whatever qualities he knows we haven’t got. But he should be
pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that
we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe
that we know the use of useful things. That would be
unforgivable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t
want.
LADY CAR. As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills
and compliments.
MRS. ALL. He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat
us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be
always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we
want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a
moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in
less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the
end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to
eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after
that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has
refused to take back the little things he has given one, and
promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one
any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and
telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every
half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club,
so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a
whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere
with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was,
he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then,
if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has
behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that
he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted
that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it
 all over again from the beginning, with variations.
LADY HUN. How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word
you say.
LADY STU. Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite
entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a
number of details that are so very, very important.
LADY CAR. But you have not told us yet what the reward of the Ideal
Man is to be.
MRS. ALL. His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is quite
enough for him.
LADY STU. But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are they not?
MRS. ALL. That makes no matter. One should never surrender.
LADY STU. Not even to the Ideal Man?
MRS. ALL. Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants to
grow tired of him.
LADY STU. Oh!… yes. I see that. It is very, very helpful. Do you
think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal Man? Or are
there more than one?
MRS. ALL. There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.
LADY HUN. Oh, my dear!
MRS. ALL. [Going over to her.] What has happened? Do tell me.
LADY HUN. [In a low voice.] I had completely forgotten that the
American young lady has been in the room all the time. I am
afraid some of this clever talk may have shocked her a little.
MRS. ALL. Ah, that will do her so much good!
LADY HUN. Let us hope she didn’t understand much. I think I had
better go over and talk to her. [Rises and goes across to Hester
Worsley.] Well, dear Miss Worsley. [Sitting down beside her.]
How quiet you have been in your nice little corner all this
time! I suppose you have been reading a book? There are so many
books here in the library.
HES. No, I have been listening to the conversation.
LADY HUN. You mustn’t believe everything that was said, you know,
dear.
HES. I didn’t believe any of it.
LADY HUN. That is quite right, dear.
HES. [Continuing.] I couldn’t believe that any women could really
hold such views of life as I have heard to-night from some of
your guests. [An awkward pause.]
LADY HUN. I hear you have such pleasant society in America. Quite
like our own in places, my son wrote to me.
HES. There are cliques in America as elsewhere, Lady Hunstanton.
But true American society consists simply of all the good women
and good men we have in our country.
LADY HUN. What a sensible system, and I dare say quite pleasant,
too. I am afraid in England we have too many artificial social
barriers. We don’t see as much as we should of the middle and
lower classes.
HES. In America we have no lower classes.
LADY HUN. Really? What a very strange arrangement!
MRS. ALL. What is that dreadful girl talking about?
LADY STU. She is painfully natural, is she not?
LADY CAR. There are a great many things you haven’t got in America,
I am told, Miss Worsley. They say you have no ruins, and no
curiosities.
MRS. ALL. [To Lady Stutfield.] What nonsense! They have their
mothers and their manners.
HES. The English aristocracy supply us with our curiosities, Lady
Caroline. They are sent over to us every summer, regularly, in
the steamers, and propose to us the day after they land. As for
ruins, we are trying to build up something that will last longer
than brick and stone. [Gets up to take her fan from table.]
LADY HUN. What is that, dear? Ah, yes, an iron Exhibition, is it
not, at that place that has the curious name?
HES. [Standing by table.] We are trying to build up life, Lady
Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rests on
here. This sounds strange to you all, no doubt. How could it
sound other than strange? You rich people in England, you don’t
know how you are living. How could you know? You shut out from
your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple
 and the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you
sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it
is merely to keep them quiet for a season. With all your pomp
and wealth and art you don’t know how to live- you don’t even
know that. You love the beauty that you can see and touch and
handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of
the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher
life, you know nothing. You have lost life’s secret. Oh, your
English society seems to me shallow, selfish, foolish. It has
blinded its eyes, and stopped its ears. It lies like a leper in
purple. It sits like a dead thing smeared with gold. It is all
wrong, all wrong.
LADY STU. I don’t think one should know of these things. It is not
very, very nice, is it?
LADY HUN. My dear Miss Worsley, I thought you liked English society
so much. You were such a success in it. And you were so much
admired by the best people. I quite forget what Lord Henry
Weston said of you- but it was most complimentary, and you know
what an authority he is on beauty.
HES. Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lady Hunstanton. A man with
a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere. No
dinner-party is complete without him. What of those whose ruin
is due to him? They are outcasts. They are nameless. If you met
them in the street you would turn your head away. I don’t
complain of their punishment. Let all women who have sinned be

punished.

   [Mrs. Arbuthnot enters from terrace behind in a cloak
 with a lace veil over her head. She hears the last words

and starts.]

LADY HUN. My dear young lady!
HES. It is right that they should be punished, but don't let them
 be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let
 them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other

 there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on
each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free. Don’t
have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to
women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman
to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right,
that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be
made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not
regarded.
LADY CAR. Might I, dear Miss Worsley, as you are standing up, ask
you for my cotton that is just behind you? Thank you.
LADY HUN. My dear Mrs. Arbuthnot! I am so pleased you have come up.
But I didn’t hear you announced.
MRS. ARB. Oh, I came straight in from the terrace, Lady Hunstanton,
just as I was. You didn’t tell me you had a party.
LADY HUN. Not a party. Only a few guests who are staying in the
house, and whom you must know. Allow me. [Tries to help her.
Rings bell.] Caroline, this is Mrs. Arbuthnot, one of my
sweetest friends. Lady Caroline Pontefract, Lady Stutfield, Mrs.
Allonby, and my young American friend, Miss Worsley, who has
just been telling us all how wicked we are.
HES. I am afraid you think I spoke too strongly, Lady Hunstanton.
But there are some things in England-
LADY HUN. My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I
dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you
said it, which is much more important, Lord Illingworth would
tell us. The only point where I thought you were a little hard
was about Lady Caroline’s brother, about poor Lord Henry. He is

really such good company.

[Enter Footman.]

 Take Mrs. Arbuthnot's things.          [Exit Footman with wraps.]
HES. Lady Caroline, I had no idea it was your brother. I am sorry
 for the pain I must have caused you- I-
LADY CAR. My dear Miss Worsley, the only part of your little

 speech, if I may so term it, with which I thoroughly agreed, was
the part about my brother. Nothing that you