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LADY HUNSTANTON. She reads a good deal, I suppose?

THE ARCHDEACON. Just the very largest print. The eyesight is
rapidly going. But she's never morbid, never morbid.

GERALD. [To LORD ILLINGWORTH.] Do speak to my mother, Lord
Illingworth, before you go into the music-room. She seems to
think, somehow, you don't mean what you said to me.

MRS. ALLONBY. Aren't you coming?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. In a few moments. Lady Hunstanton, if Mrs.
Arbuthnot would allow me, I would like to say a few words to her,
and we will join you later on.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, of course. You will have a great deal to say
to her, and she will have a great deal to thank you for. It is not
every son who gets such an offer, Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I know you
appreciate that, dear.

LADY CAROLINE. John!

LADY HUNSTANTON. Now, don't keep Mrs. Arbuthnot too long, Lord
Illingworth. We can't spare her.

[Exit following the other guests. Sound of violin heard from
music-room.]

LORD ILLINGWORTH. So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very
proud of him. He in a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why
Arbuthnot, Rachel?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. One name is as good as another, when one has no
right to any name.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. I suppose so - but why Gerald?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. After a man whose heart I broke - after my father.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. Well, Rachel, what in over is over. All I have
got to say now in that I am very, very much pleased with our boy.
The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me
he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious
thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so.
It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now, I
am glad I have found him.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You have no right to claim him, or the smallest
part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for
over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He
is quite as much mine as yours.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of
the child who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of
hunger and of want?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It
was not I who left you.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I left you because you refused to give the child a
name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. I had no expectations then. And besides,
Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two.
I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your
father's garden.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be
old enough to do right also.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are
always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely

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