mrs. erlynne
Lady Windermere! [Lady Windermere starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt.] Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband’s house immediately.
·75· lady windermere
Must?
mrs. erlynne
[Authoritatively.] Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.
lady windermere
Don’t come near me!
mrs. erlynne
Oh! You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home.
[Lady Windermere throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa.]
What are you doing?
lady windermere
Mrs. Erlynne—if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest—rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.
·76· mrs. erlynne
Oh! You don’t think that—you can’t.
lady windermere
Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world’s tongue. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.
mrs. erlynne
No—no——
lady windermere
Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me—I was going back—but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger—oh! it was infamous—infamous.
mrs. erlynne
[C.] Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly—you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn’t know you are here—he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!
·77· lady windermere
[R.] Never read it!
mrs. erlynne
No—he knows nothing about it.
lady windermere
How simple you think me! [Going to her.] You are lying to me!
mrs. erlynne
[Restraining herself.] I am not. I am telling you the truth.
lady windermere
If my husband didn’t read my letter, how is it that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. [Crosses L.]
mrs. erlynne
[R.C.] Your husband has never seen the letter. I—saw it, I opened it. I—read it.
lady windermere
[Turning to her.] You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn’t dare!
mrs. erlynne
Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into ·78· which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It should never have been written. [Tears it and throws it into the fire.]
lady windermere
[With infinite contempt in her voice and look.] How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think the commonest device can take me in!
mrs. erlynne
Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now was your letter. I swear it to you!
lady windermere
[Slowly.] You took good care to burn it before I had examined it. I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, how could you speak the truth about anything? [Sits down.]
mrs. erlynne
[Hurriedly.] Think as you like about me—say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.
·79· lady windermere
[Sullenly.] I do not love him!
mrs. erlynne
You do, and you know that he loves you.
lady windermere
He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do—but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back. Dear Heaven! what a life I would have then! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!
mrs. erlynne
[With a gesture of despair.] Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere, don’t say such terrible things. You don’t know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust. Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext—never to see him—never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him——
lady windermere
[Rising.] Ah! you admit you have a hold!
·80· mrs. erlynne
Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere.
lady windermere
You expect me to believe that?
mrs. erlynne
You must believe it! It is true. It is his love for you that has made him submit to—oh! call it what you like, tyranny, threats, anything you choose. But it is his love for you. His desire to spare you—shame, yes, shame and disgrace.
lady windermere
What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you?
mrs. erlynne
[Humbly.] Nothing. I know it—but I tell you that your husband loves you—that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life—that such love you will never meet—and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you—Oh! Arthur loves you!
lady windermere
Arthur? And you tell me there is nothing between you?
·81· mrs. erlynne
Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you! And I—I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have