An Ideal Husband (Act 1)

SCENE

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square.

[The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands lady chiltern, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry—representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher—that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms. mrs. marchmont and lady basildon, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.]

MRS. MARCHMONT
Going on to the Hartlocks’ to-night, Margaret?

LADY BASILDON
I suppose so. Are you?

MRS. MARCHMONT
Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don’t they?

LADY BASILDON
Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere.

MRS. MARCHMONT
I come here to be educated.

LADY BASILDON
Ah! I hate being educated!

MRS. MARCHMONT
So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn’t it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one.

LADY BASILDON
[Looking round through her lorgnette.] I don’t see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time.

MRS. MARCHMONT
How very trivial of him!

LADY BASILDON
Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about?

MRS. MARCHMONT
About myself.

LADY BASILDON
[Languidly.] And were you interested?

MRS. MARCHMONT
[Shaking her head.] Not in the smallest degree.

LADY BASILDON
What martyrs we are, dear Margaret!

MRS. MARCHMONT
[Rising.] And how well it becomes us, Olivia!
[They rise and go towards the music-room. The vicomte de nanjac, a young attaché known for his neckties and his Anglomania, approaches with a low bow, and enters into conversation.]

MASON
[Announcing guests from the top of the staircase.] Mr. and Lady Jane Barford. Lord Caversham.

[Enter lord caversham, an old gentleman of seventy, wearing the riband and star of the Garter. A fine Whig type. Rather like a portrait by Lawrence.]

LORD CAVERSHAM
Good evening, Lady Chiltern! Has my good-for-nothing young son been here?

LADY CHILTERN
[Smiling.] I don’t think Lord Goring has arrived yet.

MABEL CHILTERN
[Coming up to lord caversham.] Why do you call Lord Goring good-for-nothing?

[mabel chiltern is a perfect example of the English type of prettiness, the apple-blossom type. She has all the fragrance and freedom of a flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in her hair, and the little mouth, with its parted lips, is expectant, like the mouth of a child. She has the fascinating tyranny of youth, and the astonishing courage of innocence. To sane people she is not reminiscent of any work of art. But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so.]

LORD CAVERSHAM
Because he leads such an idle life.

MABEL CHILTERN
How can you say such a thing? Why, he rides in the Row at ten o’clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don’t call that leading an idle life, do you?

LORD CAVERSHAM
[Looking at her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes.] You are a very charming young lady!

MABEL CHILTERN
How sweet of you to say that, Lord Caversham! Do come to us more often. You know we are always at home on Wednesdays, and you look so well with your star!

LORD CAVERSHAM
Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society. Shouldn’t mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner with my wife’s milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham’s bonnets.

MABEL CHILTERN
Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.

LORD CAVERSHAM
Hum! Which is Goring? Beautiful idiot, or the other thing?

MABEL CHILTERN
[Gravely.] I have been obliged for the present to put Lord Goring into a class quite by himself. But he is developing charmingly!

LORD CAVERSHAM
Into what?

MABEL CHILTERN
[With a little curtsey.] I hope to let you know very soon, Lord Caversham!

MASON
[Announcing guests.] Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.

[Enter lady markby and mrs. cheveley. lady markby is a pleasant, kindly, popular woman, with gray hair à la marquise and good lace. mrs. cheveley, who accompanies her, is tall and rather slight. Lips very thin and highly-coloured, a line of scarlet on a pallid face. Venetian red hair, aquiline nose, and long throat. Rouge accentuates the natural paleness of her complexion. Gray-green eyes that move restlessly. She is in heliotrope, with diamonds. She looks rather like an orchid, and makes great demands on one’s curiosity. In all her movements she is extremely graceful. A work of art, on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools.]

LADY MARKBY
Good evening, dear Gertrude! So kind of you to let me bring my friend, Mrs. Cheveley. Two such charming women should know each other!

LADY CHILTERN
[Advances towards mrs. cheveley with a sweet smile. Then suddenly stops, and bows rather distantly.] I think Mrs. Cheveley and I have met before. I did not know she had married a second time.

LADY MARKBY
[Genially.] Ah, nowadays people marry as often as they can, don’t they? It is most fashionable. [To duchess of maryborough.] Dear Duchess, and how is the Duke? Brain still weak, I suppose? Well, that is only to be expected, is it not? His good father was just the same. There is nothing like race, is there?

MRS. CHEVELEY
[Playing with her fan.] But have we really met before, Lady Chiltern? I can’t remember where. I have been out of England for so long.

LADY CHILTERN
We were at school together, Mrs. Cheveley.

MRS. CHEVELEY
[Superciliously.] Indeed? I have forgotten all about my schooldays. I have a vague impression that they were detestable.

LADY CHILTERN
[Coldly.] I am not surprised!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Do you know, I am quite looking forward to meeting your clever husband, Lady Chiltern. Since he has been at the Foreign Office, he has been so much talked of in Vienna. They actually succeed in spelling his name right in the newspapers. That in itself is fame, on the continent.

LADY CHILTERN
I hardly think there will be much in common between you and my husband, Mrs. Cheveley!

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
Ah! chère Madame, queue surprise! I have not seen you since Berlin!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Not since Berlin, Vicomte. Five years ago!

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
And you are younger and more beautiful than ever. How do you manage it?

MRS. CHEVELEY
By making it a rule only to talk to perfectly charming people like yourself.

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
Ah! you flatter me. You butter me, as they say here.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Do they say that here? How dreadful of them!

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
Yes, they have a wonderful language. It should be more widely known.

[sir robert chiltern enters. A man of forty, but looking somewhat younger. Clean-shaven, with finely-cut features, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A personality of mark. Not popular—few personalities are. But intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected by the many. The note of his manner is that of perfect distinction, with a slight touch of pride. One feels that he is conscious of the success he has made in life. A nervous temperament, with a tired look. The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. The variance is suggestive of an almost complete separation of passion and intellect, as though thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some violence of will-power. There is nervousness in the nostrils, and in the pale, thin, pointed hands. It would be inaccurate to call him picturesque. Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons. But Vandyck would have liked to have painted his head.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Good evening, Lady Markby! I hope you have brought Sir John with you?

LADY MARKBY
Oh! I have brought a much more charming person than Sir John. Sir John’s temper since he has taken seriously to politics has become quite unbearable. Really, now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I hope not, Lady Markby. At any rate we do our best to waste the public time, don’t we? But who is this charming person you have been kind enough to bring to us?

LADY MARKBY
Her name is Mrs. Cheveley! One of the Dorsetshire Cheveleys, I suppose. But I really don’t know. Families are so mixed nowadays. Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Mrs. Cheveley? I seem to know the name.

LADY MARKBY
She has just arrived from Vienna.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Ah! yes. I think I know whom you mean.

LADY MARKBY
Oh! she goes everywhere there, and has such pleasant scandals about all her friends. I really must go to Vienna next winter. I hope there is a good chef at the Embassy.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
If there is not, the Ambassador will certainly have to be recalled. Pray point out Mrs. Cheveley to me. I should like to see her.

LADY MARKBY
Let me introduce you. My dear, Sir Robert Chiltern is dying to know you!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Every one is dying to know the brilliant Mrs. Cheveley. Our attachés at Vienna write to us about nothing else.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Thank you, Sir Robert. An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner. And I find that I know Lady Chiltern already.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Really?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Yes. She has just reminded me that we were at school together. I remember it perfectly now. She always got the good conduct prize. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
And what prizes did you get, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY
My prizes came a little later on in life. I don’t think any of them were for good conduct. I forget!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I am sure they were for something charming!

MRS. CHEVELEY
I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it! Certainly, more women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else! At least that is the only way I can account for the terribly haggard look of most of your pretty women in London!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence. But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, I’m neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
You prefer to be natural?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What would those modern psychological novelists, of whom we hear so much, say to such a theory as that?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women . . . merely adored.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
And women represent the irrational.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Well-dressed women do.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I fear I could hardly agree with you there. But do sit down. And now tell me, what makes you leave your brilliant Vienna for our gloomy London—or perhaps the question is indiscreet?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Well, at any rate, may I know if it is politics or pleasure?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more . . . becoming!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
A political life is a noble career!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Sometimes. And sometimes it is a clever game, Sir Robert. And sometimes it is a great nuisance.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Which do you find it?

MRS. CHEVELEY
I? A combination of all three. [Drops her fan]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[Picks up fan.] Allow me!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Thanks.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
But you have not told me yet what makes you honour London so suddenly. Our season is almost over.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh! I don’t care about the London season! It is too matrimonial. People are either hunting for husbands, or hiding from them. I wanted to meet you. It is quite true. You know what a woman’s curiosity is. Almost as great as a man’s! I wanted immensely to meet you, and . . . to ask you to do something for me.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I hope it is not a little thing, Mrs. Cheveley. I find that little things are so very difficult to do.

MRS. CHEVELEY
[After a moment’s reflection.] No, I don’t think it is quite a little thing.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I am so glad. Do tell me what it is.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Later on. And now may I walk through your beautiful house? I hear your pictures are charming. Poor Baron Arnheim—you remember the Baron?—used to tell me you had some wonderful Corots.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
With an almost imperceptible start. Did you know Baron Arnheim well?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Intimately. Did you?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
At one time.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Wonderful man, wasn’t he?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
He was very remarkable, in many ways.

MRS. CHEVELEY
I often think it such a pity he never wrote his memoirs. They would have been most interesting.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Yes: he knew men and cities well, like the old Greek.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Without the dreadful disadvantage of having a Penelope waiting at home for him.

MASON
Lord Goring.

[Enter lord goring. Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A well-bred, expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Good evening, my dear Arthur! Mrs. Cheveley, allow me to introduce to you Lord Goring, the idlest man in London.

MRS. CHEVELEY
I have met Lord Goring before.

LORD GORING
I did not think you would remember me, Mrs. Cheveley.

MRS. CHEVELEY
My memory is under admirable control. And are you still a bachelor?

LORD GORING
I . . . believe so.

MRS. CHEVELEY
How very romantic!

LORD GORING
Oh! I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough. I leave romance to my seniors.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Lord Goring is the result of Boodle’s Club, Mrs. Cheveley.

MRS. CHEVELEY
He reflects every credit on the institution.

LORD GORING
May I ask are you staying in London long?

MRS. CHEVELEY
That depends partly on the weather, partly on the cooking, and partly on Sir Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
You are not going to plunge us into a European war, I hope?

MRS. CHEVELEY
There is no danger, at present!

[She nods to lord goring, with a look of amusement in her eyes, and goes out with sir robert chiltern. lord goring saunters over to mabel chiltern.]

MABEL CHILTERN
You are very late!

LORD GORING
Have you missed me?

MABEL CHILTERN
Awfully!

lord goring
Then I am sorry I did not stay away longer. I like being missed.

MABEL CHILTERN
How very selfish of you!

LORD GORING
I am very selfish.

MABEL CHILTERN
You are always telling me of your bad qualities, Lord Goring.

LORD GORING
I have only told you half of them as yet, Miss Mabel!

MABEL CHILTERN
Are the others very bad?

LORD GORING
Quite dreadful! When I think of them at night I go to sleep at once.

MABEL CHILTERN
Well, I delight in your bad qualities. I wouldn’t have you part with one of them.

LORD GORING
How very nice of you! But then you are always nice. By the way, I want to ask you a question, Miss Mabel. Who brought Mrs. Cheveley here? That woman in heliotrope, who has just gone out of the room with your brother?

MABEL CHILTERN
Oh, I think Lady Markby brought her. Why do you ask?

LORD GORING
I haven’t seen her for years, that is all.

MABEL CHILTERN
What an absurd reason!

LORD GORING
All reasons are absurd.

MABEL CHILTERN
What sort of a woman is she?

LORD GORING
Oh! a genius in the daytime and a beauty at night!

MABEL CHILTERN
I dislike her already.

LORD GORING
That shows your admirable good taste.

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
Ah, the English young lady is the dragon of good taste, is she not? Quite the dragon of good taste.

LORD GORING
So the newspapers are always telling us.

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
I read all your English newspapers. I find them so amusing.

LORD GORING
Then, my dear Nanjac, you must certainly read between the lines.

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
I should like to, but my professor objects. May I have the pleasure of escorting you to the music-room, Mademoiselle?

MABEL CHILTERN
Delighted, Vicomte, quite delighted! Aren’t you coming to the music-room?

LORD GORING
Not if there is any music going on, Miss Mabel.

MABEL CHILTERN
The music is in German. You would not understand it.

[Goes out with the vicomte de nanjac. lord caversham comes up to his son.]

LORD CAVERSHAM
Well, sir! what are you doing here? Wasting your life as usual! You should be in bed, sir. You keep too late hours! I heard of you the other night at Lady Rufford’s dancing till four o’clock in the morning!

LORD GORING
Only a quarter to four, father.

LORD CAVERSHAM
Can’t make out how you stand London Society. The thing has gone to the dogs, a lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing.

LORD GORING
I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.

LORD CAVERSHAM
You seem to me to be living entirely for pleasure.

LORD GORING
What else is there to live for, father? Nothing ages like happiness.

LORD CAVERSHAM
You are heartless, sir, very heartless!

LORD GORING
I hope not, father. Good evening, Lady Basildon!

LADY BASILDON
Are you here? I had no idea you ever came to political parties!

LORD GORING
I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don’t talk politics.

LADY BASILDON
I delight in talking politics. I talk them all day long. But I can’t bear listening to them. I don’t know how the unfortunate men in the House stand these long debates.

LORD GORING
By never listening.

LADY BASILDON
Really?

LORD GORING
Of course. You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.

LADY BASILDON
Ah! that accounts for so much in men that I have never understood, and so much in women that their husbands never appreciate in them!

MRS. MARCHMONT
Our husbands never appreciate anything in us. We have to go to others for that!

LADY BASILDON
Yes, always to others, have we not?

LORD GORING
And those are the views of the two ladies who are known to have the most admirable husbands in London.

MRS. MARCHMONT
That is exactly what we can’t stand. My Reginald is quite hopelessly faultless. He is really unendurably so, at times! There is not the smallest element of excitement in knowing him.

LORD GORING
How terrible! Really, the thing should be more widely known!

LADY BASILDON
Basildon is quite as bad; he is as domestic as if he was a bachelor.

MRS. MARCHMONT
My poor Olivia! We have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it.

LORD GORING
I should have thought it was the husbands who were punished.

MRS. MARCHMONT
Oh, dear no! They are as happy as possible! And as for trusting us, it is tragic how much they trust us.

LADY BASILDON
Perfectly tragic!

LORD GORING
Or comic, Lady Basildon?

LADY BASILDON
Certainly not comic, Lord Goring. How unkind of you to suggest such a thing!

MRS. MARCHMONT
I am afraid Lord Goring is in the camp of the enemy, as usual. I saw him talking to that Mrs. Cheveley when he came in.

LORD GORING
Handsome woman, Mrs. Cheveley!

LADY BASILDON
Please don’t praise other women in our presence. You might wait for us to do that!

LORD GORING
I did wait.

MRS. MARCHMONT
Well, we are not going to praise her. I hear she went to the Opera on Monday night, and told Tommy Rufford at supper that, as far as she could see, London Society was entirely made up of dowdies and dandies.

LORD GORING
She is quite right, too. The men are all dowdies and the women are all dandies, aren’t they?

MRS. MARCHMONT
Oh! do you really think that is what Mrs. Cheveley meant?

LORD GORING
Of course. And a very sensible remark for Mrs. Cheveley to make, too.

[Enter mabel chiltern. She joins the group.]

MABEL CHILTERN
Why are you talking about Mrs. Cheveley? Everybody is talking about Mrs. Cheveley! Lord Goring says—what did you say, Lord Goring, about Mrs. Cheveley? Oh! I remember, that she was a genius in the daytime and a beauty at night.

LADY BASILDON
What a horrid combination! So very unnatural!

MRS. MARCHMONT
I like looking at geniuses, and listening to beautiful people.

LORD GORING
Ah! that is morbid of you, Mrs. Marchmont!

MRS. MARCHMONT
I am so glad to hear you say that. Marchmont and I have been married for seven years, and he has never once told me that I was morbid. Men are so painfully unobservant!

LADY BASILDON
I have always said, dear Margaret, that you were the most morbid person in London.

MRS. MARCHMONT
Ah! but you are always sympathetic, Olivia!

MABEL CHILTERN
Is it morbid to have a desire for food? I have a great desire for food. Lord Goring, will you give me some supper?

LORD GORING
With pleasure, Miss Mabel.

MABEL CHILTERN
How horrid you have been! You have never talked to me the whole evening!

LORD GORING
How could I? You went away with the child-diplomatist.

MABEL CHILTERN
You might have followed us. Pursuit would have been only polite. I don’t think I like you at all this evening!

LORD GORING
I like you immensely.

MABEL CHILTERN
Well, I wish you’d show it in a more marked way!

MRS. MARCHMONT
Olivia, I have a curious feeling of absolute faintness. I think I should like some supper very much. I know I should like some supper.

LADY BASILDON
I am positively dying for supper, Margaret!

MRS. MARCHMONT
Men are so horribly selfish, they never think of these things.

LADY BASILDON
Men are grossly material, grossly material!

[The vicomte de nanjac enters from the music-room with some other guests. After having carefully examined all the people present, he approaches lady basildon.]

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
May I have the honour of taking you down to supper, Comtesse?

LADY BASILDON
I never take supper, thank you, Vicomte. But I will come down with you with pleasure.

VICOMTE DE NANJAC
I am so fond of eating! I am very English in all my tastes.

LADY BASILDON
You look quite English, Vicomte, quite English.

[They pass out. mr. montford, a perfectly groomed young dandy, approaches mrs. marchmont.]

MR. MONTFORD
Like some supper, Mrs. Marchmont?

MRS. MARCHMONT
Thank you, Mr. Montford, I never touch supper. [Rises hastily and takes his arm.] But I will sit beside you, and watch you.

MR. MONTFORD
I don’t know that I like being watched when I am eating!

MRS. MARCHMONT
Then I will watch some one else.

MR. MONTFORD
I don’t know that I should like that either.

MRS. MARCHMONT
Pray, Mr. Montford, do not make these painful scenes of jealousy in public!

[They go downstairs with the other guests, passing sir robert chiltern and mrs. cheveley, who now enter.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
And are you going to any of our country houses before you leave England, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, no! I can’t stand your English house-parties. In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. And then the family skeleton is always reading family prayers. My stay in England really depends on you, Sir Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Seriously?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Quite seriously. I want to talk to you about a great political and financial scheme, about this Argentine Canal Company, in fact.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What a tedious, practical subject for you to talk about, Mrs. Cheveley!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, I like tedious, practical subjects. What I don’t like are tedious, practical people. There is a wide difference. Besides, you are interested, I know, in International Canal schemes. You were Lord Radley’s secretary, weren’t you, when the Government bought the Suez Canal shares?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Yes. But the Suez Canal was a very great and splendid undertaking. It gave us our direct route to India. It had imperial value. It was necessary that we should have control. This Argentine scheme is a commonplace Stock Exchange swindle.

MRS. CHEVELEY
A speculation, Sir Robert! A brilliant, daring speculation.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Believe me, Mrs. Cheveley, it is a swindle. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes matters simpler. We have all the information about it at the Foreign Office. In fact, I sent out a special Commission to inquire into the matter privately, and they report that the works are hardly begun, and as for the money already subscribed, no one seems to know what has become of it. The whole thing is a second Panama, and with not a quarter of the chance of success that miserable affair ever had. I hope you have not invested in it. I am sure you are far too clever to have done that.

MRS. CHEVELEY
I have invested very largely in it.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Who could have advised you to do such a foolish thing?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Your old friend—and mine.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Who?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Baron Arnheim.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Ah! yes. I remember hearing, at the time of his death, that he had been mixed up in the whole affair.

MRS. CHEVELEY
It was his last romance. His last but one, to do him justice.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
But you have not seen my Corots yet. They are in the music-room. Corots seem to go with music, don’t they? May I show them to you?

MRS. CHEVELEY
I am not in a mood to-night for silver twilights, or rose-pink dawns. I want to talk business.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I fear I have no advice to give you, Mrs. Cheveley, except to interest yourself in something less dangerous. The success of the Canal depends, of course, on the attitude of England, and I am going to lay the report of the Commissioners before the House to-morrow night.

MRS. CHEVELEY
That you must not do. In your own interests, Sir Robert, to say nothing of mine, you must not do that.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
In my own interests? My dear Mrs. Cheveley, what do you mean?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Sir Robert, I will be quite frank with you. I want you to withdraw the report that you had intended to lay before the House, on the ground that you have reasons to believe that the Commissioners have been prejudiced or misinformed, or something. Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. Will you do that for me?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making me such a proposition!

MRS. CHEVELEY
I am quite serious.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Pray allow me to believe that you are not.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Ah! but I am. And if you do what I ask you, I . . . will pay you very handsomely!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Pay me!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I am afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean.

MRS. CHEVELEY
How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that you should thoroughly understand me.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I fear I don’t.

MRS. CHEVELEY
My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose. Everybody has nowadays. The drawback is that most people are so dreadfully expensive. I know I am. I hope you will be more reasonable in your terms.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
If you will allow me, I will call your carriage for you. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise that you are talking to an English gentleman.

MRS. CHEVELEY
I realise that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What do you mean?

MRS. CHEVELEY
I mean that I know the real origin of your wealth and your career, and I have got your letter, too.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What letter?

MRS. CHEVELEY
The letter you wrote to Baron Arnheim, when you were Lord Radley’s secretary, telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares—a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
It is not true.

MRS. CHEVELEY
You thought that letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you! It is in my possession.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected.

MRS. CHEVELEY
It was a swindle, Sir Robert. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of one canal. You must help me and my friends to make our fortunes out of another!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
It is infamous, what you propose—infamous!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, no! This is the game of life as we all have to play it, Sir Robert, sooner or later!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I cannot do what you ask me.

MRS. CHEVELEY
You mean you cannot help doing it. You know you are standing on the edge of a precipice. And it is not for you to make terms. It is for you to accept them. Supposing you refuse—

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What then?

MRS. CHEVELEY
My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that is all! Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has brought you. In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one’s neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues—and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins—one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man—now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You couldn’t survive it. If it were known that as a young man, secretary to a great and important minister, you sold a Cabinet secret for a large sum of money, and that that was the origin of your wealth and career, you would be hounded out of public life, you would disappear completely. And after all, Sir Robert, why should you sacrifice your entire future rather than deal diplomatically with your enemy? For the moment I am your enemy. I admit it! And I am much stronger than you are. The big battalions are on my side. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable. You can’t defend it! And I am in attack. Of course I have not talked morality to you. You must admit in fairness that I have spared you that. Years ago you did a clever, unscrupulous thing; it turned out a great success. You owe to it your fortune and position. And now you have got to pay for it. Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do. You have to pay now. Before I leave you to-night, you have got to promise me to suppress your report, and to speak in the House in favour of this scheme.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What you ask is impossible.

MRS. CHEVELEY
You must make it possible. You are going to make it possible. Sir Robert, you know what your English newspapers are like. Suppose that when I leave this house I drive down to some newspaper office, and give them this scandal and the proofs of it! Think of their loathsome joy, of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud and mire they would plunge you in. Think of the hypocrite with his greasy smile penning his leading article, and arranging the foulness of the public placard.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Stop! You want me to withdraw the report and to make a short speech stating that I believe there are possibilities in the scheme?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Those are my terms.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I will give you any sum of money you want.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I will not do what you ask me. I will not.

MRS. CHEVELEY
You have to. If you don’t

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Wait a moment! What did you propose? You said that you would give me back my letter, didn’t you?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Yes. That is agreed. I will be in the Ladies’ Gallery to-morrow night at half-past eleven. If by that time—and you will have had heaps of opportunity—you have made an announcement to the House in the terms I wish, I shall hand you back your letter with the prettiest thanks, and the best, or at any rate the most suitable, compliment I can think of. I intend to play quite fairly with you. One should always play fairly . . . when one has the winning cards. The Baron taught me that . . . amongst other things.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
You must let me have time to consider your proposal.

MRS. CHEVELEY
No; you must settle now!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Give me a week—three days!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Impossible! I have got to telegraph to Vienna to-night.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
My God! what brought you into my life?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Circumstances.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Don’t go. I consent. The report shall be withdrawn. I will arrange for a question to be put to me on the subject.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Thank you. I knew we should come to an amicable agreement. I understood your nature from the first. I analysed you, though you did not adore me. And now you can get my carriage for me, Sir Robert. I see the people coming up from supper, and Englishmen always get romantic after a meal, and that bores me dreadfully.

LADY MARKBY
Well, dear Mrs. Cheveley, I hope you have enjoyed yourself. Sir Robert is very entertaining, is he not?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Most entertaining! I have enjoyed my talk with him immensely.

LADY MARKBY
He has had a very interesting and brilliant career. And he has married a most admirable wife. Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles, I am glad to say. I am a little too old now, myself, to trouble about setting a good example, but I always admire people who do. And Lady Chiltern has a very ennobling effect on life, though her dinner-parties are rather dull sometimes. But one can’t have everything, can one? And now I must go, dear. Shall I call for you to-morrow?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Thanks.

LADY MARKBY
We might drive in the Park at five. Everything looks so fresh in the Park now!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Except the people!

LADY MARKBY
Perhaps the people are a little jaded. I have often observed that the Season as it goes on produces a kind of softening of the brain. However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure. That is the most unbecoming thing there is. It makes the noses of the young girls so particularly large. And there is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose; men don’t like them. Good-night, dear! Good-night, Gertrude!

MRS. CHEVELEY
What a charming house you have, Lady Chiltern! I have spent a delightful evening. It has been so interesting getting to know your husband.

LADY CHILTERN
Why did you wish to meet my husband, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, I will tell you. I wanted to interest him in this Argentine Canal scheme, of which I dare say you have heard. And I found him most susceptible,—susceptible to reason, I mean. A rare thing in a man. I converted him in ten minutes. He is going to make a speech in the House to-morrow night in favour of the idea. We must go to the Ladies’ Gallery and hear him! It will be a great occasion!

LADY CHILTERN
There must be some mistake. That scheme could never have my husband’s support.

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, I assure you it’s all settled. I don’t regret my tedious journey from Vienna now. It has been a great success. But, of course, for the next twenty-four hours the whole thing is a dead secret.

LADY CHILTERN
A secret? Between whom?

MRS. CHEVELEY
Between your husband and myself.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Your carriage is here, Mrs. Cheveley!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Thanks! Good evening, Lady Chiltern! Good-night, Lord Goring! I am at Claridge’s. Don’t you think you might leave a card?

LORD GORING
If you wish it, Mrs. Cheveley!

MRS. CHEVELEY
Oh, don’t be so solemn about it, or I shall be obliged to leave a card on you. In England I suppose that would hardly be considered en règle. Abroad, we are more civilised. Will you see me down, Sir Robert? Now that we have both the same interests at heart we shall be great friends, I hope!

[Sails out on sir robert chiltern’s arm. lady chiltern goes to the top of the staircase and looks down at them as they descend. Her expression is troubled. After a little time she is joined by some of the guests, and passes with them into another reception-room.]

MABEL CHILTERN
What a horrid woman!

LORD GORING
You should go to bed, Miss Mabel.

MABEL CHILTERN
Lord Goring!

LORD GORING
My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don’t see why I shouldn’t give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

MABEL CHILTERN
Lord Goring, you are always ordering me out of the room. I think it most courageous of you. Especially as I am not going to bed for hours. You can come and sit down if you like, and talk about anything in the world, except the Royal Academy, Mrs. Cheveley, or novels in Scotch dialect. They are not improving subjects. What is this? Some one has dropped a diamond brooch! Quite beautiful, isn’t it? [Shows it to him.] I wish it was mine, but Gertrude won’t let me wear anything but pearls, and I am thoroughly sick of pearls. They make one look so plain, so good and so intellectual. I wonder whom the brooch belongs to.

LORD GORING
I wonder who dropped it.

MABEL CHILTERN
It is a beautiful brooch.

LORD GORING
It is a handsome bracelet.

MABEL CHILTERN
It isn't a bracelet. It’s a brooch.

LORD GORING
It can be used as a bracelet. [Takes it from her, and, pulling out a green letter-case, puts the ornament carefully in it, and replaces the whole thing in his breast-pocket with the most perfect sang froid.]

MABEL CHILTERN
What are you doing?

LORD GORING
Miss Mabel, I am going to make a rather strange request to you.

MABEL CHILTERN
Oh, pray do! I have been waiting for it all the evening.

LORD GORING
Don’t mention to anybody that I have taken charge of this brooch. Should any one write and claim it, let me know at once.

MABEL CHILTERN
That is a strange request.

LORD GORING
Well, you see I gave this brooch to somebody once, years ago.

MABEL CHILTERN
You did?

LORD GORING
Yes.

[lady chiltern enters alone. The other guests have gone.]

MABEL CHILTERN
Then I shall certainly bid you good-night. Good-night, Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN
Good-night, dear! [To lord goring.] You saw whom Lady Markby brought here to-night?

LORD GORING
Yes. It was an unpleasant surprise. What did she come here for?

LADY CHILTERN
Apparently to try and lure Robert to uphold some fraudulent scheme in which she is interested. The Argentine Canal, in fact.

LORD GORING
She has mistaken her man, hasn’t she?

LADY CHILTERN
She is incapable of understanding an upright nature like my husband’s!

LORD GORING
Yes. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes clever women make.

LADY CHILTERN
I don’t call women of that kind clever. I call them stupid!

LORD GORING
Same thing often. Good-night, Lady Chiltern!

LADY CHILTERN
Good-night!

[Enter sir robert chiltern.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
My dear Arthur, you are not going? Do stop a little!

LORD GORING
Afraid I can’t, thanks. I have promised to look in at the Hartlocks’. I believe they have got a mauve Hungarian band that plays mauve Hungarian music. See you soon. Good-bye!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
How beautiful you look to-night, Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN
Robert, it is not true, is it? You are not going to lend your support to this Argentine speculation? You couldn’t!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Who told you I intended to do so?

LADY CHILTERN
That woman who has just gone out, Mrs. Cheveley, as she calls herself now. She seemed to taunt me with it. Robert, I know this woman. You don’t. We were at school together. She was untruthful, dishonest, an evil influence on every one whose trust or friendship she could win. I hated, I despised her. She stole things, she was a thief. She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, what you tell me may be true, but it happened many years ago. It is best forgotten! Mrs. Cheveley may have changed since then. No one should be entirely judged by their past.

LADY CHILTERN
One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
That is a hard saying, Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN
It is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name, to a thing I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme there has ever been in political life?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I was mistaken in the view I took. We all may make mistakes.

LADY CHILTERN
But you told me yesterday that you had received the report from the Commission, and that it entirely condemned the whole thing.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I have reasons now to believe that the Commission was prejudiced, or, at any rate, misinformed. Besides, Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They have different laws, and move on different lines.

LADY CHILTERN
They should both represent man at his highest. I see no difference between them.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
In the present case, on a matter of practical politics, I have changed my mind. That is all.

LADY CHILTERN
All!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Yes!

LADY CHILTERN
Robert! Oh! it is horrible that I should have to ask you such a question—Robert, are you telling me the whole truth?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Why do you ask me such a question?

LADY CHILTERN
Why do you not answer it?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. One may be under certain obligations to people that one must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Every one does.

LADY CHILTERN
Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you changed?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I am not changed. But circumstances alter things.

LADY CHILTERN
Circumstances should never alter principles!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
But if I told you—

LADY CHILTERN
What?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
That it was necessary, vitally necessary?

LADY CHILTERN
It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get? Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine—that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than that.

LADY CHILTERN
Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still. That great inheritance throw not away—that tower of ivory do not destroy. Robert, men can love what is beneath them—things unworthy, stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our worship, we lose everything. Oh! don’t kill my love for you, don’t kill that!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN
I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their lives—men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame—oh! don’t tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at once, that—

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
That what?

LADY CHILTERN
That our lives may drift apart.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Drift apart?

LADY CHILTERN
That they may be entirely separate. It would be better for us both.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.

LADY CHILTERN
I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don’t let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won’t you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back, that is all!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Must I write and tell her that?

LADY CHILTERN
Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I might see her personally. It would be better.

LADY CHILTERN
You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you. No; you must write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Write this moment!

LADY CHILTERN
Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
But it is so late. It is close on twelve.

LADY CHILTERN
That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [sir robert chiltern sits down and writes a letter. His wife takes it up and reads it.] Yes; that will do. And now the envelope. [He writes the envelope slowly. Enter mason.] Have this letter sent at once to Claridge’s Hotel. There is no answer. [Exit mason. lady chiltern kneels down beside her husband, and puts her arms around him.] Robert, love gives one an instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from something that might have been a danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less than they do. I don’t think you realise sufficiently, Robert, that you have brought into the political life of our time a nobler atmosphere, a finer attitude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher ideals—I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!

LADY CHILTERN
I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it! [Kisses him and rises and goes out.]

[sir robert chiltern walks up and down for a moment; then sits down and buries his face in his hands. The Servant enters and begins pulling out the lights. sir robert chiltern looks up.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!

[The Servant puts out the lights. The room becomes almost dark. The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love.]