CECIL GRAHAM. But I thought, Tuppy, you were never going to see her again! Yes! you told me so yesterday evening at the club. You said you’d heard -
[Whispering to him.]
LORD AUGUSTUS. Oh, she’s explained that.
CECIL GRAHAM. And the Wiesbaden affair?
LORD AUGUSTUS. She’s explained that too.
DUMBY. And her income, Tuppy? Has she explained that?
LORD AUGUSTUS. [In a very serious voice.] She’s going to explain that tomorrow.
[CECIL GRAHAM goes back to C. table.]
DUMBY. Awfully commercial, women nowadays. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mills, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.
LORD AUGUSTUS. You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!
CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.
LORD AUGUSTUS. [Puffing a cigar.] Mrs. Erlynne has a future before her.
DUMBY. Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her.
LORD AUGUSTUS. I prefer women with a past. They’re always so demmed amusing to talk to.
CECIL GRAHAM. Well, you’ll have lots of topics of conversation with her, Tuppy. [Rising and going to him.]
LORD AUGUSTUS. You’re getting annoying, dear-boy; you’re getting demmed annoying.
CECIL GRAHAM. [Puts his hands on his shoulders.] Now, Tuppy, you’ve lost your figure and you’ve lost your character. Don’t lose your temper; you have only got one.
LORD AUGUSTUS. My dear boy, if I wasn’t the most good-natured man in London -
CECIL GRAHAM. We’d treat you with more respect, wouldn’t we, Tuppy? [Strolls away.]
DUMBY. The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair. [LORD AUGUSTUS looks round angrily.]
CECIL GRAHAM. Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy.
DUMBY. Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands.
LORD WINDERMERE. Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don’t really know anything about her, and you’re always talking scandal against her.
CECIL GRAHAM. [Coming towards him L.C.] My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.
LORD WINDERMERE. What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say.
LORD AUGUSTUS. Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.
CECIL GRAHAM. Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.
LORD AUGUSTUS. My dear boy, when I was your age -
CECIL GRAHAM. But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. [Goes up C.] I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You’ll play, Arthur, won’t you?
LORD WINDERMERE. No, thanks, Cecil.
DUMBY. [With a sigh.] Good heavens! how marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
CECIL GRAHAM. You’ll play, of course, Tuppy?
LORD AUGUSTUS. [Pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table.] Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.
CECIL GRAHAM. Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.
LORD DARLINGTON. [Rising from R. table, where he has been writing letters.] They always do find us bad!
DUMBY. I don’t think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.
LORD DARLINGTON. No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. [Sits down at C. table.]
DUMBY. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic tonight, Darlington.
CECIL GRAHAM. Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?
LORD DARLINGTON. The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. [Glances instinctively at LORD WINDERMERE while he speaks.]
CECIL GRAHAM. A married woman, then! Well, there’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.
LORD DARLINGTON. Oh! she doesn’t love me. She is a good woman. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.
CECIL GRAHAM. The only good woman you have ever met in your life?
LORD DARLINGTON. Yes!
CECIL GRAHAM. [Lighting a cigarette.] Well, you are a lucky fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good women. To know them is a middle-class education.
LORD DARLINGTON. This woman has purity and innocence. She has everything we men have lost.
CECIL GRAHAM. My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.
DUMBY. She doesn’t really love you then?
LORD DARLINGTON. No, she does not!
DUMBY. I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn’t love you, Cecil?
CECIL GRAHAM. A woman who didn’t love me? Oh, all my life!
DUMBY. So could I. But it’s so difficult to meet one.
LORD DARLINGTON. How can you be so conceited, DUMBY?
DUMBY. I didn’t say it as a matter of conceit. I said it as a matter of regret. I have been wildly, madly adored. I am sorry I have. It has been an immense nuisance. I should like to be allowed a little time to myself now and then.
LORD AUGUSTUS. [Looking round.] Time to educate yourself, I suppose.
DUMBY. No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important, dear Tuppy. [LORD AUGUSTUS moves uneasily in his chair.]
LORD DARLINGTON. What cynics you fellows are!
CECIL GRAHAM. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
LORD DARLINGTON. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
CECIL GRAHAM. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.
LORD