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dances by with my husband. What have I done to deserve this? I
gave him all my life. He took it--used it--spoiled it! I am
degraded in my own eyes; and I lack courage--I am a coward! [Sits
down on sofa.]

LORD DARLINGTON. If I know you at all, I know that you can't live
with a man who treats you like this! What sort of life would you
have with him? You would feel that he was lying to you every
moment of the day. You would feel that the look in his eyes was
false, his voice false, his touch false, his passion false. He
would come to you when he was weary of others; you would have to
comfort him. He would come to you when he was devoted to others;
you would have to charm him. You would have to be to him the mask
of his real life, the cloak to hide his secret.

LADY WINDERMERE. You are right--you are terribly right. But where
am I to turn? You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington.--
Tell me, what am I to do? Be my friend now.

LORD DARLINGTON. Between men and women there is no friendship
possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no
friendship. I love you -

LADY WINDERMERE. No, no! [Rises.]

LORD DARLINGTON. Yes, I love you! You are more to me than
anything in the whole world. What does your husband give you?
Nothing. Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom
he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you
before every one. I offer you my life -

LADY WINDERMERE. Lord Darlington!

LORD DARLINGTON. My life--my whole life. Take it, and do with it
what you will. . . . I love you--love you as I have never loved any
living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you
blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then--you know it
now! Leave this house to-night. I won't tell you that the world
matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society.
They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are
moments when one has to choose between living one's own life,
fully, entirely, completely--or dragging out some false, shallow,
degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You
have that moment now.

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