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life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are
bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his
own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful
instinct about things. They can discover everything except the
obvious.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, I couldn't tell my wife. When could I
have told her? Not last night. It would have made a life-long
separation between us, and I would have lost the love of the one
woman in the world I worship, of the only woman who has ever stirred
love within me. Last night it would have been quite impossible. She
would have turned from me in horror . . . in horror and in contempt.

LORD GORING. Is Lady Chiltern as perfect as all that?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; my wife is as perfect as all that.

LORD GORING. [Taking off his left-hand glove.] What a pity! I beg
your pardon, my dear fellow, I didn't quite mean that. But if what
you tell me is true, I should like to have a serious talk about life
with Lady Chiltern.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. It would be quite useless.

LORD GORING. May I try?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; but nothing could make her alter her
views.

LORD GORING. Well, at the worst it would simply be a psychological
experiment.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. All such experiments are terribly dangerous.

LORD GORING. Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't
so, life wouldn't be worth living. . . . Well, I am bound to say that
I think you should have told her years ago.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. When? When we were engaged? Do you think she
would have married me if she had known that the origin of my fortune
is such as it is, the basis of my career such as it is, and that I
had done a thing that I suppose most men would call shameful and
dishonourable?

LORD GORING. [Slowly.] Yes; most men would call it ugly names.
There is no doubt of that.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Bitterly.] Men who every day do something of
the same kind themselves. Men who, each one of them, have worse
secrets in their own lives.

LORD GORING. That is the reason they are so pleased to find out
other people's secrets. It distracts public attention from their
own.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And, after all, whom did I wrong by what I did?
No one.

LORD GORING. [Looking at him steadily.] Except yourself, Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [After a pause.] Of course I had private
information about a certain transaction contemplated by the
Government of the day, and I acted on it. Private information is
practically the source of every large modern fortune.

LORD GORING. [Tapping his boot with his cane.] And public scandal
invariably the result.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Pacing up and down the room.] Arthur, do you
think that what I did nearly eighteen years ago should be brought up
against me now? Do you think it fair that a man's whole career

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