Previous - Next

LORD GORING. Your wife will forgive you. Perhaps at this moment she
is forgiving you. She loves you, Robert. Why should she not
forgive?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. God grant it! God grant it! [Buries his face
in his hands.] But there is something more I have to tell you,
Arthur.

[Enter PHIPPS with drinks.]

PHIPPS. [Hands hock and seltzer to SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.] Hock and
seltzer, sir.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Thank you.

LORD GORING. Is your carriage here, Robert?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. No; I walked from the club.

LORD GORING. Sir Robert will take my cab, Phipps.

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Exit.]

LORD GORING. Robert, you don't mind my sending you away?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, you must let me stay for five minutes.
I have made up my mind what I am going to do to-night in the House.
The debate on the Argentine Canal is to begin at eleven. [A chair
falls in the drawing-room.] What is that?

LORD GORING. Nothing.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I heard a chair fall in the next room. Some
one has been listening.

LORD GORING. No, no; there is no one there.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. There is some one. There are lights in the
room, and the door is ajar. Some one has been listening to every
secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean?

LORD GORING. Robert, you are excited, unnerved. I tell you there is
no one in that room. Sit down, Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Do you give me your word that there is no one
there?

LORD GORING. Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Your word of honour? [Sits down.]

LORD GORING. Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rises.] Arthur, let me see for myself.

LORD GORING. No, no.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. If there is no one there why should I not look
in that room? Arthur, you must let me go into that room and satisfy
myself. Let me know that no eavesdropper has heard my life's secret.
Arthur, you don't realise what I am going through.

LORD GORING. Robert, this must stop. I have told you that there is
no one in that room - that is enough.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rushes to the door of the room.] It is not
enough. I insist on going into this room. You have told me there is
no one there, so what reason can you have for refusing me?

LORD GORING. For God's sake, don't! There is some one there. Some
one whom you must not see.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Ah, I thought so!

LORD GORING. I forbid you to enter that room.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Stand back. My life is at stake. And I don't
care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my
secret and my shame. [Enters room.]

LORD GORING. Great heavens! his own wife!

[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN comes back, with a look of scorn and anger on
his face.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What explanation have you to give me for the
presence of that woman here?

LORD GORING. Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is

Previous - Next