LADY CHILTERN. Oh! none, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Sadly.] And your ambition for me? You used to be ambitious for me.
LADY CHILTERN. Oh, my ambition! I have none now, but that we two may love each other. It was your ambition that led you astray. Let us not talk about ambition.
[LORD GORING returns from the conservatory, looking very pleased with himself, and with an entirely new buttonhole that some one has made for him.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Going towards him.] Arthur, I have to thank you for what you have done for me. I don’t know how I can repay you. [Shakes hands with him.]
LORD GORING. My dear fellow, I’ll tell you at once. At the present moment, under the usual palm tree … I mean in the conservatory …
[Enter MASON.]
MASON. Lord Caversham.
LORD GORING. That admirable father of mine really makes a habit of turning up at the wrong moment. It is very heartless of him, very heartless indeed.
[Enter LORD CAVERSHAM. MASON goes out.]
LORD CAVERSHAM. Good morning, Lady Chiltern! Warmest congratulations to you, Chiltern, on your brilliant speech last night. I have just left the Prime Minister, and you are to have the vacant seat in the Cabinet.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a look of joy and triumph.] A seat in the Cabinet?
LORD CAVERSHAM. Yes; here is the Prime Minister’s letter. [Hands letter.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Takes letter and reads it.] A seat in the Cabinet!
LORD CAVERSHAM. Certainly, and you well deserve it too. You have got what we want so much in political life nowadays — high character, high moral tone, high principles. [To LORD GORING.] Everything that you have not got, sir, and never will have.
LORD GORING. I don’t like principles, father. I prefer prejudices.
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN is on the brink of accepting the Prime Minister’s offer, when he sees wife looking at him with her clear, candid eyes. He then realises that it is impossible.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I cannot accept this offer, Lord Caversham. I have made up my mind to decline it.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Decline it, sir!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. My intention is to retire at once from public life.
LORD CAVERSHAM. [Angrily.] Decline a seat in the Cabinet, and retire from public life? Never heard such damned nonsense in the whole course of my existence. I beg your pardon, Lady Chiltern. Chiltern, I beg your pardon. [To LORD GORING.] Don’t grin like that, sir.
LORD GORING. No, father.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Lady Chiltern, you are a sensible woman, the most sensible woman in London, the most sensible woman I know. Will you kindly prevent your husband from making such a … from taking such … Will you kindly do that, Lady Chiltern?
LADY CHILTERN. I think my husband in right in his determination, Lord Caversham. I approve of it.
LORD CAVERSHAM. You approve of it? Good heavens!
LADY CHILTERN. [Taking her husband’s hand.] I admire him for it. I admire him immensely for it. I have never admired him so much before. He is finer than even I thought him. [To SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.] You will go and write your letter to the Prime Minister now, won’t you? Don’t hesitate about it, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a touch of bitterness.] I suppose I had better write it at once. Such offers are not repeated. I will ask you to excuse me for a moment, Lord Caversham.
LADY CHILTERN. I may come with you, Robert, may I not?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes, Gertrude.
[LADY CHILTERN goes out with him.]
LORD CAVERSHAM. What is the matter with this family? Something wrong here, eh? [Tapping his forehead.] Idiocy? Hereditary, I suppose. Both of them, too. Wife as well as husband. Very sad. Very sad indeed! And they are not an old family. Can’t understand it.
LORD GORING. It is not idiocy, father, I assure you.
LORD CAVERSHAM. What is it then, sir?
LORD GORING. [After some hesitation.] Well, it is what is called nowadays a high moral tone, father. That is all.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Hate these new-fangled names. Same thing as we used to call idiocy fifty years ago. Shan’t stay in this house any longer.
LORD GORING. [Taking his arm.] Oh! just go in here for a moment, father. Third palm tree to the left, the usual palm tree.
LORD CAVERSHAM. What, sir?
LORD GORING. I beg your pardon, father, I forgot. The conservatory, father, the conservatory — there is some one there I want you to talk to.
LORD CAVERSHAM. What about, sir?
LORD GORING. About me, father,
LORD CAVERSHAM. [Grimly.] Not a subject on which much eloquence is possible.
LORD GORING. No, father; but the lady is like me. She doesn’t care much for eloquence in others. She thinks it a little loud.
[LORD CAVERSHAM goes out into the conservatory. LADY CHILTERN enters.]
LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern, why are you playing Mrs. Cheveley’s cards?
LADY CHILTERN. [Startled.] I don’t understand you.
LORD GORING. Mrs. Cheveley made an attempt to ruin your husband. Either to drive him from public life, or to make him adopt a dishonourable position. From the latter tragedy you saved him. The former you are now thrusting on him. Why should you do him the wrong Mrs. Cheveley tried to do and failed?
LADY CHILTERN. Lord Goring?
LORD GORING. [Pulling himself together for a great effort, and showing the philosopher that underlies the dandy.] Lady Chiltern, allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man’s life is of more value than a woman’s. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman’s life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man’s life progresses. Don’t make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man’s love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.
LADY CHILTERN. [Troubled and hesitating.] But it is my husband himself who wishes to retire from public life. He feels it is his duty. It was he who first said so.
LORD GORING. Rather than lose your love, Robert would do anything, wreck his whole career, as he is on the brink of doing now. He is making for you a terrible sacrifice. Take