THE PLAYS OF
OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Wilde

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

The Plays

1. Lady Windermere’s Fan

2. A Woman Of No Importance

3. An Ideal Husband

4. The Importance of Being Earnest

5. Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

About the Author

History of Collins

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE PLAYS

LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN

The persons of the play

LORD WINDERMERE

LORD DARLINGTON

LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON

MR. DUMBY

MR. CECIL GRAHAM

MR. HOPPER

PARKER, Butler

LADY WINDERMERE

THE DUCHESS OF BERWICK

LADY AGATHA CARLISLE

LADY PLYMDALE

LADY STUTFIELD

LADY JEDBURGH

MRS. COWPER-COWPER

MRS. ERLYNNE

ROSALIE, Maid

ACT ONE

SCENE: Morning-room of Lord Windermere’s house in Carlton House Terrace, London. The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours, beginning on a Tuesday afternoon at five o’clock, and ending the next day at 1.30 p.m. TIME: The present. Doors C. and R. Bureau with books and papers R. Sofa with small tea-table L. Window opening on to terrace L. Table R.

LADY WINDERMERE is at table R., arranging roses in a blue bowl.

Enter PARKER.

PARKER: Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes – who has called?

PARKER: Lord Darlington, my lady.

LADY WINDERMERE (hesitates for a moment): Show him up – and I’m at home to any one who calls.

PARKER: Yes, my lady. (Exit C.)

LADY WINDERMERE: It’s best for me to see him before to-night. I’m glad he’s come.

Enter PARKER C.

PARKER: Lord Darlington.

Enter LORD DARLINGTON C. Exit PARKER.

LORD DARLINGTON: How do you do, Lady Windermere?

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.

LORD DARLINGTON: They are quite perfect. (Sees a fan lying on the table.) And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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?

LORD DARLINGTON: No? Is it really?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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. Do sit down. (Still arranging flowers.)

LORD DARLINGTON: (sitting down): 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. (A short pause.)

LADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.

LORD DARLINGTON: I, Lady Windermere?

Enter PARKER and FOOTMAN C, with tray and tea things.

LADY WINDERMERE: Put it there, Parker. That will do. (Wipes her hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table L., and sits down.) Won’t you come over, Lord Darlington?

Exit PARKER C.

LORD DARLINGTON (takes chair and goes across L.C.): I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere. You must tell me what I did. (Sits down at table L.)

LADY WINDERMERE: Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.

LORD DARLINGTON (smiling): Ah, nowadays 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (shaking her head): 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: Ah, but I did mean them. (Takes tea which she offers him.)

LADY WINDERMERE (gravely): 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why do you make that your special one? (Still seated at table L.)

LORD DARLINGTON (still seated L.C.): 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Don’t you want the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?

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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why – why me?

LORD DARLINGTON (after a slight hesitation): Because I think we might be great friends. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why do you say that?

LORD DARLINGTON: Oh! – we all want friends at times.

LADY WINDERMERE: I think we’re very good friends already, Lord Darlington. We can always remain so as long as you don’t –

LORD DARLINGTON: Don’t what?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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. My mother died when I was a mere child. I lived always with Lady Julia, my father’s elder sister, you know. She 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: My dear Lady Windermere!

LADY WINDERMERE (leaning back on the sofa): 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: You think the age very bad?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

LORD DARLINGTON (smiling): Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!

LADY WINDERMERE (leaning forward): Don’t say that.

LORD DARLINGTON: I do say it. I felt it – I know it.

Enter PARKER C.

PARKER: The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?

LADY WINDERMERE: You don’t think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?

LORD DARLINGTON: I won’t hear of its raining on your birthday.

LADY WINDERMERE: Tell them to do it at once, Parker.

Exit PARKER C.

LORD DARLINGTON (still seated): 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?

LADY WINDERMERE (frowning): Console herself?

LORD DARLINGTON: Yes, I think she should – I think she has the right.

LADY WINDERMERE: Because the husband is vile – should the wife be vile also?

LORD DARLINGTON: Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington.

LORD DARLINGTON: Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Now, Lord Darlington. (Rising and crossing R., front of him.) Don’t stir, I am merely going to finish my flowers. (Goes to table R.C.)

LORD DARLINGTON (rising and moving chair): And I must say I think you are very hard on modern life, Lady Windermere. Of course there is much against it, I admit. Most women, for instance, nowadays, are rather mercenary.

LADY WINDERMERE: Don’t talk about such people.

LORD DARLINGTON: 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?

LADY WINDERMERE (standing at table): I think they should never be forgiven.

LORD DARLINGTON: And men? Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women?

LADY WINDERMERE: Certainly!

LORD DARLINGTON: I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules.

LADY WINDERMERE: If we had ‘these hard and fast rules,’ we should find life much more simple.

LORD DARLINGTON: You allow of no exceptions?

LADY WINDERMERE: None!

LORD DARLINGTON: Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, Lady Windermere!

LADY WINDERMERE: The adjective was unnecessary, Lord Darlington.

LORD DARLINGTON: I couldn’t help it. I can resist everything except temptation.

LADY WINDERMERE: You have the modern affectation of weakness.

LORD DARLINGTON: (looking at her): It’s only an affectation, Lady Windermere.

Enter PARKER C.

PARKER: The Duchess of Berwick and Lady Agatha Carlisle.

Enter the DUCHESS OF BERWICK and LADY AGATHA

CARLISLE C.

Exit PARKER C.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (coming down C. and shaking hands): Dear Margaret, I am so pleased to see you. You remember Agatha, don’t you? (Crossing L.C.) How do you do, Lord Darlington? I won’t let you know my daughter, you are far too wicked.

LORD DARLINGTON: 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.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Isn’t he dreadful? Agatha, this is Lord Darlington. Mind you don’t believe a word he says. (LORD DARLINGTON crosses R.C.) No, no tea, thank you, dear. (Crosses and sits on sofa.) 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (seated L.C.): 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.

LORD DARLINGTON (standing L.C.): Very small, very early, and very select, Duchess.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (on sofa L.): Of course it’s going to be select. But we know that, dear Margaret, about 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 furious if one doesn’t ask them. Really, some one should make a stand against it.

LADY WINDERMERE: I will, Duchess. I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal.

LORD DARLINGTON (R.C.): Oh don’t say that, Lady Windermere. I should never be admitted! (Sitting).

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: It’s a curious thing, Duchess, about the game of marriage – a game, by the way, that is going out of fashion – the wives hold all the honours, and invariably lose the odd trick.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: The odd trick? Is that the husband, Lord Darlington?

LORD DARLINGTON: It would be rather a good name for the modern husband.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Lord Darlington, how thoroughly depraved you are!

LADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington is trivial.

LORD DARLINGTON: Ah, don’t say that, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why do you talk so trivially about life, then?

LORD DARLINGTON: Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (Moves up C.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: What does he mean? Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean.

LORD DARLINGTON (coming down back of table): I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. Good-bye! (Shakes hands with DUCHESS.) And now – (goes up stage) – Lady Windermere, good-bye. I may come to-night, mayn’t I? Do let me come.

LADY WINDERMERE (standing up stage with LORD DARLINGTON): Yes, certainly. But you are not to say foolish, insincere things to people.

LORD DARLINGTON (smiling): Ah! You are beginning to reform me. It is a dangerous thing to reform any one, Lady Windermere. (Bows, and exit C.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (who has risen, goes C.): 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. (Crosses to sofa and sits with LADY WINDERMERE.) Agatha, darling!

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. (Rises.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Will you go and look over the photograph album that I see there?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. (Goes to table up L.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (smiling): Why, Duchess?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Whom are you talking about, Duchess?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: About Mrs. Erlynne.

LADY WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne? I never heard of her, Duchess. And what has she to do with me?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: My poor child! Agatha, darling!

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Will you go out on the terrace and look at the sunset?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. (Exit through window L.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Sweet girl! So devoted to sunsets! Shows such refinement of feeling, does it not? After all, there is nothing like Nature, is there?

LADY WINDERMERE: But what is it, Duchess? Why do you talk to me about this person?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: My husband – what has he got to do with any woman of that kind?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Ah, what indeed, 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 had known poor dear Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, I can’t believe it!

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: But it’s quite true, my dear. The whole of London knows it. That is why I felt 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 where 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!

LADY WINDERMERE (interrupting): Duchess, Duchess, it’s impossible! (Rising and crossing stage to C.): We are only married two years. Our child is but six months old. (Sits in chair R. of L. table.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Ah, the dear pretty baby! How is the little darling? Is it a boy or a girl? I 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Are all men bad?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good.

LADY WINDERMERE: Windermere and I married for love.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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 colour, every shape, 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. (Rises.) 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Come back to me? (C.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: (L.C.): 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!

LADY WINDERMERE: It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell all this. But I can’t believe that my husband is untrue to me.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. (LADY WINDERMERE rings bell.) 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?

LADY WINDERMERE: You needn’t be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: That’s quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha, darling!

LADY AGATHA (entering L.): Yes, mamma. (Stands back of table L.C.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Come and bid good-bye to Lady Windermere, and thank her for your charming visit. (Coming down again.): And by the way, I must thank you for sending a card to Mr. Hopper – he’s that rich young Australian people are taking such notice of just 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. (PARKER opens C. doors.) And remember my advice, take the poor fellow out of town at once, it is the only thing to do. Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha.

Exeunt DUCHESS and LADY AGATHA C.

LADY WINDERMERE: How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. Oh! It can’t be true – she spoke of enormous sums of money paid to this woman. I know where Arthur keeps his bank book – in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out. (Opens drawer.) No, it is some hideous mistake. (Rises and goes C.) Some silly scandal! He loves me! He loves me! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! (Returns to bureau, takes out book and examines it page by page, smiles and gives a sigh of relief.) I knew it! There is not a word of truth in this stupid story. (Puts book back in drawer. As she does so, starts and takes out another book.) A second book – private – locked! (Tries to open it, but fails.) Sees paper knife on bureau, and with it cuts cover from book. Begins to start at the first page.) ‘Mrs. Erlynne – £600 – Mrs. Erlynne – £700 – Mrs. Erlynne – £400.’ Oh! It is true! It is true! How horrible! (Throws book on floor.)

Enter LORD WINDERMERE C.

LORD WINDERMERE: Well, dear, has the fan been sent home yet? (Going R.C. Sees book.) Margaret, you have cut my bank book. You have no right to do such a thing!

LADY WINDERMERE: You think it wrong that you are found out, don’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE: I think it wrong that a wife should spy on her husband.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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! (Crossing L.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret! Don’t talk like that of Mrs. Erlynne, you don’t know how unjust it is!

LADY WINDERMERE: (turning to him): You are very jealous of Mrs. Erlynne’s honour. I wish you had been as jealous of mine.

LORD WINDERMERE: Your honour is untouched, Margaret. You don’t think for a moment that – (Puts book back into desk.)

LADY WINDERMERE: 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 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’s horrible! (Sits on sofa.) 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 seems to me now – every kiss you have given me is tainted in my memory.

LORD WINDERMERE (crossing to her): Don’t say that, Margaret. I never loved any one in the whole world but you.

LADY WINDERMERE (rises): Who is this woman, then? Why do you take a house for her?

LORD WINDERMERE: I did not take a house for her.

LADY WINDERMERE: You gave her the money to do it, which is the same thing.

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne –

LADY WINDERMERE: Is there a Mr. Erlynne – or is he a myth?

LORD WINDERMERE: Her husband died many years ago. She is alone in the world.

LADY WINDERMERE: No relations? (A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE: None.

LADY WINDERMERE: Rather curious, isn’t it? (L.)

LORD WINDERMERE (L.C.): Margaret, I was saying to you – and I beg you to listen to me – that as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne, she has conducted herself well. If years ago –

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh! (Crossing R.C.) I don’t want details about her life!

LORD WINDERMERE (C.): I am not going to give you any details about her life. I tell you simply this – Mrs. Erlynne was once honoured, loved, respected. She was well born, she had position – she lost everything – threw it away, if you like. That makes it all the more bitter. Misfortunes one can endure – they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults – ah! There is the sting of life. It was twenty years ago, too. She was little more than a girl then. She had been a wife for even less time than you have.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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. (Sitting R. at desk.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you could save this woman. She wants to get back into society, and she wants you to help her. (Crossing to her.)

LADY WINDERMERE: Me!

LORD WINDERMERE: Yes, you.

LADY WINDERMERE: How impertinent of her! (A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, I came to ask you a great favour, and I still ask it of you, though you have discovered what I had intended you should never have known, that I have given Mrs. Erlynne a large sum of money. I want you to send her an invitation for our party to-night. (Standing L. of her.)

LADY WINDERMERE: You are mad! (Rises.)

LORD WINDERMERE: I entreat you. People may chatter about her, 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 called Society nowadays do go. That does not content her. She wants you to receive her once.

LADY WINDERMERE: As a triumph for her, I suppose?

LORD WINDERMERE: No; but because she knows that you are a good woman – and that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a happier, a surer life than she has had. She will make no further effort to know you. Won’t you help a woman who is trying to get back?

LADY WINDERMERE: No! If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin.

LORD WINDERMERE: I beg of you.

LADY WINDERMERE (crossing to door R.): I am going to dress for dinner, and don’t mention the subject again this evening. Arthur – (going to him C.) – you fancy because I have no father or mother that I am alone in the world, and that you can treat me as you choose. You are wrong, I have friends, many friends.

LORD WINDERMERE (L.C.): Margaret, you are talking foolishly, recklessly. I won’t argue with you, but I insist upon your asking Mrs. Erlynne to-night.

LADY WINDERMERE (R.C.): I shall do nothing of the kind. (Crossing L.C.)

LORD WINDERMERE: You refuse? (C.)

LADY WINDERMERE: Absolutely!

LORD WINDERMERE: Ah, Margaret, do this for my sake; it is her last chance.

LADY WINDERMERE: What has that to do with me?

LORD WINDERMERE: How hard good women are!

LADY WINDERMERE: How weak bad men are!

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, none of us men may be good enough for the women we marry – that is quite true – but you don’t imagine I would ever – oh, the suggestion is monstrous!

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: I am not one of them.

LADY WINDERMERE: I am not sure of that!

LORD WINDERMERE: You are sure in your heart. But 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Nothing in the whole world would induce me.

LORD WINDERMERE (crossing to bureau): Then I will! (Rings electric bell, sits and writes card.)

LADY WINDERMERE: You are going to invite this woman? (Crossing to him.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Yes.

Pause. Enter PARKER.

Parker!

PARKER: Yes, my lord. (Comes down L.C.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Have this note sent to Mrs. Erlynne at No. 84A Curzon Street. (Crossing to L.C. and giving note to PARKER.) There is no answer!

Exit PARKER C.

LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, if that woman comes here, I shall insult her.

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, don’t say that.

LADY WINDERMERE: I mean it.

LORD WINDERMERE: Child, if you did such a thing, there’s not a woman in London who wouldn’t pity you.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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. (Picking up fan.) Yes, you gave me this fan to-day; it was your birthday present. If that woman crosses my threshold, I shall strike her across the face with it.

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you couldn’t do such a thing.

LADY WINDERMERE: You don’t know me! (Moves R.)

Enter PARKER.

Parker!

PARKER: Yes, my lady.

LADY WINDERMERE: I shall dine in my own room. I don’t want dinner, in fact. See that everything is ready by half-past ten. And, Parker, be sure you 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?

PARKER: Yes, my lady.

LADY WINDERMERE: That will do!

Exit PARKER C.

(Speaking to LORD WINDERMERE): Arthur, if that woman comes here – I warn you –

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you’ll ruin us!

LADY WINDERMERE: 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!

LORD WINDERMERE: I will not – I cannot – she must come!

LADY WINDERMERE: Then I shall do exactly as I have said. (Goes R.) You leave me no choice. (Exit R.)

LORD WINDERMERE (calling after her): Margaret! Margaret! (A pause.) My God! What shall I do? I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The shame would kill her. (Sinks down into a chair and buries his face in his hands.)

ACT DROP

ACT TWO

SCENE: Drawing-room in Lord Windermere’s house. Door R.U. opening into ball-room, where band is playing. Door L. through which guests are entering. Door L.U. opens on to illuminated terrace. Palms, flowers, and brilliant lights. Room crowded with guests. Lady Windermere is receiving them.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (up C.): So strange Lord Windermere isn’t here. Mr. Hopper is very late, too. You have kept those five dances for him, Agatha? (Comes down.)

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (sitting on sofa): Just let me see your card. I’m so glad Lady Windermere has revived cards. They’re a mother’s only safeguard. You dear simple little thing! (Scratches out two names.) No nice girl should ever waltz with such particularly younger sons! It looks so fast! The last two dances you might pass on the terrace with Mr. Hopper.

Enter MR. DUMBY and LADY PLYMDALE from the ballroom.

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (fanning herself): The air is so pleasant there.

PARKER: Mrs. Cowper-Cowper. Lady Stutfield. Sir James Royston. Mr. Guy Berkeley.

These people enter as announced.

DUMBY: Good evening, Lady Stutfield. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?

LADY STUTFIELD: I suppose so, Mr. Dumby. It’s been a delightful season, hasn’t it?

DUMBY: Quite delightful! Good evening, Duchess. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: I suppose so, Mr. Dumby. It has been a very dull season, hasn’t it?

DUMBY: Dreadfully dull! Dreadfully dull!

MRS. COWPER-COWPER: Good evening, Mr. Dumby. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?

DUMBY: Oh, I think not. There’ll probably be two more. (Wanders back to LADY PLYMDALE.)

PARKER: Mr. Rufford. Lady Jedburgh and Miss Graham. Mr. Hopper.

These people enter as announced.

HOPPER: How do you do, Lady Windermere? How do you do, Duchess? (Bows to LADY AGATHA.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Mr. Hopper, how nice of you to come so early. We all know how you are run after in London.

HOPPER: Capital place, London! They are not nearly so exclusive in London as they are in Sydney.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: 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?

HOPPER: Wasn’t it made at the same time as the others, Duchess?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: How clever you are, Mr. Hopper. You have a cleverness quite of your own. Now I mustn’t keep you.

HOPPER: But I should like to dance with Lady Agatha, Duchess.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Well, I hope she has a dance left. Have you a dance left, Agatha?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: The next one?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

HOPPER: May I have the pleasure? (LADY AGATHA bows.)

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Mind you take great care of my little chatter-box, Mr. Hopper.

LADY AGATHA and MR. HOPPER pass into the ballroom.

Enter LORD WINDERMERE L.

LORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, I want to speak to you.

LADY WINDERMERE: In a moment. (The music stops.)

PARKER: Lord Augustus Lorton.

Enter LORD AUGUSTUS.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Good evening, Lady Windermere.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Sir James, will you take me into the ballroom? Augustus has been dining with us to-night. I really have had quite enough of dear Augustus for the moment.

SIR JAMES ROYSTON gives the DUCHESS his arm and escorts her into the ballroom.

PARKER: Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bowden. Lord and Lady Paisley. Lord Darlington.

These people enter as announced.

LORD AUGUSTUS (coming up to LORD WINDERMERE): 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: You are talking of Mrs. Erlynne, I suppose? I only met her six months ago. Till then, I never knew of her existence.

LORD AUGUSTUS: You have seen a good deal of her since then.

LORD WINDERMERE (coldly): Yes, I have seen a good deal of her since then. I have just seen her.

LORD AUGUSTUS: 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 … (Aside.) 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. Egad! I might be married to her; she treats me with such demmed indifference. She’s deuced clever, too! She explains everything. Egad! She explains you. She has got any amount of explanations for you – and all of them different.

LORD WINDERMERE: No explanations are necessary about my friendship with Mrs. Erlynne.

LORD AUGUSTUS: 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 use beating about the confounded bush. Would you do that?

LORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne is coming here to-night.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Your wife has sent her a card?

LORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne has received a card.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Then she’s all right, dear boy. But why didn’t you tell me that before? It would have saved me a heap of worry and demmed misunderstandings!

LADY AGATHA and MR. HOPPER cross and exit on terrace L.U.E.

PARKER: Mr. Cecil Graham!

Enter MR. CECIL GRAHAM.

CECIL GRAHAM (bows to LADY WINDERMERE, passes over and shakes hands with LORD WINDERMERE): 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, they don’t know anything at all. Hullo, Tuppy! Hear you’re going to be married again; thought you were tired of that game.

LORD AUGUSTUS: You’re excessively trivial, my dear boy, excessively trivial!

CECIL GRAHAM: By the way, Tuppy, which is it? Have you been twice married and once divorced, or twice divorced and once married? I say you’ve been twice divorced and once married. It seems so much more probable.

LORD AUGUSTUS: I have a very bad memory. I really don’t remember which. (Moves away R.)

LADY PLYMDALE: Lord Windermere, I’ve something most particular to ask you.

LORD WINDERMERE: I am afraid – if you will excuse me – I must join my wife.

LADY PLYMDALE: 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. (Moves towards door of ballroom.)

LORD WINDERMERE (C.): Margaret! I must speak to you.

LADY WINDERMERE: Will you hold my fan for me, Lord Darlington? Thanks. (Comes down to him.)

LORD WINDERMERE (crossing to her): Margaret, what you said before dinner was, of course, impossible?

LADY WINDERMERE: That woman is not coming here to-night.

LORD WINDERMERE (R.C.): Mrs. Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret, only trust me! A wife should trust her husband!

LADY WINDERMERE (C.): 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 (Moves up.) 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: Lady Windermere! I knew the time would come some day; but why to-night?

LORD WINDERMERE: I will tell her. I must. It would be terrible if there were any scene. Margaret …

PARKER: Mrs. Erlynne!

LORD WINDERMERE starts. MRS. ERLYNNE enters, very beautifully dressed and very dignified. LADY WINDERMERE clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. She bows coldly to MRS. ERLYNNE, who bows to her sweetly in turn, and sails into the room.

LORD DARLINGTON: You have dropped your fan, Lady Windermere. (Picks it up and hands it to her.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (C): How do you do, again, Lord Windermere? How charming your sweet wife looks! Quite a picture!

LORD WINDERMERE (in a low voice): It was terribly rash of you to come!

MRS. ERLYNNE (smiling): 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.

LORD AUGUSTUS (R.): Now really, Mrs. Erlynne, allow me to explain.

MRS. ERLYNNE (R.C.): No, dear Lord Augustus, you can’t explain anything. It is your chief charm.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Ah! If you find charms in me, Mrs. Erlynne –

They converse together. LORD WINDERMERE moves uneasily about the room watching MRS. ERLYNNE.

LORD DARLINGTON (to LADY WINDERMERE): How pale you are!

LADY WINDERMERE: Cowards are always pale!

LORD DARLINGTON: You look faint. Come out on the terrace.

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. (To PARKER): Parker, send my cloak out.

MRS. ERLYNNE (crossing to her): Lady Windermere, how beautifully your terrace is illuminated. Reminds me of Prince Doria’s at Rome.

LADY WINDERMERE bows coldly, and goes off with LORD DARLINGTON.

Oh, how do you do, Mr. Graham? Isn’t that your aunt, Lady Jedburgh? I should so much like to know her.

CECIL GRAHAM (after a moment’s hesitation and embarrassment): Oh, certainly, if you wish it. Aunt Caroline, allow me to introduce Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE: So pleased to meet you, Lady Jedburgh. (Sits beside her on the sofa.) Your nephew and I are great friends. I am so much interested in his political career. I think he’s sure to be a wonderful success. He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that’s so important 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.

LADY JEDBURGH (R.): Most kind of you to say these charming things to me! (MRS. ERLYNNE smiles, and continues conversation.)

DUMBY (to CECIL GRAHAM): Did you introduce Mrs. Erlynne to Lady Jedburgh?

CECIL GRAHAM: Had to, my dear fellow. Couldn’t help it! That woman can make one do anything she wants. How, I don’t know.

DUMBY: Hope to goodness she won’t speak to me! (Saunters towards LADY PLYMDALE.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (C. To LADY JEDBURGH): On Thursday? With great pleasure. (Rises, and speaks to LORD WINDERMERE, laughing.) What a bore it is to have to be civil to these old dowagers! But they always insist on it!

LADY PLYMDALE (to MR. DUMBY): Who is that well-dressed woman talking to Windermere?

DUMBY: Haven’t got the slightest idea! Looks like an edition de luxe of a wicked French novel, meant specially for the English market.

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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’ll dance with you first, Windermere. (LORD WINDERMERE bites his lip and frowns.) It will make Lord Augustus so jealous! Lord Augustus! (LORD AUGUSTUS comes down.) Lord Windermere insists on my dancing with him first; as it’s his own house, I can’t well refuse. You know I would much sooner dance with you.

LORD AUGUSTUS (with a low bow): I wish I could think so, Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE: You know it far too well. I can fancy a person dancing through life with you and finding it charming.

LORD AUGUSTUS (placing his hand on his white waistcoat): Oh, thank you, thank you. You are the most adorable of all ladies!

MRS. ERLYNNE: What a nice speech! So simple and so sincere! Just the sort of speech I like. Well, you shall hold my bouquet. (Goes towards ballroom on LORD WINDERMERE’S arm.) Ah, 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.

DUMBY: (with perfect nonchalance): Delighted!

LADY PLYMDALE glares with indignation at MR. DUMBY. LORD AUGUSTUS follows MRS. ERLYNNE and LORD WINDERMERE into the ballroom holding bouquet.

LADY PLYMDALE (to MR. DUMBY): 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?

DUMBY: My dear Laura, I wouldn’t dream of going!

LADY PLYMDALE: You haven’t told me her name yet! Who is she?

DUMBY (coughs slightly and smooths his hair): She’s a Mrs. Erlynne.

LADY PLYMDALE: That woman!

DUMBY: Yes; that is what every one calls her.

LADY PLYMDALE: How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. (Goes to door of ballroom and looks in.) 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! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing. You are to lunch there on Friday!

DUMBY: Why?

LADY PLYMDALE: Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman’s 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. They form the basis of other people’s marriages.

DUMBY: What a mystery you are!

LADY PLYMDALE (looking at him): I wish you were!

DUMBY: I am – to myself. I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly; but I don’t see any chance of it just at present.

They pass into the ballroom, and LADY WINDERMERE and LORD DARLINGTON enter from the terrace.

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Yes. Her coming here is monstrous, unbearable. I know now what you meant to-day at tea time. Why didn’t you tell me right out? You should have!

LORD DARLINGTON: 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 tonight, I think I would have told you. That insult, at any rate, you would have been spared.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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 all my life. He took it – used it – spoiled it! I am degraded in my own eyes, and I lack courage – I am a coward! (Sits down on sofa.)

LORD DARLINGTON: 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 comfort 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: You are right – you are terribly right. But where am I to turn? You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington. Tell me, what am I to do? Be my friend now.

LORD DARLINGTON: Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you –

LADY WINDERMERE: No, no! (Rises.)

LORD DARLINGTON: 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 –

LADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington!

LORD DARLINGTON: My life – my whole life. Take it, and do with it what you will … I love you – love you as 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 tonight. 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (moving slowly away from him, and looking at him with startled eyes): I have not the courage.

LORD DARLINGTON (following her): 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? This woman has the place that belongs by right 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? No one. 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 you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself!

LADY WINDERMERE: I am afraid of being myself. Let me think. Let me wait! My husband may return to me. (Sits down on sofa.)

LORD DARLINGTON: And you would take him back! You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. You would stand anything 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!

LADY WINDERMERE: Ah, give me time to think. I cannot answer you now. (Passes her hand nervously over her brow.)

LORD DARLINGTON: It must be now or not at all.

LADY WINDERMERE: (rising from the sofa): Then, not at all! (A pause.)

LORD DARLINGTON: You break my heart!

LADY WINDERMERE: Mine is already broken. (A pause.)

LORD DARLINGTON: To-morrow I leave England. This is the last time I shall ever look on 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. (Exit.)

LADY WINDERMERE: How alone I am in life. How terribly alone!

The music stops. Enter the DUCHESS OF BERWICK and LORD PAISLEY laughing and talking. Other guests come in from ballroom.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Margaret, I’ve just been having such a delightful chat with Mrs. Erlynne. I am so sorry for what 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 girls – they’re 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. (LADY AGATHA and MR. HOPPER enter from terrace L.U.E.) Mr. Hopper, I am very, very angry with you. You have taken Agatha out on the terrace, and she is so delicate.

HOPPER (L.C.): Awfully sorry, Duchess. We went out for a moment and then got chatting together.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (C.): Ah, about dear Australia, I suppose?

HOPPER: Yes!

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Agatha, darling! (Beckons her over.)

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma!

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (aside): Did Mr. Hopper definitely –

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: And what answer did you give him, dear child?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (affectionately): 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.

HOPPER: You don’t mind my taking Agatha off to Australia, then, Duchess?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (indignantly): To Australia? Oh, don’t mention that dreadful vulgar place.

HOPPER: But she said she’d like to come with me.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK (severely): Did you say that, Agatha?

LADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: Agatha, you say the most silly things possible. I 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.

HOPPER: I should like to have a chat with the Duke, Duchess. He has not said a single word to me yet.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK: I think you’ll find he will have a great deal to say to you to-morrow. (Exit LADY AGATHA with MR. HOPPER.) 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Good-night, Duchess.

Exit the DUCHESS OF BERWICK on LORD PAISLEY’S arm.

LADY PLYMDALE: My dear Margaret, what a handsome woman your husband has been dancing with! I should be quite jealous if I were you! Is she a great friend of yours?

LADY WINDERMERE: No!

LADY PLYMDALE: Really? Good-night, dear. (Looks at MR. DUMBY and exit.)

DUMBY: Awful manners young Hopper has!

CECIL GRAHAM: Ah! Hopper is one of Nature’s gentlemen, the worst type of gentleman I know.

DUMBY: Sensible woman, Lady Windermere. Lots of wives would have objected to Mrs. Erlynne coming. But Lady Windermere has that uncommon thing called common sense.

CECIL GRAHAM: And Windermere knows that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.

DUMBY: Yes; dear Windermere is becoming almost modern. Never thought he would. (Bows to LADY WINDERMERE and exit)

LADY JEDBURGH: Good-night, Lady Windermere. What a fascinating woman Mrs. Erlynne is! She is coming to lunch on Thursday, won’t you come too? I expect the Bishop and dear Lady Merton.

LADY WINDERMERE: I am afraid I am engaged, Lady Jedburgh.

LADY JEDBURGH: So sorry. Come, dear.

Exeunt LADY JEDBURGH and MISS GRAHAM.

Enter MRS. ERLYNNE and LORD WINDERMERE.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Charming ball it has been! Quite reminds me of old days. (Sits on sofa.) 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! Except Margaret. She’s grown quite pretty. The last time I saw her – twenty years ago, she was a fright in flannel. Positive fright, I assure you. 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 –

LORD WINDERMERE (sitting L. of her): But are you –?

Exit MR. CECIL GRAHAM with rest of guests. LADY WINDERMERE watches, with a look of scorn and pain, MRS. ERLYNNE and her husband. They are unconscious of her presence.

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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 till 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: I am not called on to encourage Lord Augustus, I suppose?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Oh, no! I do the encouraging. But you will make me a handsome settlement, Windermere, won’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE (frowning): Is that what you want to talk to me about to-night?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.

LORD WINDERMERE (with a gesture of impatience): I will not talk of it here.

MRS. ERLYNNE (laughing): 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: Won’t to-morrow do as well?

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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 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. It’s a great mistake on her part. When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. But seriously, what do you say to £2000? £2500, I think. In modern life margin is everything. Windermere, don’t you think the world an intensely amusing place? I do!

Exit on terrace with LORD WINDERMERE. Music strikes up in ballroom.

LADY WINDERMERE: To stay in this house any longer is impossible. Tonight a man who loves me offered me his whole life. I refused it. It was foolish of me. I will offer him mine now. I will give him mine. I will go to him! (Puts on cloak and goes to the door, then turns back. Sits down at table and writes a letter, puts it into an envelope, and leaves it on table.) Arthur has never understood me. When he reads this, he will. He may do as he chooses now with his life. I have done with mine as I think best, as I think right. It is he who has broken the bond of marriage – not I. I only break its bondage. (Exit.)

PARKER enters L. and crosses towards the ballroom R. Enter MRS. ERLYNNE.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Is Lady Windermere in the ballroom?

PARKER: Her ladyship has just gone out.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Gone out? She’s not on the terrace?

PARKER: No, madam. Her ladyship has just gone out of the house.

MRS. ERLYNNE (starts, and looks at the servant with a puzzled expression in her face.): Out of the house?

PARKER: Yes, madam – her ladyship told me she had left a letter for his lordship on the table.

MRS. ERLYNNE: A letter for Lord Windermere?

PARKER: Yes, madam.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Thank you.

Exit PARKER. The music in the ballroom stops.

Gone out of her house! A letter addressed to her husband! (Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear.) No, no! It would be impossible! Life doesn’t repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? (Tears letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.) Oh, how terrible! The same words that twenty years ago 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! (Still seated R.)

Enter LORD WINDERMERE L.U.E.

LORD WINDERMERE: Have you said good-night to my wife? (Comes C.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (crushing letter in her hand): Yes.

LORD WINDERMERE: Where is she?

MRS. ERLYNNE: She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said she had a headache.

LORD WINDERMERE: I must go to her. You’ll excuse me?

MRS. ERLYNNE (rising hurriedly): Oh, 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. (Drops letter.) She asked me to tell you!

LORD WINDERMERE (picks up letter): You have dropped something.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Oh yes, thank you, that is mine. (Puts out her hand to take it.)

LORD WINDERMERE (still looking at letter): But it’s my wife’s handwriting isn’t it?

MRS. ERLYNNE (takes the letter quickly): Yes, it’s – an address. Will you ask them to call my carriage, please?

LORD WINDERMERE: Certainly. (Goes L. and Exit.)

MRS. ERLYNNE: Thanks! What can I do? What can I do? I feel a passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it mean? The daughter must not be like the mother – that would be terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? Windermere must be got out of the house; that is absolutely necessary. (Goes L.) But how shall I do it? It must be done somehow. Ah!

Enter LORD AUGUSTUS R.U.E. carrying bouquet.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Dear lady, I am in such suspense! May I not have an answer to my request?

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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. You understand?

LORD AUGUSTUS: But you said you wished me to keep early hours!

MRS. ERLYNNE (nervously): Do what I tell you. Do what I tell you.

LORD AUGUSTUS: And my reward?

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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. (Exit L.)

LORD AUGUSTUS: Well, really, I might be her husband already. Positively I might. (Follows her in a bewildered manner.)

ACT DROP

ACT THREE

SCENE: Lord Darlington’s rooms. A large sofa is in front of fireplace R. At the back of the stage a curtain is drawn across the window. Doors L. and R. Table R. with writing materials. Table C. with syphons, glasses, and Tantalus frame. Table L. with cigar and cigarette box. Lamps lit.

LADY WINDERMERE (standing by the fireplace): 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. Other 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 one, or the wife of a man who in one’s own house dishonours one? 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! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow. I will go with him – I have no choice. (Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak.) 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. As for Lord Darlington. Oh! Here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible … Oh! (Hides her face in her hands.)

Enter MRS. ERLYNNE L.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Lady Windermere! (LADY WINDERMERE starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt.) Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband’s house immediately.

LADY WINDERMERE: Must?

MRS. ERLYNNE (authoritatively): Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.

LADY WINDERMERE: Don’t come near me!

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa.

What are you doing?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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 relations exist between you and him.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! You don’t think that – you can’t.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE: No – no –

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE (C.): 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!

LADY WINDERMERE (R.): Never read it!

MRS. ERLYNNE: No – he knows nothing about it.

LADY WINDERMERE: How simple you think me! (Going to her.) You are lying to me!

MRS. ERLYNNE (restraining herself): I am not. I am telling you the truth.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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. (Crosses L.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (R.C.): Your husband has never seen the letter. I – saw it, I opened it. I – read it.

LADY WINDERMERE (turning to her): You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn’t dare!

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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 never shall read it. (Going to fireplace.) It should never have been written. (Tears it and throws it into the fire.)

LADY WINDERMERE (with infinite contempt in her voice and look): How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think that commonest device can take me in!

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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!

LADY WINDERMERE (slowly): 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? (Sits down.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (hurriedly): Think as you like about me – say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.

LADY WINDERMERE (sullenly): I do not love him!

MRS. ERLYNNE: You do, and you know that he loves you.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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 for 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!

MRS. ERLYNNE (with a gesture of despair): 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 –

LADY WINDERMERE (rising): Ah! You admit you have a hold!

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: You expect me to believe that?

MRS. ERLYNNE: You must believe it! It is true. 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you?

MRS. ERLYNNE (humbly): 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 that if you throw it away, 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!

LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur? And you tell me there is nothing between you?

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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! (Moves away to sofa R.)

LADY WINDERMERE: You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. (Sits L.C.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (starts, with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where LADY WINDERMERE is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her): Believe what you choose about 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 should 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 tonight 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. (LADY WINDERMERE rises) 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 bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands.

(Rushing to her): Lady Windermere!

LADY WINDERMERE (holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a child might do): Take me home. Take me home.

MRS. ERLYNNE (is about to embrace her. Then restrains herself. There is a look of wonderful joy in her face): Come! Where is your cloak? (Getting it from sofa): Here. Put it on. Come at once!

They go to the door.

LADY WINDERMERE: Stop! Don’t you hear voices?

MRS. ERLYNNE: No, no! There is no one!

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, there is! Listen! Oh! That is my husband’s voice! He is coming in! Save me! Oh, it’s some plot! You have sent for him.

Voices outside.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Silence! I’m here to save you, if I can. But I fear it is too late! There! (Points to the curtain across the window.) The first chance you have slip out, if you ever get a chance!

LADY WINDERMERE: But you?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! never mind me. I’ll face them.

LADY WINDERMERE hides herself behind the curtain.

LORD AUGUSTUS (outside): Nonsense, dear Windermere, you must not leave me!

MRS. ERLYNNE: Lord Augustus! Then it is I who am lost! (Hesitates for a moment, then looks round and sees door R., and exit through it.)

Enter LORD DARLINGTON, MR. DUMBY, LORD WINDERMERE, LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON, and MR. CECIL GRAHAM.

DUMBY: What a nuisance their turning us out of the club at this hour! It’s only two o’clock. (Sinks into a chair.) The lively part of the evening is only just beginning. (Yawns and closes his eyes.)

LORD WINDERMERE: It is very good of you, Lord Darlington, allowing Augustus to force our company on you, but I’m afraid I can’t stay long.

LORD DARLINGTON: Really! I am so sorry! You’ll take a cigar, won’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE: Thanks! (Sits down.)

LORD AUGUSTUS (to LORD WINDERMERE): My dear boy, you must not dream of going. I have a great deal to talk to you about, of demmed importance, too. (Sits down with him at L. table.)

CECIL GRAHAM: Oh! We all know what that is! Tuppy can’t talk about anything but Mrs. Erlynne.

LORD WINDERMERE: Well, that is no business of yours, is it, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM: None! That is why it interests me. My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people’s.

LORD DARLINGTON: Have something to drink, you fellows. Cecil, you’ll have a whisky and soda?

CECIL GRAHAM: Thanks. (Goes to table with LORD DARLINGTON): Mrs. Erlynne looked very handsome to-night, didn’t she?

LORD DARLINGTON: I am not one of her admirers.

CECIL GRAHAM: 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.

LORD DARLINGTON (in surprise): No?

CECIL GRAHAM: She is, really.

LORD DARLINGTON: Excuse me, you fellows. I’m going away to-morrow. And I have to write a few letters. (Goes to writing-table and sits down.)

DUMBY: Clever woman, Mrs. Erlynne.

CECIL GRAHAM: Hallo, Dumby! I thought you were asleep.

DUMBY: I am, I usually am!

LORD AUGUSTUS: A very clever woman. Knows perfectly well what a demmed fool I am – knows it as well as I do myself.

CECIL GRAHAM comes towards him laughing.

Ah, you may laugh, my boy, but it is a great thing to come across a woman who thoroughly understands one.

DUMBY: It is an awfully dangerous thing. They always end by marrying one.

CECIL GRAHAM: 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 –

Whispering to him.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Oh, she’s explained that.

CECIL GRAHAM: And the Wiesbaden affair?

LORD AUGUSTUS: She’s explained that too.

DUMBY: And her income, Tuppy? Has she explained that?

LORD AUGUSTUS (in a very serious voice): She’s going to explain that to-morrow.

CECIL GRAHAM goes back to C. table.

DUMBY: 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.

LORD AUGUSTUS: You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!

CECIL GRAHAM: Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.

LORD AUGUSTUS (puffing a cigar): Mrs. Erlynne has a future before her.

DUMBY: Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her.

LORD AUGUSTUS: I prefer women with a past. They’re always so demmed amusing to talk to.

CECIL GRAHAM: Well, you’ll have lots of topics of conversation with her, Tuppy. (Rising and going to him.)

LORD AUGUSTUS: You’re getting annoying, dear boy; you’re getting demmed annoying.

CECIL GRAHAM (puts his hands on his shoulders): Now, Tuppy, you’ve lost your figure and you’ve lost your character. Don’t lose your temper; you have only got one.

LORD AUGUSTUS: My dear boy, if I wasn’t the most good-natured man in London –

CECIL GRAHAM: We’d treat you with more respect, wouldn’t we, Tuppy? (Strolls away.)

DUMBY: The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.

LORD AUGUSTUS looks round angrily.

CECIL GRAHAM: Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy.

DUMBY: Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands.

LORD WINDERMERE: Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don’t really know anything about her, and you’re always talking scandal against her.

CECIL GRAHAM (coming towards him L.C.): My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.

LORD WINDERMERE: What is the difference between scandal and gossip?

CECIL GRAHAM: Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But 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. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.

CECIL GRAHAM: Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.

LORD AUGUSTUS: My dear boy, when I was your age –

CECIL GRAHAM: But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. (Goes up to C.) I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You’ll play, Arthur, won’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE: No thanks, Cecil.

DUMBY (with a sigh): Good heavens! How marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

CECIL GRAHAM: You’ll play, of course, Tuppy?

LORD AUGUSTUS (pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table): Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.

CECIL GRAHAM: Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. 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.

LORD DARLINGTON (rising from R. table, where he has been writing letters): They always do find us bad!

DUMBY: I don’t think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.

LORD DARLINGTON: No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Sits down at C. table.)

DUMBY: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.

CECIL GRAHAM: Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?

LORD DARLINGTON: The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. (Glances instinctively at LORD WINDERMERE while he speaks.)

CECIL GRAHAM: 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: Oh! She doesn’t love me. She is a good woman. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.

CECIL GRAHAM: The only good woman you have ever met in your life?

LORD DARLINGTON: Yes!

CECIL GRAHAM (lighting a cigarette): 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: This woman has purity and innocence. She has everything we men have lost.

CECIL GRAHAM: My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.

DUMBY: She doesn’t really love you then?

LORD DARLINGTON: No, she does not!

DUMBY: I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two 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 she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn’t love you, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM: A woman who didn’t love me? Oh, all my life!

DUMBY: So could I. But it’s so difficult to meet one.

LORD DARLINGTON: How can you be so conceited, Dumby?

DUMBY: I didn’t say it as a matter of conceit. I said it as a matter of regret. I have been wildly, madly adored. I am sorry I have. It has been an immense nuisance. I should like to be allowed a little time to myself now and then.

LORD AUGUSTUS (looking round): Time to educate yourself, I suppose.

DUMBY: No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important, dear Tuppy.

LORD AUGUSTUS moves uneasily in his chair.

LORD DARLINGTON: What cynics you fellows are!

CECIL GRAHAM: What is a cynic? (Sitting on the back of the sofa.)

LORD DARLINGTON: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

CECIL GRAHAM: 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.

LORD DARLINGTON: You always amuse me, Cecil. You talk as if you were a man of experience.

CECIL GRAHAM: I am. (Moves up to front of fireplace.)

LORD DARLINGTON: You are far too young!

CECIL GRAHAM: That is a great error. Experience is a question of instinct about life. I have got it. Tuppy hasn’t. Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes. That is all.

LORD AUGUSTUS looks round indignantly.

DUMBY: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

CECIL GRAHAM (standing with his back to the fireplace): One shouldn’t commit any. (Sees LADY WINDERMERE’S fan on sofa.)

DUMBY: Life would be very dull without them.

CECIL GRAHAM: Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?

LORD DARLINGTON: Cecil, if one really loves a woman, all other women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one. Love changes one – I am changed.

CECIL GRAHAM: Dear me! How very interesting! Tuppy, I want to talk to you.

LORD AUGUSTUS takes no notice.

DUMBY: It’s no use talking to Tuppy. You might just as well talk to a brick wall.

CECIL GRAHAM: But I like talking to a brick wall – it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me! Tuppy!

LORD AUGUSTUS: Well, what is it? What is it? (Rising and going over to CECIL GRAHAM.)

CECIL GRAHAM: Come over here. I want you particularly. (Aside.) Darlington has been moralising and talking about the purity of love, and that sort of thing, and he has got some woman in his rooms all the time.

LORD AUGUSTUS: No, really! Really!

CECIL GRAHAM (in a low voice): Yes, here is her fan. (Points to the fan.)

LORD AUGUSTUS (chuckling): By Jove! By Jove!

LORD WINDERMERE (up by door): I am really off now, Lord Darlington. I am sorry you are leaving England so soon. Pray call on us when you come back! My wife and I will be charmed to see you!

LORD DARLINGTON (up stage with LORD WINDERMERE): I am afraid I shall be away for many years. Good-night!

CECIL GRAHAM: Arthur!

LORD WINDERMERE: What?

CECIL GRAHAM: I want to speak to you for a moment. No, do come!

LORD WINDERMERE (putting on his coat): I can’t – I’m off.

CECIL GRAHAM: It is something very particular. It will interest you enormously.

LORD WINDERMERE (smiling): It is some of your nonsense, Cecil.

CECIL GRAHAM: It isn’t! It isn’t really.

LORD AUGUSTUS (going to him): My dear fellow, you mustn’t go yet. I have a lot to talk to you about. And Cecil has something to show you.

LORD WINDERMERE (walking over): Well, what is it?

CECIL GRAHAM: Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms.

Here is her fan. Amusing, isn’t it? (A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE: Good God! (Seizes the fan – DUMBY rises)

CECIL GRAHAM: What is the matter?

LORD WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington!

LORD DARLINGTON (turning round): Yes!

LORD WINDERMERE: What is my wife’s fan doing here in your rooms? Hands off, Cecil. Don’t touch me.

LORD DARLINGTON: Your wife’s fan?

LORD WINDERMERE: Yes, here it is?

LORD DARLINGTON (walking towards him): I don’t know!

LORD WINDERMERE: You must know. I demand an explanation.

Don’t hold me, you fool. (To CECIL GRAHAM.)

LORD DARLINGTON (aside): She is here after all!

LORD WINDERMERE: Speak, sir! Why is my wife’s fan here? Answer me! By God! I’ll search your rooms, and if my wife’s here, I’ll – (Moves.)

LORD DARLINGTON: You shall not search my rooms. You have no right to do so. I forbid you!

LORD WINDERMERE: You scoundrel! I’ll not leave your room till I have searched every corner of it! What moves behind that curtain? (Rushes forward towards the curtain C.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (enters behind R.): Lord Windermere!

LORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne!

Every one starts and turns round. LADY WINDERMERE slips out from behind the curtain and glides from the room L.

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. (Takes fan from him. LORD WINDERMERE looks at her in contempt. LORD DARLINGTON in mingled astonishment and anger. LORD AUGUSTUS turns away. The other men smile at each other)

ACT DROP

ACT FOUR

SCENE: Same as in Act One.

LADY WINDERMERE (lying on sofa): How can I tell him? I can’t tell him. It would kill me. I wonder what happened after I escaped from that horrible room. Perhaps she told them the true reason of her being there, and the real meaning of that – fatal fan of mine. Oh, if he knows – how can I look him in the face again? He would never forgive me. (Touches bell.) How securely one thinks one lives – out of reach of temptation, sin, folly. And then suddenly – Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.

Enter ROSALIE R.

ROSALIE: Did your ladyship ring for me?

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Have you found out at what time Lord Windermere came in last night?

ROSALIE: His lordship did not come in till five o’clock.

LADY WINDERMERE: Five o’clock? He knocked at my door this morning, didn’t he?

ROSALIE: Yes, my lady – at half-past nine. I told him your ladyship was not awake yet.

LADY WINDERMERE: Did he say anything?

ROSALIE: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: It doesn’t matter. Tell Parker not to trouble. That will do.

Exit ROSALIE.

LADY WINDERMERE (rising): She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? … How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. She accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me … There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women … oh, 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. Oh! The shame of it, the shame of it. 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 … Oh! (Starts as LORD WINDERMERE enters.)

LORD WINDERMERE (kisses her): Margaret – how pale you look!

LADY WINDERMERE: I slept very badly.

LORD WINDERMERE (sitting on sofa with her): I am so sorry. I came in dreadfully late, and didn’t like to wake you. You are crying, dear.

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, I am crying, for I have something to tell you, Arthur.

LORD WINDERMERE: 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. Poor darling! We’ll go away to-day, if you like. (Rises.) We can easily catch the 3.40. I’ll send a wire to Fannen. (Crosses and sits down at table to write a telegram.)

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

LORD WINDERMERE (rising and leaning over sofa): Kind to you?

LADY WINDERMERE: Far more than that. (Rises and goes to him.) I will tell you, Arthur, but only love me, love me as you used to love me.

LORD WINDERMERE: Used to? You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night? (Coming round and sitting R. of her.): You don’t still imagine – no, you couldn’t.

LADY WINDERMERE: I don’t. I know now I was wrong and foolish.

LORD WINDERMERE: It was very good of you to receive her last night – but you are never to see her again.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why do you say that? (A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE (holding her hand): Margaret, 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 place 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: My dear child, the woman’s impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere.

LADY WINDERMERE: But I want to see her. I want her to come here.

LORD WINDERMERE: Never!

LADY WINDERMERE: She came here once as your guest. She must come now as mine. That is but fair.

LORD WINDERMERE: She should never have come here.

LADY WINDERMERE (rising): It is too late, Arthur, to say that now. (Moves away.)

LORD WINDERMERE (rising): Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, after she left this house, you would not sit in the same room with her. It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing.

LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, I can’t bear it any longer. I must tell you. Last night –

Enter PARKER with a tray on which lie LADY WINDERMERE’S fan and a card.

PARKER: Mrs. Erlynne has called to return your ladyship’s fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card.

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up. (Reads card.) Say I shall be very glad to see her.

Exit PARKER.

She wants to see me, Arthur.

LORD WINDERMERE (takes card and looks at it): Margaret, I beg you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She’s a dangerous woman. She is the most dangerous woman I know. You don’t realise what you’re doing.

LADY WINDERMERE: It is right that I should see her.

LORD WINDERMERE: My 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 before you do.

LADY WINDERMERE: Why should it be necessary?

Enter PARKER.

PARKER: Mrs. Erlynne.

Enter MRS. ERLYNNE. Exit PARKER.

MRS. ERLYNNE: How do you do, Lady Windermere? (To LORD 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 in person with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you good-bye.

LADY WINDERMERE: Good-bye? (Moves towards sofa with MRS. ERLYNNE and sits down beside her.) Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes; I am going to live abroad again. 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 whether 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: This afternoon? But I wanted so much to come and see you.

MRS. ERLYNNE: How kind of you! But I am afraid I have to go.

LADY WINDERMERE: Shall I never see you again, Mrs. Erlynne?

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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, with pleasure. There is one on that table. I’ll show it to you. (Goes across to the table.)

LORD WINDERMERE (coming up to MRS. ERLYNNE and speaking in a low voice): It is monstrous your intruding yourself here after your conduct last night.

MRS. ERLYNNE (with an amused smile): My dear Windermere, manners before morals!

LADY WINDERMERE (returning): I’m afraid it is very flattering – I am not so pretty as that. (Showing photograph.)

MRS. ERLYNNE: You are much prettier. But haven’t you got one of yourself with your little boy?

LADY WINDERMERE: I have. Would you prefer one of those?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.

LADY WINDERMERE: I’ll go and get it for you, if you’ll excuse me for a moment. I have one upstairs.

MRS. ERLYNNE: So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble.

LADY WINDERMERE (moves to door R.): No trouble at all, Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Thanks so much.

Exit LADY WINDERMERE R.

You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.

LORD WINDERMERE: I can’t bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE: I have not told her the truth, you mean.

LORD WINDERMERE (standing C.): 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 my wife should 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 yesterday, 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 that the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you next her. You sully the innocence that is in her. (Moves L.C.) And then I used to think that with all your faults you were frank and honest. You are not.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Why do you say that?

LORD WINDERMERE: You made me get you an invitation to my wife’s ball.

MRS. ERLYNNE: For my daughter’s ball – yes.

LORD WINDERMERE: 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. (Goes up stage C.)

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.

LORD WINDERMERE (turning round on her): 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 –

MRS. ERLYNNE (coldly): My daughter, you mean.

LORD WINDERMERE: 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE (rising): Do you count that to his credit, Lord Windermere – or to mine?

LORD WINDERMERE: To his, now that I know you.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Take care – you had better be careful.

LORD WINDERMERE: Oh, I am not going to mince words for you. I know you thoroughly.

MRS. ERLYNNE (looking steadily at him): I question that.

LORD WINDERMERE: 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 learning that a woman like you was her mother, I would endure anything. You began your blackmailing.

MRS. ERLYNNE (shrugging her shoulders): Don’t use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar. I saw my chance, it is true, and took it.

LORD WINDERMERE: Yes, you took it – and spoiled it all last night by being found out.

MRS. ERLYNNE (with a strange smile): You are quite right, I spoiled it all last night.

LORD WINDERMERE: 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE: I think I shall keep it. (Goes up.) It’s extremely pretty. (Takes up fan.) I shall ask Margaret to give it to me.

LORD WINDERMERE: I hope my wife will give it to you.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Oh, I’m sure she will have no objection.

LORD WINDERMERE: I wish that at the same time she would give you a miniature she kisses every night before she prays. It’s the miniature of a young innocent-looking girl with beautiful dark hair.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Ah, yes, I remember. How long ago that seems! (Goes to sofa and sits down.) It was done before I was married. Dark hair and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere! (A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE: What do you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object? (Crossing L.C. and sitting.)

MRS. ERLYNNE (with a note of irony in her voice): To bid goodbye to my dear daughter, of course.

LORD WINDERMERE bites his under lip in anger. MRS. ERLYNNE looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In her accents as she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself.

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. (Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh.) 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. (Takes up hand-mirror from table and looks into it.) And it spoils one’s career at critical moments.

LORD WINDERMERE: You fill me with horror – with absolute horror.

MRS. ERLYNNE (rising): 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. And 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: A fatal mistake.

MRS. ERLYNNE (smiling): Almost fatal.

LORD WINDERMERE: I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once.

MRS. ERLYNNE: I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones – that is the difference between us.

LORD WINDERMERE: I don’t trust you. I will tell my wife. 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE: You propose to tell her?

LORD WINDERMERE: I am going to tell her.

MRS. ERLYNNE (going up to him): If you do, I will make my name so infamous that 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.

LORD WINDERMERE: Why?

MRS. ERLYNNE (after a pause): If I said to you that I cared for her, perhaps loved her even – you would sneer at me, wouldn’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE: I should feel it was not true. A mother’s love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such things?

MRS. ERLYNNE: You are right. What could I know of such things? Don’t let us talk any more about it – 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 shall tell her before I leave the house – if not, I shall never tell her.

LORD WINDERMERE (angrily): Then let me beg of you to leave our house at once. I will make your excuses to Margaret.

Enter LADY WINDERMERE R. She goes over to MRS. ERLYNNE with the photograph in her hand. LORD WINDERMERE moves to back of sofa, and anxiously watches MRS. ERLYNNE as the scene progresses.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE (takes the photograph from her and looks at it): I am not surprised – it is charming. (Goes over to sofa with LADY WINDERMERE, and sits down beside her. Looks again at the photograph.) And so that is your little boy! What is he called?

LADY WINDERMERE: Gerard, after my dear father.

MRS. ERLYNNE (laying the photograph down): Really?

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. It if had been a girl, I would have called it after my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.

MRS. ERLYNNE: My name is Margaret too.

LADY WINDERMERE: Indeed!

MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes. (Pause.) You are devoted to your mother’s memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.

LADY WINDERMERE: We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they’re better.

LADY WINDERMERE (shaking her head): If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.

MRS. ERLYNNE: Everything?

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. (Pause.)

MRS. ERLYNNE: Did your father often speak to you of your mother?

LADY WINDERMERE: 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 really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.

MRS. ERLYNNE (rising): I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE (rising): Oh no, don’t.

MRS. ERLYNNE: I think I had better. My carriage must have come back by this time. I sent it to Lady Jedburgh’s with a note.

LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne’s carriage has come back?

MRS. ERLYNNE: Pray don’t trouble, Lord Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, Arthur, do go, please.

LORD WINDERMERE hesitates for a moment and looks at MRS. ERLYNNE. She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room.

(To MRS. ERLYNNE): Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night. (Goes towards her.)

MRS. ERLYNNE: Hush – don’t speak of it.

LADY WINDERMERE: I must speak of it. I can’t let you think that 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.

MRS. ERLYNNE: It is not your duty – at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?

LADY WINDERMERE: I owe you everything.

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (with bowed head): It is your will, not mine.

MRS. ERLYNNE: 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.

LADY WINDERMERE (looking up): I always will now. Only once in my life I have forgotten my own mother – that was last night. Oh, if I had remembered her I should not have been so foolish, so wicked.

MRS. ERLYNNE (with a slight shudder): Hush, last night is quite over.

Enter LORD WINDERMERE.

LORD WINDERMERE: Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE: It makes no matter. I’ll 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. (Moves up C.) Oh, I remember. You’ll think me absurd, but do you know I’ve taken a great fancy to this fan that 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.

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure. But it has my name on it. It has ‘Margaret’ on it.

MRS. ERLYNNE: But we have the same Christian name.

LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, I forgot. Of course, do have it. What a wonderful chance our names being the same!

MRS. ERLYNNE: Quite wonderful. Thanks – it will always remind me of you. (Shakes hands with her.)

Enter PARKER.

PARKER: Lord Augustus Lorton. Mrs. Erlynne’s carriage has come.

Enter LORD AUGUSTUS.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Good-morning, dear boy. Good-morning, Lady Windermere. (Sees MRS. ERLYNNE.) Mrs. Erlynne!

MRS. ERLYNNE: How do you do, Lord Augustus? Are you quite well this morning?

LORD AUGUSTUS (coldly): Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Erlynne.

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. (Goes towards door with a bow to LORD AUGUSTUS. Suddenly smiles and looks back at him.) Lord Augustus! Won’t you see me to my carriage? You might carry the fan.

LORD WINDERMERE: Allow me!

MRS. ERLYNNE: No; I want Lord Augustus. I have a special message for the dear Duchess. Won’t you carry the fan, Lord Augustus?

LORD AUGUSTUS: If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne.

MRS. ERLYNNE (laughing): Of course I do. You’ll carry it so gracefully. You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus. (When she reaches the door she looks back for a moment at LADY WINDERMERE. Their eyes meet. Then she turns, and exit C. followed by LORD AUGUSTUS.)

LADY WINDERMERE: You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you?

LORD WINDERMERE (gravely): She is better than one thought her.

LADY WINDERMERE: She is better than I am.

LORD WINDERMERE (smiling as he strokes her hair): Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.

LADY WINDERMERE: 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.

LORD WINDERMERE (moves down with her): Darling, why do you say that?

LADY WINDERMERE (sits on sofa): Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us –

LORD WINDERMERE: We were never separated.

LADY WINDERMERE: We never must be again. O 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.

Enter LORD AUGUSTUS C.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Arthur, she has explained everything!

LADY WINDERMERE looks horribly frightened at this. LORD WINDERMERE starts. LORD AUGUSTUS takes WINDERMERE by the arm and brings him to front of stage. He talks rapidly and in a low voice. LADY WINDERMERE stands watching them in terror.

My dear fellow, 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 I 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. All the 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!

LADY WINDERMERE (frightened): Has Mrs. Erlynne –?

LORD AUGUSTUS (advancing towards her with a low bow): Yes,

Lady Windermere – Mrs. Erlynne has done me the honour of accepting my hand.

LORD WINDERMERE: Well, you are certainly marrying a very clever woman!

LADY WINDERMERE (taking her husband’s hand): Ah, you’re marrying a very good woman!

CURTAIN

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

The persons of the play

LORD ILLINGWORTH

SIR JOHN PONTEFRACT

LORD ALFRED RUFFORD

MR. KELVIL, M.P.

THE VEN. ARCHDEACON DAUBENY, D.D.

GERALD ARBUTHNOT

FARQUHAR, Butler

FRANCIS, Footman

LADY HUNSTANTON

LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT

LADY STUTFIELD

MRS. ALLONBY

MISS HESTER WORSLEY

ALICE, Maid

MRS. ARBUTHNOT

ACT ONE

SCENE: Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton Chase. The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours. TIME: The present.

SIR JOHN and LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSELY, on chairs under large yew tree.

LADY CAROLINE: I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?

HESTER: Yes, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: You have no country houses, I am told, in America?

HESTER: We have not many.

LADY CAROLINE: Have you any country? What we should call country?

HESTER (smiling): We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.

LADY CAROLINE: Ah! You must find it very draughty, I should fancy. (To SIR JOHN): John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting mufflers for you if you won’t wear them?

SIR JOHN: I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.

LADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. Well, you couldn’t come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. (To SIR JOHN): Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle –

SIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.

LADY CAROLINE: He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.

HESTER: I dislike Mrs. Allonby. I dislike her more than I can say.

LADY CAROLINE: I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they are invited to meet. Mrs. Allonby is very well born. She is a niece of Lord Brancaster’s. It is said, of course, that she ran away twice before she was married. But you know how unfair people often are. I myself don’t believe she ran away more than once.

HESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot is very charming.

LADY CAROLINE: Ah, yes! The young man who has a post in a bank. Lady Hunstanton is most kind in asking him here, and Lord Illingworth seems to have taken quite a fancy to him. I am not sure, however, that Jane is right in taking him out of his position. In my young days, Miss Worsley, one never met any one in society who worked for their living. It was not considered the thing.

HESTER: In America those are the people we respect most.

LADY CAROLINE: I have no doubt of it.

HESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot has a beautiful nature! He is so simple, so sincere. He has one of the most beautiful natures I have ever come across. It is a privilege to meet him.

LADY CAROLINE: It is not customary in England, Miss Worsley, for a young lady to speak with such enthusiasm of any person of the opposite sex. English women conceal their feelings till after they are married. They show them then.

HESTER: Do you, in England, allow no friendship to exist between a young man and a young girl?

Enter LADY HUNSTANTON, followed by Footman with shawls and a cushion.

LADY CAROLINE: We think it very inadvisable. Jane, I was just saying what a pleasant party you have asked us to meet. You have a wonderful power of selection. It is quite a gift.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Dear Caroline, how kind of you! I think we all do fit in very nicely together. And I hope our charming American visitor will carry back pleasant recollections of our English country life. (To Footman): The cushion, there, Francis. And my shawl. The Shetland. Get the Shetland.

Exit Footman for shawl. Enter GERALD ARBUTHNOT.

GERALD: Lady Hunstanton, I have such good news to tell you. Lord Illingworth has just offered to make me his secretary.

LADY HUNSTANTON: His secretary? That is good news indeed, Gerald. It means a very brilliant future in store for you. Your dear mother will be delighted. I really must try and induce her to come up here to-night. Do you think she would, Gerald? I know how difficult it is to get her to go anywhere.

GERALD: Oh! I am sure she would, Lady Hunstanton, if she knew Lord Illingworth had made me such an offer.

Enter Footman with shawl.

LADY HUNSTANTON: I will write and tell her about it, and ask her to come up and meet him. (To Footman): Just wait, Francis. (Writes letter.)

LADY CAROLINE: That is a very wonderful opening for so young a man as you are, Mr. Arbuthnot.

GERALD: It is indeed, Lady Caroline. I trust I shall be able to show myself worthy of it.

LADY CAROLINE: I trust so.

GERALD (to HESTER): You have not congratulated me yet, Miss Worsley.

HESTER: Are you very pleased about it?

GERALD: Of course I am. It means everything to me – things that were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope’s reach now.

HESTER: Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

LADY HUNSTANTON: I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But that may not be true.

LADY CAROLINE: I don’t think that England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications.

LADY HUNSTANTON: You are too nervous, Caroline. Believe me, you are too nervous. Besides, Lord Illingworth may marry any day. I was in hopes he would have married Lady Kelso. But I believe he said her family was too large. Or was it her feet? I forget which. I regret it very much. She was made to be an ambassador’s wife.

LADY CAROLINE: She certainly has a wonderful faculty of remembering people’s names, and forgetting their faces.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Well, that is very natural, Caroline, is it not? (To Footman): Tell Henry to wait for an answer. I have written a line to your dear mother, Gerald, to tell her your good news, and to say she really must come to dinner.

Exit Footman.

GERALD: That is awfully kind of you, Lady Hunstanton. (To HESTER): Will you come for a stroll, Miss Worsley?

HESTER: With pleasure. (Exit with GERALD.)

LADY HUNSTANTON: I am very much gratified at Gerald Arbuthnot’s good fortune. He is quite a protégé of mine. And I am particularly pleased that Lord Illingworth should have made the offer of his own accord without my suggesting anything. Nobody likes to be asked favours. I remember poor Charlotte Pagden making herself quite unpopular one season, because she had a French governess she wanted to recommend to every one.

LADY CAROLINE: I saw the governess, Jane. Lady Pagden sent her to me. It was before Eleanor came out. She was far too good-looking to be in any respectable household. I don’t wonder Lady Pagden was so anxious to get rid of her.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, that explains it.

LADY CAROLINE: John, the grass is too damp for you. You had better go and put on your overshoes at once.

SIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline, I assure you.

LADY CAROLINE: You must allow me to be the best judge of that, John. Pray do as I tell you.

SIR JOHN gets up and goes off.

LADY HUNSTANTON: You spoil him, Caroline, you do indeed!

Enter MRS. ALLONBY and LADY STUTFIELD.

(To MRS. ALLONBY): Well, dear, I hope you like the park. It is said to be well timbered.

MRS. ALLONBY: The trees are wonderful, Lady Hunstanton.

LADY STUTFIELD: Quite, quite wonderful.

MRS. ALLONBY: But somehow, I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me.

LADY HUNSTANTON: I assure you, dear, that the country has not that effect at all. Why, it was from Melthorpe, which is only two miles from here, that Lady Belton eloped with Lord Fethersdale. I remember the occurrence perfectly. Poor Lord Belton died three days afterwards of joy, or gout. I forget which. We had a large party staying here at the time, so we were all very much interested in the whole affair.

MRS. ALLONBY: I think to elope is cowardly. It’s running away from danger. And danger has become so rare in modern life.

LADY CAROLINE: As far as I can make out, the young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire.

MRS. ALLONBY: The one advantage of playing with fire, Lady Caroline, is that one never gets even singed. It is the people who don’t know how to play with it who get burned up.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes; I see that. It is very, very helpful.

LADY HUNSTANTON: I don’t know how the world would get on with such a theory as that, dear Mrs. Allonby.

LADY STUTFIELD: Ah! The world was made for men and not for women.

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh, don’t say that, Lady Stutfield. We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes; that is quite, quite true. I had not thought of that.

Enter SIR JOHN and MR. KELVIL.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Well, Mr. Kelvil, have you got through your work?

KELVIL: I have finished my writing for the day, Lady Hunstanton. It has been an arduous task. The demands on the time of a public man are very heavy nowadays, very heavy indeed. And I don’t think they meet with adequate recognition.

LADY CAROLINE: John, have you got your overshoes on?

SIR JOHN: Yes, my love.

LADY CAROLINE: I think you had better come over here, John. It is more sheltered.

SIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. You had better sit beside me.

SIR JOHN rises and goes across.

LADY STUTFIELD: And what have you been writing about this morning, Mr. Kelvil?

KELVIL: On the usual subject, Lady Stutfield. On Purity.

LADY STUTFIELD: That must be such a very, very interesting thing to write about.

KELVIL: It is the one subject of really national importance, nowadays, Lady Stutfield. I purpose addressing my constituents on the question before Parliament meets. I find that the poorer classes of this country display a marked desire for a higher ethical standard.

LADY STUTFIELD: How quite, quite nice of them.

LADY CAROLINE: Are you in favour of women taking part in politics, Mr. Kettle?

SIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.

KELVIL: The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life, Lady Caroline. Women are always on the side of morality, public and private.

LADY STUTFIELD: It is so very, very gratifying to hear you say that.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, yes! The moral qualities in women – that is the important thing. I am afraid, Caroline, that dear Lord Illingworth doesn’t value the moral qualities in women as much as he should.

Enter LORD ILLINGWORTH.

LADY STUTFIELD: The world says that Lord Illingworth is very, very wicked.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: But what world says that, Lady Stutfield? It must be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms. (Sits down beside MRS. ALLONBY.)

LADY STUTFIELD: Every one I know says you are very, very wicked.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Dear Lord Illingworth is quite hopeless, Lady Stutfield. I have given up trying to reform him. It would take a Public Company with a Board of Directors and a paid Secretary to do that. But you have the secretary already, Lord Illingworth, haven’t you? Gerald Arbuthnot has told us of his good fortune; it is really most kind of you.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, don’t say that, Lady Hunstanton. Kind is a dreadful word. I took a great fancy to young Arbuthnot the moment I met him, and he’ll be of considerable use to me in something I am foolish enough to think of doing.

LADY HUNSTANTON: He is an admirable young man. And his mother is one of my dearest friends. He has just gone for a walk with our pretty American. She is very pretty, is she not?

LADY CAROLINE: Far too pretty. These American girls carry off all the good matches. Why can’t they stay in their own country? They are always telling us it is the Paradise of women.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is, Lady Caroline. That is why, like Eve, they are so extremely anxious to get out of it.

LADY CAROLINE: Who are Miss Worsley’s parents?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: American women are wonderfully clever in concealing their parents.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear Lord Illingworth, what do you mean? Miss Worsley, Caroline, is an orphan. Her father was a very wealthy millionaire or philanthropist, or both, I believe, who entertained my son quite hospitably, when he visited Boston. I don’t know how he made his money, originally.

KELVIL: I fancy in American dry goods.

LADY HUNSTANTON: What are American dry goods?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: American novels.

LADY HUNSTANTON: How very singular! … Well, from whatever source her large fortune came, I have a great esteem for Miss Worsley. She dresses exceedingly well. All Americans do dress well. They get their clothes in Paris.

MRS. ALLONBY: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, they go to America.

KELVIL: I am afraid you don’t appreciate America, Lord Illingworth. It is a very remarkable country, especially considering its youth.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years. To hear them talk one would imagine they were in their first childhood. As far as civilisation goes they are in their second.

KELVIL: There is undoubtedly a great deal of corruption in American politics. I suppose you allude to that?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I wonder.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Politics are in a sad way, everywhere, I am told. They certainly are in England. Dear Mr. Cardew is ruining the country. I wonder Mrs. Cardew allows him. I am sure, Lord Illingworth, you don’t think that uneducated people should be allowed to have votes?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I think they are the only people who should.

KELVIL: Do you take no side then in modern politics, Lord Illingworth?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never take sides in anything, Mr. Kelvil. Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore. However, the House of Commons really does very little harm. You can’t make people good by Act of Parliament – that is something.

KELVIL: You cannot deny that the House of Commons has always shown great sympathy with the sufferings of the poor.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: That is its special vice. That is the special vice of the age. One should sympathise with the joy, the beauty, the colour of life. The less said about life’s sores the better, Mr. Kelvil.

KELVIL: Still our East End is a very important problem.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Quite so. It is the problem of slavery. And we are trying to solve it by amusing the slaves.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Certainly, a great deal may be done by means of cheap entertainments, as you say, Lord Illingworth. Dear Dr. Daubeny, our rector here, provides, with the assistance of his curates, really admirable recreations for the poor during the winter. And much good may be done by means of a magic lantern, or a missionary, or some popular amusement of that kind.

LADY CAROLINE: I am not at all in favour of amusements for the poor, Jane. Blankets and coals are sufficient. There is too much love of pleasure amongst the upper classes as it is. Health is what we want in modern life. The tone is not healthy, not healthy at all.

KELVIL: You are quite right, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: I believe I am usually right.

MRS. ALLONBY: Horrid word ‘health.’

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Silliest word in our language, and one knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox – the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

KELVIL: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: A much better institution, of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

KELVIL: Are you serious in putting forward such a view?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Quite serious, Mr. Kelvil. (To MRS. ALLONBY): Vulgar habit that is people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. The only serious form of intellect I know is the British intellect. And on the British intellect the illiterates play the drum.

LADY HUNSTANTON: What are you saying, Lord Illingworth, about the drum?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I was merely talking to Mrs. Allonby about the leading articles in the London newspapers.

LADY HUNSTANTON: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. (Rises with MRS. ALLONBY.)

LADY HUNSTANTON: Are you going, Mrs. Allonby?

MRS. ALLONBY: Just as far as the conservatory. Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear, I hope there is nothing of the kind. I will certainly speak to the gardener.

Exit MRS. ALLONBY and LORD ILLINGWORTH.

LADY CAROLINE: Remarkable type, Mrs. Allonby.

LADY HUNSTANTON: She lets her clever tongue run away with her sometimes.

LADY CAROLINE: Is that the only thing, Jane, Mrs. Allonby allows to run away with her?

LADY HUNSTANTON: I hope so, Caroline, I am sure.

Enter LORD ALFRED.

Dear Lord Alfred, do join us.

LORD ALFRED sits down beside LADY STUTFIELD.

LADY CAROLINE: You believe good of every one, Jane. It is a great fault.

LADY STUTFIELD: Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that one should believe evil of every one?

LADY CAROLINE: I think it is much safer to do so, Lady Stutfield. Until, of course, people are found out to be good. But that requires a great deal of investigation nowadays.

LADY STUTFIELD: But there is so much unkind scandal in modern life.

LADY CAROLINE: Lord Illingworth remarked to me last night at dinner that the basis of every scandal is an absolutely immoral certainty.

KELVIL: Lord Illingworth is, of course, a very brilliant man, but he seems to me to be lacking in that fine faith in the nobility and purity of life which is so important in this century.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes, quite, quite important, is it not?

KELVIL: He gives me the impression of a man who does not appreciate the beauty of our English home-life. I would say that he was tainted with foreign ideas on the subject.

LADY STUTFIELD: There is nothing, nothing like the beauty of home-life, is there?

KELVIL: It is the mainstay of our moral system in England, Lady Stutfield. Without it we would become like our neighbours.

LADY STUTFIELD: That would be so, so sad, would it not?

KELVIL: I am afraid, too, that Lord Illingworth regards woman simply as a toy. Now, I have never regarded woman as a toy. Woman is the intellectual helpmeet of man in public as in private life. Without her we should forget the true ideals. (Sits down beside LADY STUTFIELD.)

LADY STUTFIELD: I am so very, very glad to hear you say that.

LADY CAROLINE: You are a married man, Mr. Kettle?

SIR JOHN: Kelvil, dear, Kelvil.

KELVIL: I am married, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: Family?

KELVIL: Yes.

LADY CAROLINE: How many?

KELVIL: Eight.

LADY STUTFIELD turns her attention to LORD ALFRED.

LADY CAROLINE: Mrs. Kettle and the children are, I suppose, at the seaside?

SIR JOHN shrugs his shoulders.

KELVIL: My wife is at the seaside with the children, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: You will join them later on, no doubt?

KELVIL: If my public engagements permit me.

LADY CAROLINE: Your public life must be a great source of gratification to Mrs. Kettle.

SIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.

LADY STUTFIELD (to LORD ALFRED): How very, very charming those gold-tipped cigarettes of yours are, Lord Alfred.

LORD ALFRED: They are awfully expensive. I can only afford them when I’m in debt.

LADY STUTFIELD: It must be terribly, terribly distressing to be in debt.

LORD ALFRED: One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. All the chaps I know are in debt.

LADY STUTFIELD: But don’t the people to whom you owe the money give you a great, great deal of annoyance?

Enter Footman.

LORD ALFRED: Oh, no, they write; I don’t.

LADY STUTFIELD: How very, very strange.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, here is a letter, Caroline, from dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. She won’t dine. I am so sorry. But she will come in the evening. I am very pleased, indeed. She is one of the sweetest of women. Writes a beautiful hand, too, so large, so firm. (Hands letter to LADY CAROLINE.)

LADY CAROLINE (looking at it): A little lacking in femininity, Jane. Femininity is the quality I admire most in women.

LADY HUNSTANTON (taking back letter and leaving it on table): Oh! She is very feminine, Caroline, and so good, too. You should hear what the Archdeacon says of her. He regards her as his right hand in the parish. (Footman speaks to her.) In the Yellow Drawing-room. Shall we all go in? Lady Stutfield, shall we go in to tea?

LADY STUTFIELD: With pleasure, Lady Hunstanton.

They rise and proceed to go off. SIR JOHN offers to carry LADY STUTFIELD’S cloak.

LADY CAROLINE: John! If you would allow your nephew to look after Lady Stutfield’s cloak, you might help me with my work-basket.

Enter LORD ILLINGWORTH and MRS. ALLONBY.

SIR JOHN: Certainly, my love.

Exeunt.

MRS. ALLONBY: Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people’s husbands.

MRS. ALLONBY: I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.

MRS. ALLONBY: Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.

MRS. ALLONBY: Or the want of it in the man.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You are quite right. In a Temple every one should be serious, except the thing that is worshipped.

MRS. ALLONBY: And that should be man?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Women kneel so gracefully; men don’t.

MRS. ALLONBY: You are thinking of Lady Stutfield!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I assure you I have not thought of Lady Stutfield for the last quarter of an hour.

MRS. ALLONBY: Is she such a mystery?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: She is more than a mystery – she is a mood.

MRS. ALLONBY: Moods don’t last.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is their chief charm.

Enter HESTER and GERALD.

GERALD: Lord Illingworth, every one has been congratulating me, Lady Hunstanton and Lady Caroline, and … every one. I hope I shall make a good secretary.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You will be the pattern secretary, Gerald. (Talks to him.)

MRS. ALLONBY: You enjoy country life, Miss Worsley?

HESTER: Very much, indeed.

MRS. ALLONBY: Don’t find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?

HESTER: I dislike London dinner-parties.

MRS. ALLONBY: I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.

HESTER: I think the stupid people talk a great deal.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, I never listen!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear boy, if I didn’t like you I wouldn’t have made you the offer. It is because I like you so much that I want to have you with me.

Exit HESTER with GERALD.

Charming fellow, Gerald Arbuthnot!

MRS. ALLONBY: He is very nice; very nice indeed. But I can’t stand the American young lady.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Why?

MRS. ALLONBY: She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It was most annoying.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.

MRS. ALLONBY: She is a Puritan besides –

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Ah, that is inexcusable. I don’t mind plain women being Puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain. But she is decidedly pretty. I admire her immensely. (Looks steadfastly at MRS. ALLONBY.)

MRS. ALLONBY: What a thoroughly bad man you must be!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: What do you call a bad man?

MRS. ALLONBY: The sort of man who admires innocence.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: And a bad woman?

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh! The sort of woman a man never gets tired of.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You are severe – on yourself.

MRS. ALLONBY: Define us as a sex.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Sphinxes without secrets.

MRS. ALLONBY: Does that include the Puritan women?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Do you know, I don’t believe in the existence of Puritan women? I don’t think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.

MRS. ALLONBY: You think there is no woman in the world who would object to being kissed?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Very few.

MRS. ALLONBY: Miss Worsley would not let you kiss her.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Are you sure?

MRS. ALLONBY: Quite.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: What do you think she’d do if I kissed her?

MRS. ALLONBY: Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Fall in love with her, probably.

MRS. ALLONBY: Then it is lucky you are not going to kiss her!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Is that a challenge?

MRS. ALLONBY: It is an arrow shot into the air.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Don’t you know that I always succeed in whatever I try?

MRS. ALLONBY: I am sorry to hear it. We women adore failures. They lean on us.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You worship successes. You cling to them.

MRS. ALLONBY: We are the laurels to hide their baldness.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: And they need you always, except at the moment of triumph.

MRS. ALLONBY: They are uninteresting then.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: How tantalising you are! (A pause.)

MRS. ALLONBY: Lord Illingworth, there is one thing I shall always like you for.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Only one thing? And I have so many bad qualities.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, don’t be too conceited about them. You may lose them as you grow old.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.

MRS. ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Its comedy also, sometimes. But what is the mysterious reason why you will always like me?

MRS. ALLONBY: It is that you have never made love to me.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I have never done anything else.

MRS. ALLONBY: Really? I have not noticed it.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: How unfortunate! It might have been a tragedy for both of us.

MRS. ALLONBY: We should each have survived.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.

MRS. ALLONBY: Have you tried a good reputation?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected.

MRS. ALLONBY: It may come.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Why do you threaten me?

MRS. ALLONBY: I will tell you when you have kissed the Puritan.

Enter Footman.

FRANCIS: Tea is served in the Yellow Drawing-room, my lord.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Tell her ladyship we are coming in.

FRANCIS: Yes, my lord. (Exit.)

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Shall we go in to tea?

MRS. ALLONBY: Do you like such simple pleasures?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.

MRS. ALLONBY: It ends with Revelations.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You fence divinely. But the button has come off your foil.

MRS. ALLONBY: I have still the mask.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It makes your eyes lovelier.

MRS. ALLONBY: Thank you. Come.

LORD ILLINGWORTH (sees MRS. ARBUTHNOT’S letter on table, and takes it up and looks at envelope): What a curious handwriting! It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years ago.

MRS. ALLONBY: Who?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh! No one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance. (Throws letter down, and passes up the steps of the terrace with MRS. ALLONBY. They smile at each other.)

ACT DROP

ACT TWO

SCENE: Drawing-room at Hunstanton Chase, after dinner, lamps lit. Door L.C. Door R.C. Ladies seated on sofa.

MRS. ALLONBY: What a comfort it is to have got rid of the men for a little!

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes; men persecute us dreadfully, don’t they?

MRS. ALLONBY: Persecute us? I wish they did.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY: The annoying thing is that the wretches can be perfectly happy without us. That is why I think it is every woman’s duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except during this short breathing space after dinner; without which, I believe, we poor women would be absolutely worn to shadows.

Enter Servants with coffee.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Worn to shadows, dear?

MRS. ALLONBY: Yes, Lady Hunstanton. It is such a strain keeping men up to the mark. They are always trying to escape from us.

LADY STUTFIELD: It seems to me that it is we who are always trying to escape from them. Men are so very, very heartless. They know their power and use it.

LADY CAROLINE (takes coffee from Servant): What stuff and nonsense all this about men is! The thing to do is to keep men in their proper place.

MRS. ALLONBY: But what is their proper place, Lady Caroline.

LADY CAROLINE: Looking after their wives, Mrs. Allonby.

MRS. ALLONBY (takes coffee from Servant): Really? And if they’re not married?

LADY CAROLINE: If they are not married, they would be looking after a wife. It’s perfectly scandalous the amount of bachelors who are going about society. There should be a law passed to compel them all to marry within twelve months.

LADY STUTFIELD (refuses coffee): But if they’re in love with some one who, perhaps, is tied to another?

LADY CAROLINE: In that case, Lady Stutfield, they would be married off in a week to some plain respectable girl, in order to teach them not to meddle with other people’s property.

MRS. ALLONBY: I don’t think that we should ever be spoken of as other people’s property. All men are married women’s property. That is the only true definition of what married women’s property really is. But we don’t belong to any one.

LADY STUTFIELD: Oh, I am so very, very glad to hear you say so.

LADY HUNSTANTON: But do you really think, dear Caroline, that legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that, nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

MRS. ALLONBY: I certainly never know one from the other.

LADY STUTFIELD: Oh, I think one can always know at once whether a man has home claims upon his life or not. I have noticed a very, very sad expression in the eyes of so many married men.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, all that I have noticed is that they are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Well, I suppose the type of husband has completely changed since my young days, but I’m bound to state that poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as good as gold.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I’m tired of meeting him.

LADY CAROLINE: But you renew him from time to time, don’t you?

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh no, Lady Caroline. I have only had one husband as yet. I suppose you look upon me as quite an amateur.

LADY CAROLINE: With your views on life I wonder you married at all.

MRS. ALLONBY: So do I.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear child, I believe you are really very happy in your married life, but that you like to hide your happiness from others.

MRS. ALLONBY: I assure you I was horribly deceived in Ernest.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Oh, I hope not, dear. I knew his mother quite well. She was a Stratton, Caroline, one of Lord Crowland’s daughters.

LADY CAROLINE: Victoria Stratton? I remember her perfectly. A silly, fair-haired woman with no chin.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, Ernest has a chin. He has a very strong chin, a square chin. Ernest’s chin is far too square.

LADY STUTFIELD: But do you really think a man’s chin can be too square? I think a man should look very, very strong, and that his chin should be quite, quite square.

MRS. ALLONBY: Then you should certainly know Ernest, Lady Stutfield. It is only fair to tell you beforehand he has got no conversation at all.

LADY STUTFIELD: I adore silent men.

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh, Ernest isn’t silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don’t know. I haven’t listened to him for years.

LADY STUTFIELD: Have you never forgiven him then? How sad that seems! But all life is very, very sad, is it not?

MRS. ALLONBY: Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d’heure made up of exquisite moments.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes, there are moments, certainly. But was it something very, very wrong that Mr. Allonby did? Did he become angry with you, and say anything that was unkind or true?

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh, dear, no. Ernest is invariably calm. That is one of the reasons he always gets on my nerves. Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men. I wonder we women stand it as well as we do.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes; men’s good temper shows they are not so sensitive as we are, not so finely strung. It makes a great barrier often between husband and wife, does it not? But I would so much like to know what was the wrong thing Mr. Allonby did.

MRS. ALLONBY: Well, I will tell you, if you solemnly promise to tell everybody else.

LADY STUTFIELD: Thank you, thank you. I will make a point of repeating it.

MRS. ALLONBY: When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I didn’t believe him, I needn’t tell you. Unfortunately, however, I made no inquiries of any kind till after I had been actually married four or five months. I found out then that what he had told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so absolutely uninteresting.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY: Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance.

LADY STUTFIELD: I see what you mean. It’s very, very beautiful.

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear child, you don’t mean to tell me that you won’t forgive your husband because he never loved any one else? Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.

LADY CAROLINE: Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages. They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

MRS. ALLONBY: Oh, they’re quite out of date.

LADY STUTFIELD: Except amongst the middle classes, I have been told.

MRS. ALLONBY: How like the middle classes!

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes – is it not? – very, very like them.

LADY CAROLINE: If what you tell us about the middle classes is true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so persistently frivolous, under the impression apparently that it is the proper thing to be. It is to that I attribute the unhappiness of so many marriages we all know of in society.

MRS. ALLONBY: Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don’t think the frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she was a perfectly rational being?

LADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY: Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years. He can’t help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is very different. We have always been picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the first.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes, the common sense of husbands is certainly most, most trying. Do tell me your conception of the Ideal Husband. I think it would be so very, very helpful.

MRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Husband? There couldn’t be such a thing. The institution is wrong.

LADY STUTFIELD: The Ideal Man, then, in his relations to us.

LADY CAROLINE: He would probably be extremely realistic.

MRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

LADY HUNSTANTON: But how could he do both, dear?

MRS. ALLONBY: He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don’t attract him.

LADY STUTFIELD: Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear about other women.

MRS. ALLONBY: If we ask him a question about anything, he should give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise us for whatever qualities he knows we haven’t got. But he should be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgivable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t want.

LADY CAROLINE: As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills and compliments.

MRS. ALLONBY: He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.

LADY HUNSTANTON: How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.

LADY STUTFIELD: Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a number of details that are so very, very important.

LADY CAROLINE: But you have not told us yet what the reward of the Ideal Man is to be.

MRS. ALLONBY: His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is quite enough for him.

LADY STUTFIELD: But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are they not?

MRS. ALLONBY: That makes no matter. One should never surrender.

LADY STUTFIELD: Not even to the Ideal Man?

MRS. ALLONBY: Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants to grow tired of him.

LADY STUTFIELD: Oh! … Yes. I see that. It is very, very helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal Man? Or are there more than one?

MRS. ALLONBY: There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.

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