Egad!" "the women are very down on her." "I have been dining with Arabella this evening!" "By Jove!" "You should have heard what she said about Mrs. Erlynne." "She didn't leave a rag on her." "Berwick and I told her that didn't matter much, as the lady in question must have an extremely fine figure." "You should have seen Arabella's expression!" "But, look here, dear boy." "I don't know what to do about Mrs. Erlynne." "I might be married to her;" "she treats me with such demmed indifference." "She's deuced clever, too!" "She explains you." "She has got any amount of explanations for you all of them different." "No explanations are necessary concerning my friendship with Mrs. Erlynne." "Hem!" "Well, look here, dear old fellow." "Do you think she will ever get into this demmed thing called Society?" "Would you introduce her to your wife?" "No point in beating about the confounded bush." "Would you do that?" "Tuppy, she is coming here this evening." "Your wife has sent her a card?" "Mrs. Erlynne has received a card." "Then she's all right, dear boy." "But why didn't you say that before?" "It would have saved me a heap of worry and demmed misunderstandings!" "Mr. Cecil Graham!" "Good evening, Arthur." "Why don't you ask me how I am?" "I like people to ask me how I am." "It shows a wide-spread interest in my health." "Now, to-night I am not at all well." "Been dining with my people." "Wonder why it is one's people are always so tedious?" "My father would talk morality after dinner." "I told him he was old enough to know better." "But, my experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, then they don't know anything at all." "Hallo, Tuppy!" "You're going to be married again;" "I thought you were tired of that game." "You're excessively trivial, my dear boy, excessively trivial!" "By the way, Tuppy, which is it?" "Have you been twice married and once divorced, or is it twice divorced and once married?" "I say it's twice divorced and once married." "Sounds so much more probable." "I have a very bad memory." "I really don't remember which." "Lord Windermere, I've something most particular to ask you." "If you will excuse me, Lady Plymdale, I have been expecting my wife." "Oh, you mustn't dream of such a thing." "It's most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public." "It always makes people think that he beats her when they're alone." "The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life." "But I'll tell you what it is at supper." "Margaret!" "I MUST speak to you now." "Lord Darlington, will you hold my fan for me, please?" "Thanks." "What you said before dinner..." "That woman is not coming here to-night!" "Mrs. Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way wound or annoy her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both." "Remember that!" "Ah, Margaret!" "trust me!" "A wife should trust her husband!" "London is full of women who trust their husbands." "One can always recognise them." "They look so thoroughly unhappy." "I am not going to be one of them." "Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please?" "Thanks..." "A useful thing a fan, isn't it?" "I want a friend to-night, Lord Darlington:" "I didn't know I would want one so soon." "Lady Windermere!" "I knew the time would come some day;" "why to-night?" "Margaret" "Mrs. Erlynne!" "You have dropped your fan, Lady Windermere." "How do you do, again, Lord Windermere?" "How charming your sweet wife looks!" "Quite a picture!" "It was terribly rash of you to come here this evening!" "The wisest thing I ever did in my life." "And, by the way, you must pay me a good deal of attention this evening." "I am afraid of the women." "You must introduce me to some of them." "The men I can always manage." "How do you do, Lord Augustus?" "You have quite neglected me lately." "I have not seen you since yesterday." "I am afraid you're faithless." "Every one told me so." "Now really, Mrs. Erlynne, allow me to explain." "No, dear Lord Augustus, you can't explain anything." "It is your chief charm." "Ah!" "if you find charms in me, Mrs. Erlynne, allow me to say.." "How pale you are!" "Cowards are always pale!" "You look faint." "Come out on the terrace." "Lady Windermere, how beautifully your terrace is illuminated." "Reminds me of Prince Doria's at Rome." "Oh, Mr. Graham, how do you do?" "Isn't that your aunt, Lady Jedburgh?" "I should so much like to know her." "Certainly, if you wish it." "Aunt Caroline, allow me to introduce Mrs. Erlynne." "So pleased to meet you, Lady Jedburgh." "Your nephew and I are great friends." "I am so much interested in his political career." "I think he's certain to be a wonderful success." "He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so importand nowadays." "He's such a brilliant talker, too." "But we all know from whom he inherits that." "Lord Allandale was saying to me only yesterday, in the Park, that Mr. Graham talks almost as well as his aunt." "Most kind of you to say these charming things to me!" "Did you introduce Mrs. Erlynne to Lady Jedburgh?" "Had to, my dear fellow." "Couldn't help it!" "That woman can make one do anything she wants." "How, I don't know." "Hope to goodness she won't speak to me!" "On Thursday?" "With great pleasure." "Goodby, my dear." "What a bore it is to have to be civil to these old dowagers!" "But they always insist on it!" "Who is that well-dressed woman talking to Windermere?" "Haven't got the slightest idea!" "Looks like an edition de luxe of a wicked French novel, meant specially for the English market." "So that is poor Dumby with Lady Plymdale?" "I hear she is frightfully jealous of him." "He doesn't seem anxious to speak to me to-night." "I suppose he is afraid of her." "Those straw-coloured women have dreadful tempers." "Do you know, I think I will dance with you first, Windermere." "It will make Lord Augustus so jealous!" "Lord Augustus!" "Lord Windermere insists on my dancing with him first, and, as it's his own house, I can't well refuse." "You know I would much sooner dance with you." "I wish I could think so, Mrs. Erlynne." "You know it far too well." "I can fancy a person dancing through life with you and finding it charming." "Oh, thank you, thank you." "You are the most adorable of all ladies!" "What a nice speech!" "So simple and so sincere!" "Just the sort of speech I like." "Well, you shall hold my bouquet." "Oh, Mr. Dumby, how are you?" "I am so sorry I have been out the last three times you have called." "Come and lunch on Friday." "Delighted!" "What an absolute brute you are!" "I never can believe a word you say!" "Why did you tell me you didn't know her?" "What do you mean by calling on her three times running?" "You are not to go to lunch there!" "Of course you understand that?" "My dear Laura, I wouldn't dream of going!" "You haven't told me her name yet!" "Who is she?" "She's a Mrs. Erlynne." "That woman!" "Yes;" "that is what they all call her." "Very interesting!" "How intensely interesting!" "I really must have a good stare at her." "I have heard the most shocking things about her." "They say she is ruining poor Windermere." "And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her!" "Oh, extremely amusing!" "It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing." "You are to lunch there on Friday!" "Why?" "Because, I want you to take my husband with you." "He has been so attentive that he's become a perfect nuisance." "Now, this woman is just the thing for him." "He'll dance attendance upon her as long as she lets him, and won't bother me." "I assure you, women of that kind are most useful." "Her coming here is monstrous, unbearable." "I know now what you meant at tea-time." "Why didn't you tell me right out?" "You should have!" "I couldn't!" "A man can't tell these things about another man!" "But if I had known he was going to make you ask her here to-night, I think I would have." "That insult, at any rate, you would have been spared." "I did not ask her." "He insisted on her coming" "against my entreaties-- against my commands." "Oh!" "the house is tainted for me!" "I feel that every woman here sneers at me as she dances by with my husband." "What have I done to deserve this?" "I gave him my all life." "He took it" "used it-- spoiled it!" "I am degraded in my own eyes;" "I lack courage" "I am a coward!" "If I know you at all," "I know that you can't live with a man who treats you like this!" "What sort of life would you have with him?" "You would feel that he was lying to you every moment of the day." "You would feel that the look in his eyes was false, his voice false, his touch false, his passion false." "He would come to you when he was weary of others;" "you would have to confort him." "He would come to you when he was devoted to others;" "you would have to charm him." "You would have to be to him the mask of his real life, the cloak to hide his secret." "You are right, you are terribly right." "But where am I to turn to?" "You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington." "Tell me, what am I to do?" "Be my friend now." "Between men and women there is no friendship possible." "There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship." "I love you" "No, no!" "Yes, I love you!" "You are more to me than anything in the whole world." "What does your husband give you?" "Nothing." "Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you before every one." "I offer you my life." "Lord Darlington!" "My life-- my whole life." "Take it, and do with it what you will." "I love you" "I love you more than I have never loved any living thing." "From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly!" "You did not know it then-- you know it now!" "Leave this house to-night." "I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society." "They matter a great deal." "They matter far too much." "But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-- or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands." "You have that moment now." "Choose!" "Oh, my love, choose." "I have not the courage." "Yes;" "you have the courage." "There may be six months of pain, of disgrace even, but when you no longer bear his name, when you bear mine, all will be well." "Margaret, my love, my wife that shall be some day" "yes, my wife!" "You know it!" "What are you now?" "Nothing!" "This woman has the place that by right belongs to you." "Oh!" "go--go out of this house, with head erect, with a smile upon your lips, with courage in your eyes." "All London will know why you did it;" "and who will blame you?" "If they do, what matter?" "Wrong?" "What is wrong?" "It's wrong for a man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman." "It is wrong for a wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her." "You said once that you would make no compromise with things." "Make none now." "Be brave!" "Be yourself!" "I am afraid of being myself." "Let me think!" "Let me wait!" "My husband may return to me." "Would you take him back?" "You are not what I thought you were." "You are just the same as every other woman." "You would stand everything rather than face the censure of a world, whose praise you would despise." "In a week you will be driving with this woman in the Park." "She will be your constant guest" "your dearest friend." "You would endure anything rather than break with one blow this monstrous tie." "You are right." "You have no courage;" "none!" "Ah, give me time to think." "I cannot answer you now." "It must be now or not at all." "Then, not at all!" "You break my heart!" "Mine is already broken." "To-morrow" "I leave England." "This is the last time" "I shall ever look upon you." "You will never see me again." "For one moment our lives met" "our souls touched." "They must never meet or touch again." "Good-bye," "Margaret." "How alone I am in life!" "How terribly alone!" "Dear Margaret," "I've just been having the most delightful chat with Mrs. Erlynne." "I am so sorry for the things I said to you this afternoon about her." "Of course, she must be all right if YOU invite her." "A most attractive woman, and has such sensible views on life." "Told me she entirely disapproved of people marrying more than once, so I feel quite safe about poor Augustus." "Can't imagine why people speak against her." "It's those horrid nieces of mine --the Saville sisters" "always talking scandal." "Still," "I should go to Homburg, dear, I really should." "She is just a little too attractive." "But where is Agatha?" "Oh, there she is:" "Mr. Hopper," "I am very, very angry with you." "You have taken Agatha out on the terrace, and she is so delicate." "Awfully sorry, Duchess." "We went out for a moment and then got chatting together." "Ah, about dear Australia, I suppose?" "Yes!" "Agatha, darling!" "Yes, mamma." "Did Mr. Hopper definitely " "Yes, mamma." "And what answer did you give him, dear child?" "Yes, mamma." "My dear one!" "You always say the right thing." "Mr. Hopper!" "James!" "Agatha has told me everything." "How cleverly you have both kept your secret." "You don't mind my taking Agatha off to Australia, then, Duchess?" "To Australia?" "Oh, don't mention that dreadful vulgar place." "But she said she'd like to come with me." "Did you say that, Agatha?" "Yes, mamma." "Agatha, you say the most silly things possible." "I should think on the whole that Grosvenor Square would be a more healthy place to reside in." "There are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square, but at any rate there are no horrid kangaroos crawling about." "But we'll talk about that to-morrow." "James, you can take Agatha down." "You'll come to lunch, of course, James." "At half-past one, instead of two." "The Duke will wish to say a few words to you, I am sure." "I should like to have a chat with the Duke, Duchess." "He has not said a single word to me yet." "I think you'll find he will have a great deal to say to you to-morrow." "And now good-night, Margaret." "I'm afraid it's the old, old story, dear." "Love--well, not love at first sight, but love at the end of the season, which is so much more satisfactory." "Good-night, Duchess." "My dear Margaret, what a handsome woman your husband has been dancing with!" "Oh!" "I should be quite jealous if I were you!" "Is she a great friend of yours?" "No!" "Really?" "Good-night, dear." "Awful manners young Hopper has!" "Ah!" "Hopper is one of Nature's gentlemen, the worst type of gentleman I know." "Sensible woman, Lady Windermere." "Lots of wives would have objected to Mrs. Erlynne coming." "But Lady Windermere has that uncommon thing called common sense." "And Windermere knows that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion." "Yes;" "dear Windermere is becoming almost modern." "Never thought he would." "Good night, Lady Windermere." "What a fascinating woman Mrs. Erlynne is!" "She is coming to lunch on Thursday, won't you come too?" "The Bishop and dear Lady Merton would be there." "I am afraid I am engaged, Lady Jedburgh." "So sorry." "Come." "Charming ball it has been!" "Quite reminds me of old days." "And I see that there are just as many fools in society as there used to be." "So pleased to find that nothing has altered!" "The dear Duchess!" "and that sweet Lady Agatha!" "Just the type of girl I like!" "Well, really, Windermere, if I am to be the Duchess's sister-in-law." "Are you--?" "Oh, yes!" "He's to call to-morrow at twelve o'clock!" "He wanted to propose to-night." "In fact he did." "He kept on proposing." "Poor Augustus, you know how he repeats himself." "Such a bad habit!" "But I told him I wouldn't give him an answer untill to-morrow." "Of course I am going to take him." "And I dare say I'll make him an admirable wife, as wives go." "And there is a great deal of good in Lord Augustus." "Fortunately it is all on the surface." "Just where good qualities should be." "Of course you must help me in this matter." "I am not called on to encourage Lord Augustus, I suppose?" "Oh, no!" "I do the encouraging." "But you will make me a handsome settlement, Windermere, won't you?" "Is that what you want to talk to me about to-night?" "Yes." "I will not talk about it here." "Then we will talk of it on the terrace." "Even business should have a picturesque background." "Should it not, Windermere?" "With a proper background women can do anything." "Won't to-morrow do as well?" "No;" "you see, to-morrow I am going to accept him." "And I think it would be a good thing if I was able to tell him that I had" "well, what shall I say?" "2000 pounds a year left to me by a third cousin" "or a second husband" "or some distant relative of that kind." "It would be an additional attraction, wouldn't it?" "You have a delightful opportunity now of paying me a compliment, Windermere." "But you are not very clever at paying compliments." "I am afraid Margaret doesn't encourage you in that excellent habit." "I's a great mistake on her part." "When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming." "But what do you say to 2000 pounds a year?" "2500 pounds, I think." "In modern life margin is everything." "Windermere, don't you think the world an intensely amusing place?" "I do!" "To stay in this house any longer is impossible." "To-night a man who loves me offered me his whole life." "I refused it." "It was foolish of me." "I will offer him mine now." "Is Lady Windermere still in the ball-room?" "Her ladyship has just gone out." "Gone out?" "She's not on the terrace?" "No, madam." "Her ladyship has just gone out of the house." "Out of the house?" "Yes, madam her ladyship told me she had left a letter for his lordship on the table." "A letter for Lord Windermere?" "Yes, madam." "Thank you." "No!" "No, it would be impossible!" "Life doesn't repeat its tragedies like that!" "Oh, how terrible!" "The same words I wrote to her father!" "and how bitterly I have been punished for it!" "No;" "my punishment, my real punishment is to-night," "is now!" "Have you said good-night to my wife?" "Yes." "Where is she?" "She is very tired." "She has gone to bed." "She said she had a headache." "I must go to her." "You'll excuse me?" "No!" "It's nothing serious." "She's only very tired, that is all." "Besides, there are people still in the supper-room." "She wants you to make her apologies to them." "She said she didn't wish to be disturbed." "She asked me to tell you!" "Oh yes, thank you, that is mine." "It's my wife's handwriting, isn't it?" "Yes, it's an address." "Will you ask them to call my carriage, please?" "Certainly." "Thanks!" "Dear lady," "I am in such suspense!" "May I not have an answer to my request?" "Lord Augustus, listen to me." "You are to take Lord Windermere down to your club at once, and keep him there as long as possible." "Do you understand?" "But you said you wished me to keep early hours!" "Do what I tell you." "Do what I tell you." "And my reward?" "Your reward?" "Your reward?" "Oh!" "Ask me that to-morrow." "But don't let Windermere out of your sight to-night." "If you do" "I will never forgive you." "I will never speak to you again." "I'll have nothing to do with you." "Remember you are to keep Windermere at your club," "and don't let him come back to-night." "Well, really," "I might be her husband already." "Positively I might." "Arthur?" "Why doesn't he come?" "This waiting is horrible." "He should be here." "Why is he not here, to wake by passionate words some fire within me?" "I am cold-- cold as a loveless thing." "Arthur must have read my letter by this time." "If he cared for me, he would have come after me, would have taken me back by force." "But he doesn't care." "He's entrammelled by this woman" "fascinated by her-- dominated by her." "If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him." "We make gods of men and they leave us." "Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful." "How hideous life is!" "..." "Oh!" "it was mad of me to come here, horribly mad." "And yet, which is the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves me," "or the wife of a man who in one's own house dishonours me?" "What woman knows?" "What woman in the whole world?" "But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life?" "What do I bring him?" "Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears," "chill hands and icy heart." "I bring him nothing." "I must go back-- no;" "I can't go back, my letter has put me in their power" "Arthur would not take me back!" "Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow." "I will go with him --I have no choice." "No, no!" "I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases." "I can't wait here." "It has been madness my coming." "I must go at once." "Lord Darlington!" "What can I say to him?" "Will he let me go away at all?" "I have heard that men are brutal, horrible ..." "Lady Windermere!" "Thank Heaven I am in time." "You must go back to your husband's house immediately." "Must?" "Yes, you must!" "There is not a second to be lost." "Lord Darlington may return at any moment." "Don't come near me!" "Oh!" "You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice." "You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street." "You must come with me and drive straight home." "What are you doing?" "Mrs. Erlynne if you had not come here," "I would have gone back." "But now that I see you," "I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere." "You fill me with horror." "There is something about you that stirs the wildest rage within me." "And I know why you are here." "My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relation exists between you and him." "Oh!" "You don't think that --you can't." "Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne." "He belongs to you and not to me." "I suppose he is afraid of a scandal." "Men are such cowards." "They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world's tongue." "But he had better prepare himself." "He shall have a scandal." "He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years." "He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard." "No- -no " "Yes!" "he shall." "Had he come himself," "I admit" "I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me" "I was going back but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger oh!" "it was infamous infamous." "Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly you wrong your husband horribly." "He doesn't know you are here he thinks you are safe in your own house." "He thinks you are asleep in your own room." "He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!" "Never read it!" "No- -he knows nothing about it." "How simple you think me!" "You are lying to me!" "I am not." "I am telling you the truth." "If my husband didn't read my letter, how is it that you are here?" "Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter?" "Who told you where I had gone to?" "My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back." "Your husband has never seen the letter." "I- -saw it," "I opened it." "I- -read it." "You opened a letter of mine to my husband?" "You wouldn't dare!" "Dare!" "Oh!" "to save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world." "Here is the letter." "Your husband has never read it." "He shall never read it." "It should never have been written." "How do I know that that was my letter after all?" "You seem to think the commonest device can take me in!" "Oh!" "why do you disbelieve everything I tell you?" "What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake?" "That letter that is burnt now WAS your letter." "I swear it to you!" "You took good care to burn it before I had examined it." "I cannot trust you." "You, whose whole life is a lie, how could you speak the truth about anything?" "Think as you like about me- -say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love." "I do NOT love him!" "You do, and you know that he loves you." "He does not understand what love is." "He understands it as little as you do-- but I see what you want." "It would be a great advantage to you to get me back." "Dear Heaven!" "what a life I would have then!" "Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!" "Lady Windermere," "Lady Windermere, don't say such terrible things." "You don't know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust." "Listen, you must listen!" "Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext-- never to see him-- never to have anything to do with his life or yours." "The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt." "The hold I have over him " "Ah!" "you admit you have a hold!" "Yes, and I will tell you what it is." "It is his love for you, Lady Windermere." "You expect me to believe that?" "You must believe it!" "It is the truth." "It is his love for you that has made him submit to-- oh!" "call it what you like, tyranny, threats, anything you choose." "But it is his love for you." "His desire to spare you- -shame, yes, shame and disgrace." "What do you mean?" "You are insolent!" "What have I to do with you?" "Nothing." "I know it-- but I tell you that your husband loves you-- that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life-- that such love you will never meet-- and if you throw it away again now," "the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you" "Oh!" "Arthur loves you!" "Arthur?" "And you tell me there is nothing between you?" "Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you!" "And I" "I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind," "I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his-- oh!" "died, gladly died!" "You talk as if you had a heart." "Women like you have no hearts." "Heart is not in you." "You are bought and sold." "Believe what you choose against me." "I am not worth a moment's sorrow." "But don't spoil your beautiful young life on my account!" "You don't know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once." "You don't know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at-- to be an outcast!" "to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask be stripped from one's face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world," "a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed." "You don't know what it is." "One pays for one's sin, and then one pays again," "and all one's life one pays." "You must never know that." "As for me, if suffering be an expiation," "then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been;" "for to-night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it." "But let that pass." "I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours." "You why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost." "You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back." "You have neither the wit nor the courage." "You couldn't stand dishonour!" "No!" "Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love." "You have a child, Lady Windermere." "Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you." "God gave you that child." "He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him." "What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you?" "Back to your house, Lady Windermere." "Your husband loves you!" "He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you." "But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child." "If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child." "If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child." "If he abandoned you, your place is with your child." "Lady Windermere!" "Take me home." "Take me home." "Come!" "Here is your cloak." "Come, put it on." "Come at once!" "Stop!" "Don't you hear voices?" "No, no!" "There was no one!" "Yes, there is!" "Listen!" "Oh!" "It is my husband's voice!" "He is coming in!" "Save me!" "Oh, it's some plot!" "You have sent for him." "Silence!" "I'm here to save you, if I can." "But I fear it maybe too late!" "There!" "The first chance you get, slip out, if you ever get a chance!" "But you?" "Never mind me." "Nonsense, dear Windermere, you must not leave me!" "Lord Augustus!" "Then it is I who am lost!" "Damned nuisance their turning us out of the club at this hour!" "It's only two o'clock." "The lively part of the evening is only just beginning." "It is very good of you, Lord Darlington, allowing Augustus to force our company on you like this," "I can't stay longer I'm afraid." "Really!" "I am so sorry!" "You'll take a cigar, won't you?" "Oh, thank you!" "My dear boy, you must not dream of going." "I have a great deal to talk to you about, of demmed importance, too." "Oh!" "We all know what that is!" "Tuppy can't talk about anything but Mrs. Erlynne." "Well, that is none of your business, is it, Cecil?" "None!" "That is why it interests me." "My own business always bores me to death." "I prefer other people's." "Have something to drink, you fellows." "Cecil, you'll have a whisky and soda?" "Thanks." "Mrs. Erlynne looked very handsome to-night, didn't she?" "I am not one of her admirers." "I usen't to be, but I am now." "Why!" "She actually made me introduce her to poor dear Aunt Caroline." "I believe she is going to lunch there." "No?" "She is, really." "Excuse me, you fellows." "I'm going away to-morrow." "And I have to write a few letters." "Clever woman, Mrs. Erlynne." "Hallo, Dumby!" "I thought you were asleep." "I am, I usually am!" "A very clever woman." "Knows perfectly well what a demmed fool I am, knows it as well as I do myself." "Ah, you may laugh, my boy, but it is a great thing to come across a woman who thoroughly understands you" "It is an awfully dangerous thing." "They always end up by marrying one." "But I thought, Tuppy, you were never going to see her again!" "Yes!" "You told me so yesterday evening at the club." "You said you'd heard." "She had a list of admirers..." "Oh, she's explained that." "And the Wiesbaden affair?" "She's explained that too." "And her income, Tuppy?" "Has she explained that?" "She's going to explain that to-morrow." "Awfully commercial, women nowadays." "Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mills, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them." "You want to make her out a wicked woman." "She is not!" "Oh!" "Wicked women bother one." "Good women bore one." "That is the only difference between them." "Mrs. Erlynne has a future before her." "Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her." "I prefer women with a past." "They're so demmed amusing to talk to." "Well, you'll have lots of topics of conversation with HER, Tuppy." "You're getting annoying, dear-boy;" "no getting demmed annoying." "Now, Tuppy, you've lost your figure, you've lost your character." "Don't lose your temper;" "you have only got one." "My dear boy, if I wasn't the most good-natured man in London " "We'd treat you with more respect, wouldn't we?" "The youth of the present day are quite monstrous... have no respect for dyed hair." "Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy." "Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex." "It is perfectly brutal the way women nowadays behave to men who are not even their husbands." "Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you." "You really must stop talking about Mrs. Erlynne like this." "You don't know anything about her, and you're always talking scandal against her." "My dear Arthur," "I never talk scandal." "_I_ only talk gossip." "What is the difference between scandal and gossip?" "Oh!" "Gossip is charming!" "History is merely gossip." "Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality." "Now, I never moralise." "A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain." "Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments." "Sorry to hear it, Tuppy;" "whenever anyone agrees with me, I always feel I must be wrong." "My dear boy, when I was your age " "But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be." "I say, Darlington, let us have some cards." "You will play, Arthur, won't you?" "No, thanks, Cecil." "Good heavens!" "how marriage ruins a man!" "It's as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive." "You'll play, of course, Tuppy?" "Can't, dear boy." "I promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again." "Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the paths of virtue." "Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious." "Oh, that is the worst of women." "They always want one to be good." "And if we are good, when they meet us," "they don't love us at all." "They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good." "They always do find us bad!" "I don't think we are bad." "I think we are all good, except Tuppy." "No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up to the..." "Upon my word, you are getting very romantic to-night, Darlington." "Too romantic!" "You must be in love." "Who is the girl?" "The woman I love is not free, or, at least, thinks she isn't." "A married woman, then!" "Well, there's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman." "It's a thing no married man knows anything about." "No!" "she doesn't love me." "She is a good woman." "The only good woman I have ever met in my life." "The only good woman you have ever met in your life?" "Yes!" "Well, you are a lucky fellow!" "Why, I have met hundreds of good women." "I never seem to meet any but good women." "The world is perfectly packed with good women." "To know them is a middle-class education." "This woman has purity and innocence." "She has everything that we men have lost." "My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence?" "A carefully thought-out buttonhole, much more effective." "She doesn't really love you then?" "No, she does not!" "Well, I congratulate you, my dear fellow." "In this world there are only two real tragedies." "One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." "The last is much the worst;" "the last is a real tragedy!" "But I am interested to hear you say she doesn't love you." "How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil?" "A woman who didn't love me?" "Oh, all my life!" "So could I." "But it's so difficult to meet one." "How can you be so conceited, DUMBY?" "I didn't say it as a matter of conceit." "Said it as a matter of regret." "Now, I have been wildly, madly adored." "I am sorry I have it." ".. been an immense nuisance." "I should like to be allowed a little time to myself now and then." "Time to educate yourself, I suppose." "No, time to forget all I have learned." "That is much more important, Tuppy." "What cynics you fellows are!" "What is a cynic?" "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." "And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing." "You always amuse me, Cecil." "You talk as if you were a man of experience." "I am." "You are far too young!" "That is a great error." "Experience is a question of instinct about life." "I have got it." "But, Tuppy hasn't." "Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes." "That is all." "Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes." "One shouldn't commit any." "Life would be awfully dull without them." "Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?" "Cecil, if on really loves a woman, all other women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one." "Love changes one-- _I_ am changed." "Dear me!" "How very interesting!" "Tuppy, I want to talk to you." "No." "It's no use talking to Tuppy." "You might just as well talk to a brick wall." "I like talking to a brick wall-- it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!" "Tuppy!" "Well, what is it?" "What is it?" "Come over here." "I want you particularly." "Darlington has been moralising and talking about the purity of love, and that sort of thing, and he has got some woman here in his rooms all the time." "No, really!" "really?" "Yes, here is her fan." "By Jove!" "By Jove!" "And I must be off now, Darlington." "I am sorry you are leaving England so soon." "Pray call on when you get back!" "I will be charmed to greet you!" "I am afraid I shall be away for many years." "Arthur!" "What?" "I want to speak to you for a moment." "No, do come!" "I can't --I'm off!" "It is something very particular." "It will interest you enormously." "It is some of your nonsense, Cecil." "It isn't!" "It isn't really." "My dear fellow, you mustn't go yet." "I have a lot to talk to you about." "And Cecil has something to show you." "Well, what is it?" "Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms." "Here is her fan." "Amusing, isn't it?" "Good God!" "What is the matter?" "Lord Darlington!" "Yes!" "What is my wife's fan doing here in your rooms?" "Hands off, Cecil." "Don't touch me." "Your wife's fan?" "Yes, here it is!" "I don't know!" "You must know." "I demand an explanation." "Speak, sir!" "Why is my wife's fan here?" "Answer me!" "By God!" "I'll search your rooms," "You shall not search my rooms." "You have no right to do so." "I forbid you!" "You scoundrel!" "I'll not leave your room till I have searched every corner of it!" "Lord Windermere!" "Mrs. Erlynne!" "I am afraid I took your wife's fan in mistake for my own, when I was leaving your house to-night." "I am so sorry." "How can I tell him?" "I can't tell him." "It would kill me." "If he knows how can I look him in the face again?" "He would never forgive me." "How securely one thinks one lives out of reach of temptation, sin, folly." "And then suddenly..." "Life is terrible." "It rules us, we do not rule it." "Did your ladyship ring for me?" "Yes." "Have you found out at what time" "Lord Windermere came in last night?" "His lordship did not come in till five o'clock." "He knocked at my door this morning, didn't he?" "Yes, my lady --at half-past nine." "I told him your ladyship was not awake yet." "Did he say anything?" "Something about your ladyship's fan." "I didn't quite catch what his lordship said." "Has the fan been lost, my lady?" "I can't find it, and Parker says it was not left in any of the rooms." "He has looked in all of them and on the terrace as well." "It doesn't matter." "Tell Parker not to trouble." "That will do." "She is sure to tell him." "Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine?" "..." "There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women... ." "What a lesson!" "And what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us!" "For even if she doesn't tell," "I must." "To tell it is to live through it all again." "Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second." "Words are perhaps the worst." "Words are merciless..." "Good morning." "You look pale." "I slept very badly." "I am so sorry." "I didn't get in till very late, and didn't like to wake you." "You are crying." "Yes, I am crying, Arthur." "For I have something to tell you" "My dear child, you are not well." "You've been doing too much." "Let us go away to the country." "You'll be all right at Selby." "The season is almost over." "There is no use staying on." "My poor darling!" "We'll go away to-day, if you like." "We can easily catch the 3.40, yes." "I'll send a wire to Fannen." "Yes... let us go away to-day." "No;" "I can't go to-day, Arthur." "There is some one I must see before I leave town... some one who has been kind to me." "Kind to you?" "Far more than that." "I will tell you, Arthur, only love me, love me as you used to love me." "Used to?" "You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night?" "Look, dont think I..." "I don't." "I know now I was wrong and foolish." "It was very good of you to receive her last night." "but you are never to see her again." "Why do you say that?" "I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes." "I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a position that she had lost by a moment's folly, to lead again a decent life." "I believed what she told me," "I was mistaken in her." "She is bad, as bad as a woman can be." "Arthur," "Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any woman." "I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations." "What are called good women may have terrible things in them," "mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin." "Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity," "sacrifice." "And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman" "I know she's not." "The woman's impossible." "Margaret, whatever harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again." "She is inadmissible anywhere." "I want to see her." "I want her to come here." "Never!" "She came here once as YOUR guest." "She must come now as MINE." "That is but fair." "She should never have come here." "It is too late, Arthur, to say that now." "Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, you would not even sit in the same room with her." "It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing." "I can't bear it any longer." "I must tell you." "Mrs. Erlynne has called, my Lady, to return your ladyship's fan which she took away by mistake last night." "Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card." "Ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up." "Say I shall be very glad to see her." "She wants to see me, Arthur." "Oh, grace!" "Let me see her first, at any rate." "She's a very dangerous woman." "The most dangerous woman I know." "You don't realise what you're doing." "It is right that I should see her." "Child, you may be on the brink of a great sorrow." "Don't go to meet it." "It is absolutely necessary that I should see her first." "Why should it be necessary?" "Mrs. Erlynne." "How do you do, Lady Windermere?" "How do you do?" "Do you know, Lady Windermere, I am so sorry about your fan." "I can't imagine how I made such a silly mistake." "Most stupid of me. ." "And as I was driving in your direction," "I thought I would take the opportunity of returning your property to you in person with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you good-bye." "Good-bye?" "Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?" "Yes;" "I am going to live abroad." "The English climate doesn't suit me." "My--heart is affected here, and that I don't like." "I prefer living in the south." "London is too full of fogs and" "and serious people, Lord Windermere." "Whether the fogs produce the serious people or the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know, but the whole thing rather gets on my nerves, and so I'm leaving this afternoon by the Club Train." "This afternoon?" "But I wanted so much to come and see you." "How kind of you!" "But I am afraid I have to go." "Shall I never see you again, Mrs. Erlynne?" "I am afraid not." "Our lives lie too far apart." "But there is a little thing I would like you to do for me." "I want a photograph of you, Lady Windermere" "would you give me one?" "You don't know how gratified I should be." "With pleasure." "There is in there." "I'll show it to you." "It is monstrous your intruding yourself here after your behaviour last night." "My dear Windermere, manners before morals!" "I'm afraid it is very flattering," "I am not so pretty as that." "You are much prettier." "But haven't you got one of yourself with your little boy?" "I have." "Would you prefer one of those?" "Yes." "I'll go and get it for you, if you'll wait for a moment." "I have one upstairs." "So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble." "No trouble at all, Mrs. Erlynne." "Thanks so much." "You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere." "Why should you be?" "Margaret and I get on charmingly together." "I can't bear to see you with her." "Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne." "I have not told HER the truth, you mean." "I sometimes wish you had." "I should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the last six months." "But rather than let my wife know that the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living, a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name," "a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be, rather than that," "I was ready to supply you with money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk what occurred last night," "the first quarrel I have ever had with my wife." "You don't understand what that means to me." "How could you?" "But I tell you this:" "the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you with her." "You sully the innocence that is in her." "And then I used to think that with all your faults you were frank and honest." "You are not." "Why do you say that?" "You made me get you an invitation to my wife's ball." "For my daughter's ball --yes." "You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house you are found in a man's rooms you are disgraced before every one." "Yes." "And therefore I have a right to look upon you as what you are" "a worthless, vicious woman." "I have the right to tell you never to enter this house, never to attempt to come near my wife again " "My daughter, you mean." "You have no right to claim her as your daughter." "You left her, abandoned her when she was but a child in the cradle, abandoned her for your lover, who abandoned you in turn." "Do you count that to his credit, Lord Windermere --or to mine?" "To his, now that I know you." "Take care --you had better be careful." "Oh, I am not going to mince words for you." "I know you thoroughly." "I question that." "I DO know you." "For twenty years of your life you lived without your child, without a thought of your child." "One day you read in the papers that she had married a rich man." "You saw your hideous chance." "You knew that to spare her the ignominy of finding that a woman like you was her mother," "I would endure anything." "You began your blackmailing," "Don't use ugly words, Windermere." "They are vulgar." "I saw my chance, it is true, and took it." "Yes, you took it and spoiled it all last night by being found out." "You are quite right," "I spoiled it all last night." "And as for your blunder in taking my wife's fan from here and then leaving it about in Darlington's rooms, it is unpardonable." "I can't bear the sight of it now." "I shall never let my wife use it again." "The thing is soiled for me." "You should have kept it and not brought it back." "I think I shall keep it." "I shall ask Margaret to give it to me." "It is extremely pretty." "I hope my wife will give it you." "Oh, I'm sure she will have no objection." "I wish that at the same time she would give you a miniature that prays to every night before she goes to sleep." "It's the miniature of a young innocent-looking girl with beautiful DARK hair." "Ah, yes, I remember." "How long ago that seems!" "It was done before I was married." "Dark hair and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere!" "What do you mean by coming here this morning?" "What is your object?" "To bid good-bye to my dear daughter, of course." "Oh, don't imagine I am going to have a pathetic scene with her, weep on her neck and tell her who I am, and all that kind of thing." "I have no ambition to play the part of a mother." "Only once in my life have I known a mother's feelings." "That was last night." "They were terrible" "they made me suffer-- they made me suffer too much." "For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless," "I want to live childless still." "Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter?" "Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most." "Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not." "So you see what difficulties it would involve." "No, as far as I am concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother." "Why should I interfere with her illusions?" "I find it hard enough to keep my own." "I lost one illusion last night." "I thought I had no heart." "I find I have, and a heart doesn't suit me, Windermere." "Somehow it doesn't go with modern dress." "It makes one look old." "And it spoils one's career at critical moments." "You fill me with horror, absolute horror." "I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels." "That is stupid of you, Arthur;" "in real life we don't do such things, not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate." "No--what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure." "Repentance is quite out of date." "Besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her." "And nothing in the world would induce me to do that." "No;" "I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives." "My coming into them has been a mistake" "I discovered that last night." "A fatal mistake." "Almost fatal." "I wish now that I'd told my wife the whole thing at once." "I regret my bad actions." "You regret your good ones that is the difference between us." "I don't trust you." "I think I WILL tell her." "It's better for her to know, and from me." "It will cause her infinite pain --it will humiliate her terribly, but it's right that she should know." "You propose to tell her?" "I am going to tell her." "If you do," "I will make my name so infamous it will mar every moment of her life." "It will ruin her, and make her wretched." "If you dare to tell her, there is no depth of degradation I will not sink to, no pit of shame I will not enter." "You shall not tell her --I forbid you." "Why?" "If I said to you that I cared for her, perhaps loved her even --you would sneer at me, wouldn't you?" "I should feel it was not true." "A mother's love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice." "What could you know of such things?" "You are quite right." "What could I know of such things?" "Don't let us talk about it any more." "As for telling my daughter who I am, that I do not allow." "It is my secret, it is not yours." "If I make up my mind to tell her, and I think I will," "I will tell her before I leave the house." "If not, I shall never tell her." "Then let me beg of you to leave our house at once." "I shall make your excuses to Margaret." "I am so sorry, Mrs. Erlynne, to have kept you waiting." "I couldn't find the photograph anywhere." "At last I discovered it in my husband's dressing-room" "he had stolen it." "I am not surprised." "It is charming." "And so that is your little boy!" "What is he called?" "Gerard, after my dear father." "Really?" "Yes." "If it had been a girl, I would have called it after my mother." "My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret." "My name is Margaret too." "Indeed!" "Yes." "You are devoted to your mother's memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me." "We all have ideals in life." "At least we all should have." "Mine is my mother." "Ideals are dangerous things." "Realities are better." "They wound, but they're better." "If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything." "Everything?" "Yes." "Did your father often speak to you of your mother?" "No, it gave him too much pain." "He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born." "His eyes filled with tears as he spoke." "Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again." "It made him suffer even to hear it." "My father my father died really of a broken heart." "His was the most ruined life I know," "I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere." "Oh no, don't." "I think I had better." "My carriage must have come back by this time." "I sent it to Lady Jedburgh's with a note." "Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come back yet?" "Pray don't trouble, Lord Windermere." "Yes, Arthur, do go, please." "Oh!" "What am I to say to you?" "You saved me last night?" "Hush --don't speak of it." "I must speak of it." "I can't let you think I am going to accept this sacrifice." "I am not." "It is too great." "I am going to tell my husband everything." "It is my duty." "It is not your duty" "at least you have duties to others besides him." "You say you owe me something?" "I owe you everything." "Then pay your debt by silence." "That is the only way in which it can be paid." "Don't spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one." "Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us." "You must not bring misery into your husband's life." "Why spoil his love?" "You must not spoil it." "Love is easily killed." "Oh!" "how easily love is killed." "Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him." "I insist upon it." "It is your will, not mine." "Yes, it is my will." "And never forget your child" "I like to think of you as a mother." "I like you to think of yourself as one." "I always will now." "Only once in my life have I forgotten my own mother that was last night." "Oh, had I remembered her I should not have been so foolish, so wicked." "Hush, last night is quite over." "Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne." "It makes no matter." "I should take a hansom." "There is nothing in the world so respectable as a good Shrewsbury and Talbot." "And now, dear Lady Windermere, I am afraid it is really good-bye." "Oh, I remember." "You'll think me absurd, but do you know" "I've taken a great fancy to this fan but I was silly enough to run away with last night from your ball." "Now, I wonder would you give it to me?" "Lord Windermere says you may." "I know it is his present." "Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure." "But it has my name on it." "It has 'Margaret' on it." "But we have the same Christian name." "Oh, I forgot." "Of course, do have it." "What a wonderful chance our names being the same!" "Quite wonderful." "Thanks --it will always remind me of you." "Lord Augustus Lorton." "Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come." "Good morning, dear boy." "Good morning, Lady Windermere." "Mrs. Erlynne!" "How do you do, Lord Augustus?" "Are you quite well this morning?" "Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Erlynne." "You don't look at all well, Lord Augustus." "You stop up too late" "it is so bad for you." "You really should take more care of yourself." "Good-bye, Lord Windermere." "Lord Augustus!" "Won't you see me to my carriage?" "You might carry the fan." "Allow me!" "No;" "I want Lord Augustus." "I have a special message for the dear Duchess." "Won't you carry the fan, Lord Augustus?" "If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne." "Of course I do." "You'll carry it so gracefully." "You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus." "You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you?" "She is better than one thought her." "She is better than I am." "Child, she lives in different worlds." "Into your world evil has never entered." "Don't say that, Arthur." "There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand." "To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice." "Darling, why do you say that?" "Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, - came to the brink." "And one who had separated us" "We were never separated." "We never must be again." "Oh Arthur, don't love me less, and I will trust you more." "I will trust you absolutely." "Let us go to Selby." "In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red." "Arthur, she has explained everything!" "My dear boy she has explained every demmed thing." "We all wronged her immensely." "It was entirely for my sake she went to Darlington's rooms." "Called first at the Club --fact is, wanted to put me out of suspense" "and being told we had gone on-- followed naturally frightened when she heard a lot of us coming in retired to another room" "I assure you, most gratifying to me, the whole thing." "We all behaved brutally to her." "She is just the woman for me." "Suits me down to the ground." "The only conditions she makes are that we live entirely out of England." "A very good thing too." "Demmed clubs, demmed climate, demmed cooks, demmed everything." "Sick of it all!" "Has Mrs. Erlynne--?" "Yes, Lady Windermere." "" " Mrs. Erlynne has done me the honour of accepting my hand." "Well, Tuppy, you are certainly marrying a very clever woman!" "Ah, you're marrying a very good woman!"