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to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you
changed?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am not changed. But circumstances alter
things.

LADY CHILTERN. Circumstances should never alter principles!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But if I told you -

LADY CHILTERN. What?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That it was necessary, vitally necessary?

LADY CHILTERN. It can never be necessary to do what is not
honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have
loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be?
What gain would you get ? Money? We have no need of that! And
money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But
power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine -
that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are
going to do this dishonourable thing!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, you have no right to use that word.
I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more
than that.

LADY CHILTERN. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men
who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you,
Robert, not for you. You are different. All your life you have
stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you. To
the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that
ideal still. That great inheritance throw not away - that tower of
ivory do not destroy. Robert, men can love what is beneath them -
things unworthy, stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we
love; and when we lose our worship, we lose everything. Oh! don't
kill my love for you, don't kill that!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN. I know that there are men with horrible secrets in
their lives - men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some
critical moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame
- oh! don't tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in
your life any secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at
once, that -

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That what?

LADY CHILTERN. [Speaking very slowly.] That our lives may drift
apart.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Drift apart?

LADY CHILTERN. That they may be entirely separate. It would be
better for us both.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that
you might not know.

LADY CHILTERN. I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why
did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self?
Don't let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write,
won't you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support
this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise
you must take it back, that is all!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Must I write and tell her that?

LADY CHILTERN. Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.

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