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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! . . .

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