ERL. Thanks so much. [Exit Lady Windermere R.]
You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why
should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.
LORD WIN. I can’t bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not
told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.
MRS. ERL. I have not told her the truth, you mean.
LORD WIN. [Standing C.] I sometimes wish you had. I should have
been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the
last six months. But rather than my wife should know- that the
mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom
she has mourned as dead, is living- a divorced woman going about
under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know
you now to be- rather than that, I was ready to supply you with
money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance,
to risk what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever
had with my wife. You don’t understand what that means to me.
How could you? But I tell you that the only bitter words that
ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account,
and I hate to see you next to her. You sully the innocence that
is in her. [Moves L. C.] And then I used to think that with all
your faults you were frank and honest. You are not.
MRS. ERL. Why do you say that?
LORD WIN. You made me get you an invitation to my wife’s ball.
MRS. ERL. For my daughter’s ball- yes.
LORD WIN. You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house,
you are found in a man’s rooms- you are disgraced before every
one. [Goes up stage C.]
MRS. ERL. Yes.
LORD WIN. [Turning round on her.] Therefore I have a right to look
upon you as what you are- a worthless, vicious woman. I have the
right to tell you never to enter this house, never to attempt to
come near my wife-
MRS. ERL. [Coldly.] My daughter, you mean.
LORD WIN. You have no right to claim her as your daughter. You left
her, abandoned her, when she was but a child in the cradle,
abandoned her for your lover, who abandoned you in turn.
MRS. ERL. [Rising.] Do you count that to his credit, Lord
Windermere- or to mine?
LORD WIN. To his, now that I know you.
MRS. ERL. Take care- you had better be careful.
LORD WIN. Oh, I am not going to mince words for you. I know you
 thoroughly.
MRS. ERL. [Looking steadily at him.] I question that.
LORD WIN. I do know you. For twenty years of your life you lived
without your child, without a thought of your child. One day you
read in the papers that she had married a rich man. You saw your
hideous chance. You knew that to spare her the ignominy of
learning that a woman like you was her mother, I would endure
anything. You began your blackmailing.
MRS. ERL. [Shrugging her shoulders.] Don’t use ugly words,
Windermere. They are vulgar. I saw my chance, it is true, and
took it.
LORD WIN. Yes, you took it- and spoiled it all last night, by being
found out.
MRS. ERL. [With a strange smile.] You are quite right, I spoiled it
all last night.
LORD WIN. And as for your blunder in taking my wife’s fan from her,
and then leaving it about in Darlington’s rooms, it is
unpardonable. I can’t bear the sight of it now. I shall never
let my wife use it again. The thing is soiled for me. You should
have kept it, and not brought it back.
MRS. ERL. I think I shall keep it. [Goes up.] It’s extremely
pretty.
[Takes up fan.] I shall ask Margaret to give it to me.
LORD WIN. I hope my wife will give it to you.
MRS. ERL. Oh, I’m sure she will have no objection.
LORD WIN. I wish at the same time she would give you a miniature
she kisses every night before she prays- it’s the miniature of a
young, innocent-looking girl with beautiful dark hair.
MRS. ERL. Ah, yes, I remember. How long ago that seems! [Goes to
sofa and sits down.] It was done before I was married. Dark hair
and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere! [A
pause.]
LORD WIN. What do you mean by coming here this morning? What is
your object? [Crossing L. C. and sitting.]
MRS. ERL. [With a note of irony in her voice.] To bid good-bye to
 my dear daughter, of course. [Lord Windermere bites his underlip
in anger. Mrs. Erlynne looks at him, and her voice and manner
become serious. In her accents as she talks there is a note of
deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself.] Oh, don’t
imagine I am going to have a pathetic scene with her, weep on
her neck and tell her who I am, and all that kind of thing. I
have no ambition to play the part of a mother. Only once in my
life have I known a mother’s feelings. That was last night. They
were terrible- they made me suffer- they made me suffer too
much. For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless- I
want to live childless still. [Hiding her feelings with a
trivial laugh.] Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could
I pose as a mother with a grown up daughter? Margaret is
twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than
twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are
pink shades, thirty when there are not. So you see what
difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am concerned, let
your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother. Why
should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard enough to
keep my own. I lost one illusion last night. I thought I had no
heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere.
Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old.
[Takes up hand-mirror from table and looks into it.] And it
spoils one’s career at critical moments.
LORD WIN. You fill me with horror- with absolute horror.
MRS. ERL. [Rising.] I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to
retire into a convent or become a hospital nurse or something of
that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid
of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things- not as
long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No- what
consoles one now-a-days is not repentance, but pleasure.
Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really
repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one
believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do
that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My
 coming into them has been a mistake- I discovered that last
night.
LORD WIN. A fatal mistake.
MRS. ERL. [Smiling.] Almost fatal.
LORD WIN. I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at
once.
MRS. ERL. I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones- that
is the difference between us.
LORD WIN. I don’t trust you. I will tell my wife. It’s better for
her to know, and from me. It will cause her infinite pain- it
will humiliate her terribly, but it’s right that she should
know.
MRS. ERL. You propose to tell her?
LORD WIN. I am going to tell her.
MRS. ERL. [Going up to him.] If you do, I will make my name so
infamous that it will mar every moment of her life. It will ruin
her and make her wretched. If you dare to tell her, there is no
depth of degradation I will not sink to, no pit of shame I will
not enter. You shall not tell her- I forbid you.
LORD WIN. Why?
MRS. ERL. [After a pause.] If I said to you that I cared for her,
perhaps loved her even- you would sneer at me, wouldn’t you?
LORD WIN. I should feel it was not true. A mother’s love means
devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such
things?
MRS. ERL. You are right. What could I know of such things? Don’t
let us talk any more about it ; as for telling my daughter who I
am, that I do not allow. It is my secret, it is not yours. If I
make up my mind to tell her, and I think I will, I shall tell
her before I leave this house- if not, I shall never tell her.
LORD WIN. [Angrily.] Then let me beg of you to leave our house at

once. I will make your excuses to Margaret.

   [Enter Lady Windermere R. She goes over to Mrs. Erlynne
  with the photograph in her hand. Lord Windermere moves to

 back of sofa, and anxiously watches Mrs. Erlynne as the

scene progresses.]

LADY WIN. I am so sorry, Mrs. Erlynne, to have kept you waiting. I
 couldn't find the photograph anywhere. At last I discovered it
 in my husband's dressing-room- he had stolen it.
MRS. ERL. [Takes the photograph from her and looks at it.] I am not
 surprised- it is charming. [Goes over to sofa with Lady
 Windermere, and sits down beside her. Looks again at the
 photograph.] And so that is your little boy! What is he called?
LADY WIN. Gerard, after my dear father.
MRS. ERL. [Laying the photograph down.] Really?
LADY WIN. Yes. If it had been a girl, I would have called it after
 my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.
MRS. ERL. My name is Margaret, too.
LADY WIN. Indeed!
MRS. ERL. Yes. [Pause.] You are devoted to your mother's memory,
 Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.
LADY WIN. We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have.
 Mine is my mother.
MRS. ERL. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They
 wound, but they are better.
LADY WIN. [Shaking her head.] If I lost my ideals, I should lose
 everything.
MRS. ERL. Everything?
LADY WIN. Yes. [Pause.]
MRS. ERL. Did your father often speak to you of your mother?
LADY