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MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I will not marry him.

GERALD. But you don't understand: it is for your sake I am
talking, not for mine. This marriage, this necessary marriage,
this marriage which for obvious reasons must inevitably take place,
will not help me, will not give me a name that will be really,
rightly mine to bear. But surely it will be something for you,
that you, my mother, should, however late, become the wife of the
man who is my father. Will not that be something?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I will not marry him.

GERALD. Mother, you must.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong
done. What atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement
possible. I am disgraced: he is not. That is all. It is the
usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it
always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman
suffers. The man goes free.

GERALD. I don't know if that is the ordinary ending, mother: I
hope it is not. But your life, at any rate, shall not end like
that. The man shall make whatever reparation is possible. It is
not enough. It does not wipe out the past, I know that. But at
least it makes the future better, better for you, mother.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I refuse to marry Lord Illingworth.

GERALD. If he came to you himself and asked you to be his wife you
would give him a different answer. Remember, he is my father.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. If he came himself, which he will not do, my
answer would be the same. Remember I am your mother.

GERALD. Mother, you make it terribly difficult for me by talking
like that; and I can't understand why you won't look at this matter
from the right, from the only proper standpoint. It is to take
away the bitterness out of your life, to take away the shadow that
lies on your name, that this marriage must take place. There is no
alternative: and after the marriage you and I can go away together.
But the marriage must take place first. It is a duty that you owe,
not merely to yourself, but to all other women - yes: to all the
other women in the world, lest he betray more.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I owe nothing to other women. There is not one of
them to help me. There is not one woman in the world to whom I
could go for pity, if I would take it, or for sympathy, if I could
win it. Women are hard on each other. That girl, last night, good
though she is, fled from the room as though I were a tainted thing.
She was right. I am a tainted thing. But my wrongs are my own,
and I will bear them alone. I must bear them alone. What have
women who have not sinned to do with me, or I with them? We do not
understand each other.

[Enter HESTER behind.]

GERALD. I implore you to do what I ask you.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. What son has ever asked of his mother to make so
hideous a sacrifice? None.

GERALD.

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