·126· with all the right people, which is so important at this solemn moment in your career.
gerald
I don’t want to see the world: I’ve seen enough of it.
mrs. allonby
I hope you don’t think you have exhausted life, Mr. Arbuthnot. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him.
gerald
I don’t wish to leave my mother.
lady hunstanton
Now, Gerald, that is pure laziness on your part. Not leave your mother! If I were your mother I would insist on your going.
[Enter Alice L.C.]
alice
Mrs. Arbuthnot’s compliments, my lady, but she has a bad headache, and cannot see any one this morning. [Exit R.C.]
lady hunstanton
[Rising.] A bad headache! I am so sorry! Perhaps you’ll bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is better, Gerald.
·127· gerald
I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.
lady hunstanton
Well, to-morrow, then. Ah, if you had a father, Gerald, he wouldn’t let you waste your life here. He would send you off with Lord Illingworth at once. But mothers are so weak. They give up to their sons in everything. We are all heart, all heart. Come, dear, I must call at the rectory and inquire for Mrs. Daubeny, who, I am afraid, is far from well. It is wonderful how the Archdeacon bears up, quite wonderful. He is the most sympathetic of husbands. Quite a model. Good-bye, Gerald, give my fondest love to your mother.
mrs. allonby
Good-bye, Mr. Arbuthnot.
gerald
Good-bye.
[Exit Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby. Gerald sits down and reads over his letter.]
gerald
What name can I sign? I, who have no right to any name. [Signs name, puts letter into envelope, addresses it, and is about to seal it, when Door L. C. opens and Mrs. Arbuthnot enters. Gerald lays down sealing-wax. Mother and son look at each other.]
·128· lady hunstanton
[Through French window at the back.] Good-bye again, Gerald. We are taking the short cut across your pretty garden. Now, remember my advice to you—start at once with Lord Illingworth.
mrs. allonby
Au revoir, Mr. Arbuthnot. Mind you bring me back something nice from your travels—not an Indian shawl—on no account an Indian shawl.
[Exeunt.]
gerald
Mother, I have just written to him.
mrs. arbuthnot
To whom?
gerald
To my father. I have written to tell him to come here at four o’clock this afternoon.
mrs. arbuthnot
He shall not come here. He shall not cross the threshold of my house.
gerald
He must come.
mrs. arbuthnot
Gerald, if you are going away with Lord Illingworth, ·129· go at once. Go before it kills me: but don’t ask me to meet him.
gerald
Mother, you don’t understand. Nothing in the world would induce me to go away with Lord Illingworth, or to leave you. Surely you know me well enough for that. No: I have written to him to say——
mrs. arbuthnot
What can you have to say to him?
gerald
Can’t you guess, mother, what I have written in this letter?
mrs. arbuthnot
No.
gerald
Mother, surely you can. Think, think what must be done, now, at once, within the next few days.
mrs. arbuthnot
There is nothing to be done.
gerald
I have written to Lord Illingworth to tell him that he must marry you.
·130· mrs. arbuthnot
Marry me?
gerald
Mother, I will force him to do it. The wrong that has been done you must be repaired. Atonement must be made. Justice may be slow, mother, but it comes in the end. In a few days you shall be Lord Illingworth’s lawful wife.
mrs. arbuthnot
But, Gerald——
gerald
I will insist upon his doing it. I will make him do it: he will not dare to refuse.
mrs. arbuthnot
But, Gerald, it is I who refuse. I will not marry Lord Illingworth.
gerald
Not marry him? Mother!
mrs. arbuthnot
I will not marry him.
gerald
But you don’t understand: it is for your sake I am talking, not for mine. This marriage, this ·131· necessary marriage, this marriage that, for obvious reasons, must inevitably take place, will not help me, will not give me a name that will be really, rightly mine to bear. But surely it will be something for you, that you, my mother, should, however late, become the wife of the man who is my father. Will not that be something?
mrs. arbuthnot
I will not marry him.
gerald
Mother, you must.
mrs. arbuthnot
I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What atonement can be made to me? There
