With pleasure, Miss Mabel. [Moves away with her.]
mabel chiltern
How horrid you have been! You have never talked to me the whole evening!
lord goring
How could I? You went away with the child-diplomatist.
mabel chiltern
You might have followed us. Pursuit would have been only polite. I don’t think I like you at all this evening!
lord goring
I like you immensely.
mabel chiltern
Well, I wish you’d show it in a more marked way! [They go downstairs.]
mrs. marchmont
Olivia, I have a curious feeling of absolute faintness. I think I should like some supper very much. I know I should like some supper.
lady basildon
I am positively dying for supper, Margaret!
·31· mrs. marchmont
Men are so horribly selfish, they never think of these things.
lady basildon
Men are grossly material, grossly material!
[The Vicomte de Nanjac enters from the music-room with some other guests. After having carefully examined all the people present, he approaches Lady Basildon.]
vicomte de nanjac
May I have the honour of taking you down to supper, Comtesse?
lady basildon
[Coldly.] I never take supper, thank you, Vicomte. [The Vicomte is about to retire. Lady Basildon, seeing this, rises at once and takes his arm.] But I will come down with you with pleasure.
vicomte de nanjac
I am so fond of eating! I am very English in all my tastes.
lady basildon
You look quite English, Vicomte, quite English.
[They pass out. Mr. Montford, a perfectly groomed young dandy, approaches Mrs. Marchmont.]
·32· mr. montford
Like some supper, Mrs. Marchmont?
mrs. marchmont
[Languidly.] Thank you, Mr. Montford, I never touch supper. [Rises hastily and takes his arm.] But I will sit beside you, and watch you.
mr. montford
I don’t know that I like being watched when I am eating!
mrs. marchmont
Then I will watch some one else.
mr. montford
I don’t know that I should like that either.
mrs. marchmont
[Severely.] Pray, Mr. Montford, do not make these painful scenes of jealousy in public!
[They go downstairs with the other guests, passing Sir Robert Chiltern and Mrs. Cheveley, who now enter.]
sir robert chiltern
And are you going to any of our country houses before you leave England, Mrs. Cheveley?
·33· mrs. cheveley
Oh, no! I can’t stand your English house-parties. In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. And then the family skeleton is always reading family prayers. My stay in England really depends on you, Sir Robert. [Sits down on the sofa.]
sir robert chiltern
[Taking a seat beside her.] Seriously?
mrs. cheveley
Quite seriously. I want to talk to you about a great political and financial scheme, about this Argentine Canal Company, in fact.
sir robert chiltern
What a tedious, practical subject for you to talk about, Mrs. Cheveley!
mrs. cheveley
Oh, I like tedious, practical subjects. What I don’t like are tedious, practical people. There is a wide difference. Besides, you are interested, I know, in International Canal schemes. You were Lord Radley’s secretary, weren’t you, when the Government bought the Suez Canal shares?
sir robert chiltern
Yes. But the Suez Canal was a very great and ·34· splendid undertaking. It gave us our direct route to India. It had imperial value. It was necessary that we should have control. This Argentine scheme is a commonplace Stock Exchange swindle.
mrs. cheveley
A speculation, Sir Robert! A brilliant, daring speculation.
sir robert chiltern
Believe me, Mrs. Cheveley, it is a swindle. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes matters simpler. We have all the information about it at the Foreign Office. In fact, I sent out a special Commission to inquire into the matter privately, and they report that the works are hardly begun, and as for the money already subscribed, no one seems to know what has become of it. The whole thing is a second Panama, and with not a quarter of the chance of success that miserable affair ever had. I hope you have not invested in it. I am sure you are far too clever to have done that.
mrs. cheveley
I have invested very largely in it.
sir robert chiltern
Who could have advised you to do such a foolish thing?
·35· mrs. cheveley
Your old friend—and mine.
sir robert chiltern
Who?
mrs. cheveley
Baron Arnheim.
sir robert chiltern
[Frowning.] Ah! yes. I remember hearing, at the time of his death, that he had been mixed up in the whole affair.
mrs. cheveley
It was his last romance. His
