Previous - Next

probably make a very poor choice. It is I who should be consulted,
not you. There is property at stake. It is not a matter for
affection. Affection comes later on in married life.

LORD GORING. Yes. In married life affection comes when people
thoroughly dislike each other, father, doesn't it? [Puts on LORD
CAVERSHAM'S cloak for him.]

LORD CAVERSHAM. Certainly, sir. I mean certainly not, air. You are
talking very foolishly to-night. What I say is that marriage is a
matter for common sense.

LORD GORING. But women who have common sense are so curiously plain,
father, aren't they? Of course I only speak from hearsay.

LORD CAVERSHAM. No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at
all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.

LORD GORING. Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we
never use it, do we, father?

LORD CAVERSHAM. I use it, sir. I use nothing else.

LORD GORING. So my mother tells me.

LORD CAVERSHAM. It is the secret of your mother's happiness. You
are very heartless, sir, very heartless.

LORD GORING. I hope not, father.

[Goes out for a moment. Then returns, looking rather put out, with
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. My dear Arthur, what a piece of good luck
meeting you on the doorstep! Your servant had just told me you were
not at home. How extraordinary!

LORD GORING. The fact is, I am horribly busy to-night, Robert, and I
gave orders I was not at home to any one. Even my father had a
comparatively cold reception. He complained of a draught the whole
time.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Ah! you must be at home to me, Arthur. You are
my best friend. Perhaps by to-morrow you will be my only friend. My
wife has discovered everything.

LORD GORING. Ah! I guessed as much!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Looking at him.] Really! How?

LORD GORING. [After some hesitation.] Oh, merely by something in
the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Mrs. Cheveley herself. And the woman I love
knows that I began my career with an act of low dishonesty, that I
built up my life upon sands of shame - that I sold, like a common
huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of
honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I
betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so
horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. [Burying his face in his
hands.]

LORD GORING. [After a pause.] You have heard nothing from Vienna
yet, in answer to your wire?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Looking up.] Yes; I got a telegram from the
first secretary at eight o'clock to-night.

LORD GORING. Well?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Nothing is absolutely known against her. On
the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is
a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion

Previous - Next