chiltern
[Speaking very slowly.] That our lives may drift apart.
sir robert chiltern
Drift apart?
·59· lady chiltern
That they may be entirely separate. It would be better for us both.
sir robert chiltern
Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.
lady chiltern
I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don’t let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won’t you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back, that is all!
sir robert chiltern
Must I write and tell her that?
lady chiltern
Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?
sir robert chiltern
I might see her personally. It would be better.
lady chiltern
You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you. No; you must ·60· write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!
sir robert chiltern
Write this moment!
lady chiltern
Yes.
sir robert chiltern
But it is so late. It is close on twelve.
lady chiltern
That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [Sir Robert Chiltern sits down and writes a letter. His wife takes it up and reads it.] Yes; that will do. [Rings bell.] And now the envelope. [He writes the envelope slowly. Enter Mason.] Have this letter sent at once to Claridge’s Hotel. There is no answer. [Exit Mason. Lady Chiltern kneels down beside her husband and puts her arms round him.] Robert, love gives one a sort of instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from ·61· something that might have been a danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less than they do. I don’t think you realize sufficiently, Robert, that you have brought into the political life of our time a nobler atmosphere, a finer attitude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher ideals—I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.
sir robert chiltern
Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!
lady chiltern
I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it! [Kisses him and rises and goes out.]
[Sir Robert Chiltern walks up and down for a moment; then sits down and buries his face in his hands. The Servant enters and begins putting out the lights. Sir Robert Chiltern looks up.]
sir robert chiltern
Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!
[The Servant puts out the lights. The room becomes almost dark. The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love.]
Act-drop.
·63· Second Act.
·65· SCENE—Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house.
[Lord Goring, dressed in the height of fashion, is lounging in an armchair. Sir Robert Chiltern is standing in front of the fireplace. He is evidently in a state of great mental excitement and distress. As the scene progresses he paces nervously up and down the room.]
lord goring
My dear Robert, it’s a very awkward business, very awkward indeed. You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from other people’s wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.
·66· sir robert chiltern
Arthur, I couldn’t tell my wife. When could I have told her? Not last night. It would have made a life-long separation between us, and I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world I worship, of the only woman who has ever stirred love within me. Last night it would have been quite impossible. She would have turned from me in horror … in horror and in contempt.
lord goring
Is Lady Chiltern as perfect as all that?
sir robert chiltern
Yes; my wife is as perfect as all that.
lord goring
[Taking off his left-hand glove.] What a pity! I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, I didn’t quite mean that. But if what you tell me is true, I should like to have a serious talk about life with Lady Chiltern.
sir robert chiltern
It would be quite useless.
lord goring
May I try?
·67· sir robert chiltern
Yes; but nothing could make her alter her views.
lord goring
Well, at the worst it would simply be a psychological experiment.
sir robert chiltern
All such experiments are terribly dangerous.
lord goring
Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn’t so, life wouldn’t be worth living…. Well, I am bound to say that I think you should have told her years ago.
sir robert chiltern
When? When we were engaged? Do you think she would have married me if she had known that the origin of my fortune is such as it is, the
