[To herself.] I wonder what woman he is waiting for to-night. It will be delightful to catch him. Men always look so silly when they are caught. And they are always being caught. [Looks about room and approaches the writing-table.] What a very interesting room! What a very interesting picture! Wonder what his correspondence is like. [Takes up letters.] Oh, what a very uninteresting correspondence! Bills and cards, debts and dowagers! Who on earth writes to him on pink paper? How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance. Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. [Puts letter down, then takes it up again.] I know that handwriting. That is Gertrude Chiltern’s. I remember it perfectly. The ten commandments in every stroke of the pen, and the moral law all over the page. Wonder what Gertrude is writing to him about? Something horrid about me, I suppose. How I detest that woman! [Reads it.] “I trust you. I want you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.” “I trust you. I want you. I am coming to you.”
[A look of triumph comes over her face. She is just about to steal the letter, when Phipps comes in.]
phipps
The candles in the drawing-room are lit, madam, as you directed.
·137· mrs. cheveley
Thank you. [Rises hastily, and slips the letter under a large silver-cased blotting-book that is lying on the table.]
phipps
I trust the shades will be to your liking, madam. They are the most becoming we have. They are the same as his lordship uses himself when he is dressing for dinner.
mrs. cheveley
[With a smile.] Then I am sure they will be perfectly right.
phipps
[Gravely.] Thank you, madam.
[Mrs. Cheveley goes into the drawing-room. Phipps closes the door and retires. The door is then slowly opened, and Mrs. Cheveley comes out and creeps stealthily towards the writing-table. Suddenly voices are heard from the smoking-room. Mrs. Cheveley grows pale, and stops. The voices grow louder, and she goes back into the drawing-room, biting her lip.]
[Enter Lord Goring and Lord Caversham.]
lord goring
[Expostulating.] My dear father, if I am to get ·138· married, surely you will allow me to choose the time, place, and person? Particularly the person.
lord caversham
[Testily.] That is a matter for me, sir. You would probably make a very poor choice. It is I who should be consulted, not you. There is property at stake. It is not a matter for affection. Affection comes later on in married life.
lord goring
Yes. In married life affection comes when people thoroughly dislike each other, father, doesn’t it? [Puts on Lord Caversham’s cloak for him.]
lord caversham
Certainly, sir. I mean certainly not, sir. You are talking very foolishly to-night. What I say is that marriage is a matter for common sense.
lord goring
But women who have common sense are so curiously plain, father, aren’t they? Of course I only speak from hearsay.
lord caversham
No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.
·139· lord goring
Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?
lord caversham
I use it, sir. I use nothing else.
lord goring
So my mother tells me.
lord caversham
It is the secret of your mother’s happiness. You are very heartless, sir, very heartless.
lord goring
I hope not, father.
[Goes out for a moment. Then returns, looking rather put out, with Sir Robert Chiltern.]
sir robert chiltern
My dear Arthur, what a piece of good luck meeting you on the doorstep! Your servant had just told me you were not at home. How extraordinary!
lord goring
The fact is, I am horribly busy to-night, Robert, and I gave orders I was not at home to anyone. Even my father had a comparatively cold reception. He complained of a draught the whole time.
·140· sir robert chiltern
Ah! you must be at home to me, Arthur. You are my best friend. Perhaps by to-morrow you will be my only friend. My wife has discovered everything.
lord goring
Ah! I guessed as much!
sir robert chiltern
[Looking at him.] Really! How?
lord goring
[After some hesitation.] Oh, merely by something in the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?
sir robert chiltern
Mrs. Cheveley herself. And the woman I love knows that I began my career with an act of low dishonesty, that I built up my life upon sands of shame—that I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. [Burying his face in his hands.]
·141· lord goring
[After a pause.] You have heard nothing from Vienna yet, in answer to your wire?
sir robert chiltern
[Looking up.] Yes; I got a telegram from the first secretary at eight o’clock to-night.
lord goring
Well?
sir robert chiltern
Nothing is absolutely known against her. On the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion of his immense fortune. Beyond that I can learn nothing.
lord goring
She doesn’t turn out to be a spy, then?
sir robert chiltern
Oh! spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.
lord goring
And thunderingly well they do it.
·142· sir robert chiltern
Arthur, I am parched with thirst. May I ring for something? Some hock and seltzer?
lord goring
Certainly. Let me. [Rings the bell.]
sir robert chiltern
Thanks! I don’t know what to do, Arthur, I don’t know what to do, and you are my only friend. But what a friend you are—the one friend I can trust. I can trust you absolutely, can’t I?
[Enter Phipps.]
lord goring
My dear Robert, of course. Oh! [To Phipps.] Bring some hock and seltzer.
phipps
Yes, my lord.
lord goring
And Phipps!
phipps