Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn’t she?
The Archdeacon. She was very deft with her needle once, quite a Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own health.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! that is always a nice distraction, in it not? Now, what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.
Lord Illingworth. I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.
Lady Hunstanton. Now I am quite out of my depth. I usually am when Lord Illingworth says anything. And the Humane Society is most careless. They never rescue me. I am left to sink. I have a dim idea, dear Lord Illingworth, that you are always on the side of the sinners, and I know I always try to be on the side of the saints, but that is as far as I get. And after all, it may be merely the fancy of a drowning person.
Lord Illingworth. The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! that quite does for me. I haven’t a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can’t follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in any of his opinions.
Lady Hunstanton. You are quite right, dear.
[Gerald shrugs his shoulders and looks irritably over at his mother. Enter Lady Caroline.]
Lady Caroline. Jane, have you seen John anywhere?
Lady Hunstanton. You needn’t be anxious about him, dear. He is with Lady Stutfield; I saw them some time ago, in the Yellow Drawing-room. They seem quite happy together. You are not going, Caroline? Pray sit down.
Lady Caroline. I think I had better look after John.
[Exit Lady Caroline.]
Lady Hunstanton. It doesn’t do to pay men so much attention. And Caroline has really nothing to be anxious about. Lady Stutfield is very sympathetic. She is just as sympathetic about one thing as she is about another. A beautiful nature.
[Enter Sir John and Mrs. Allonby.]
Ah! here is Sir John! And with Mrs. Allonby too! I suppose it was Mrs. Allonby I saw him with. Sir John, Caroline has been looking everywhere for you.
Mrs. Allonby. We have been waiting for her in the Music-room, dear Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! the Music-room, of course. I thought it was the Yellow Drawing-room, my memory is getting so defective. [To the Archdeacon.] Mrs. Daubeny has a wonderful memory, hasn’t she?
The Archdeacon. She used to be quite remarkable for her memory, but since her last attack she recalls chiefly the events of her early childhood. But she finds great pleasure in such retrospections, great pleasure.
[Enter Lady Stutfield and Mr. Kelvil.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! dear Lady Stutfield! and what has Mr. Kelvil been talking to you about?
Lady Stutfield. About Bimetallism, as well as I remember.
Lady Hunstanton. Bimetallism! Is that quite a nice subject? However, I know people discuss everything very freely nowadays. What did Sir John talk to you about, dear Mrs. Allonby?
Mrs. Allonby. About Patagonia.
Lady Hunstanton. Really? What a remote topic! But very improving, I have no doubt.
Mrs. Allonby. He has been most interesting on the subject of Patagonia. Savages seem to have quite the same views as cultured people on almost all subjects. They are excessively advanced.
Lady Hunstanton. What do they do?
Mrs. Allonby. Apparently everything.
Lady Hunstanton. Well, it is very gratifying, dear Archdeacon, is it not, to find that Human Nature is permanently one.—On the whole, the world is the same world, is it not?
Lord Illingworth. The world is simply divided into two classes—those who believe the incredible, like the public—and those who do the improbable—
Mrs. Allonby. Like yourself?
Lord Illingworth. Yes; I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.
Lady Stutfield. And what have you been doing lately that astonishes you?
Lord Illingworth. I have been discovering all kinds of beautiful qualities in my own nature.
Mrs. Allonby. Ah! don’t become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!
Lord Illingworth. I don’t intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan’t. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
Mrs. Allonby. It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.
[Enter Lord Alfred. He joins Lady Stutfield.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! we women should forgive everything, shouldn’t we, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot? I am sure you agree with me in that.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.
Lady Hunstanton. What sort of things?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. The ruin of another woman’s life.
[Moves slowly away to back of stage.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.
Mrs. Allonby. The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.
Lady Stutfield. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
Kelvil. The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.
Lord Illingworth. There is no secret of life. Life’s aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.
Lady Hunstanton. [Shakes her fan at him.] I don’t know how it is, dear Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said to-day seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.
Lord Illingworth. All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.
Lady Hunstanton. I don’t understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.
Lord Illingworth. Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Lady Hunstanton. I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I’m beginning to forget everything. It’s a great misfortune.
Lord Illingworth. It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
Lady Hunstanton. How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue. You have the most comforting views of life.
[Enter Farquhar.]
Farquhar. Doctor Daubeny’s carriage!
Lady Hunstanton. My dear Archdeacon! It is only half-past ten.
The Archdeacon. [Rising.] I am afraid I must go, Lady Hunstanton. Tuesday is always one of Mrs. Daubeny’s bad nights.
Lady Hunstanton. [Rising.] Well, I won’t keep you from her. [Goes with him towards door.] I have told Farquhar to put a brace of partridge into the carriage. Mrs. Daubeny may fancy them.
The Archdeacon. It is very kind of you, but Mrs. Daubeny never touches solids now. Lives entirely on jellies. But she is wonderfully cheerful, wonderfully cheerful. She has nothing to complain of.
[Exit with Lady Hunstanton.]
Mrs. Allonby. [Goes over to Lord Illingworth.] There is a beautiful moon to-night.
Lord Illingworth. Let us go and look at it. To look at anything that is inconstant is charming nowadays.
Mrs. Allonby. You have your looking-glass.
Lord Illingworth. It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.
Mrs. Allonby. Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.
Lord Illingworth. Then it is in love with you.
[Exeunt Sir John, Lady Stutfield, Mr. Kelvil and Lord Alfred.]
Gerald. [To Lord Illingworth] May I come too?
Lord Illingworth. Do, my dear boy. [Moves towards door with Mrs. Allonby and Gerald.]
[Lady Caroline enters, looks rapidly round and goes off in opposite direction to that taken by Sir John and Lady Stutfield.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald!
Gerald. What, mother!
[Exit Lord Illingworth with Mrs. Allonby.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It is getting late. Let us go home.
Gerald. My dear mother. Do let us wait a little longer. Lord Illingworth is so delightful, and, by the way, mother, I have a great surprise for you. We are starting for India at the end of this month.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Let us go home.
Gerald. If you really want to, of course, mother, but I must bid good-bye to Lord Illingworth first. I’ll be back in five minutes. [Exit.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Let him leave me if he chooses, but not with him—not with him! I couldn’t bear it. [Walks up and down.]
[Enter Hester.]
Hester. What a lovely night it is, Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Is it?
Hester.
