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
Yes, my lord.
·143· lord goring
Will you excuse me for a moment, Robert? I want to give some directions to my servant.
sir robert chiltern
Certainly.
lord goring
When that lady calls, tell her that I am not expected home this evening. Tell her that I have been suddenly called out of town. You understand?
phipps
The lady is in that room, my lord. You told me to show her into that room, my lord.
lord goring
You did perfectly right. [Exit Phipps.] What a mess I am in. No; I think I shall get through it. I’ll give her a lecture through the door. Awkward thing to manage, though.
sir robert chiltern
Arthur, tell me what I should do. My life seems to have crumbled about me. I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.
lord goring
Robert, you love your wife, don’t you?
·144· sir robert chiltern
I love her more than anything in the world. I used to think ambition the great thing. It is not. Love is the great thing in the world. There is nothing but love, and I love her. But I am defamed in her eyes. I am ignoble in her eyes. There is a wide gulf between us now. She has found me out, Arthur, she has found me out.
lord goring
Has she never in her life done some folly—some indiscretion—that she should not forgive your sin?
sir robert chiltern
My wife! Never! She does not know what weakness or temptation is. I am of clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do—pitiless in her perfection—cold and stern and without mercy. But I love her, Arthur. We are childless, and I have no one else to love, no one else to love me. Perhaps if God had sent us children she might have been kinder to me. But God has given us a lonely house. And she has cut my heart in two. Don’t let us talk of it. I was brutal to her this evening. But I suppose when sinners talk to saints they are brutal always. I said to her things that were hideously true, on my side, from my stand-point, from the standpoint of men. But don’t let us talk of that.
·145· lord goring
Your wife will forgive you. Perhaps at this moment she is forgiving you. She loves you, Robert. Why should she not forgive?
sir robert chiltern
God grant it! God grant it! [Buries his face in his hands.] But there is something more I have to tell you, Arthur.
[Enter Phipps with drinks.]
phipps
[Hands hock and seltzer to Sir Robert Chiltern.] Hock and seltzer, sir.
sir robert chiltern
Thank you.
lord goring
Is
