greatly improved. I have had more experience.
lord goring
Too much experience is a dangerous thing. Pray have a cigarette. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half.
mrs. cheveley
Thanks. I never smoke. My dressmaker wouldn’t like it, and a woman’s first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isn’t it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered.
lord goring
You have come here to sell me Robert Chiltern’s letter, haven’t you?
mrs. cheveley
To offer it to you on conditions. How did you guess that?
lord goring
Because you haven’t mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?
·152· mrs. cheveley
[Sitting down.] Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.
lord goring
What is your price for it?
mrs. cheveley
How absurdly English you are! The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want.
lord goring
What do you want then, Mrs. Cheveley?
mrs. cheveley
Why don’t you call me Laura?
lord goring
I don’t like the name.
mrs. cheveley
You used to adore it.
·153· lord goring
Yes: that’s why. [Mrs. Cheveley motions to him to sit down beside her. He smiles, and does so.]
mrs. cheveley
Arthur, you loved me once.
lord goring
Yes.
mrs. cheveley
And you asked me to be your wife.
lord goring
That was the natural result of my loving you.
mrs. cheveley
And you threw me over because you saw, or said you saw, poor old Lord Mortlake trying to have a violent flirtation with me in the conservatory at Tenby.
lord goring
I am under the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you on certain terms … dictated by yourself.
mrs. cheveley
At that time I was poor; you were rich.
·154· lord goring
Quite so. That is why you pretended to love me.
mrs. cheveley
[Shrugging her shoulders.] Poor old Lord Mortlake, who had only two topics of conversation, his gout and his wife! I never could quite make out which of the two he was talking about. He used the most horrible language about them both. Well, you were silly, Arthur. Why, Lord Mortlake was never anything more to me than an amusement. One of those utterly tedious amusements one only finds at an English country house on an English country Sunday. I don’t think anyone at all morally responsible for what he or she does at an English country house.
lord goring
Yes. I know lots of people think that.
mrs. cheveley
I loved you, Arthur.
lord goring
My dear Mrs. Cheveley, you have always been far too clever to know anything about love.
mrs. cheveley
I did love you. And you loved me. You know you loved me; and love is a very wonderful thing. ·155· I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her? [Puts her hand on his.]
lord goring
[Taking his hand away quietly.] Yes: except that.
mrs. cheveley
[After a pause.] I am tired of living abroad. I want to come back to London. I want to have a charming house here. I want to have a salon. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized. Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns’, I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern’s letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me.
lord goring
Now?
mrs. cheveley
[Smiling.] To-morrow.
lord goring
Are you really serious?
·156· mrs. cheveley
Yes, quite serious.
lord goring
I should make you a very bad husband.
mrs. cheveley
I don’t mind bad husbands. I have had two. They amused me immensely.
lord goring
You mean that you amused yourself immensely, don’t you?
mrs. cheveley
What do you know about my married life?
lord goring
Nothing: but I can read it like a book.
mrs. cheveley
What book?
lord goring
[Rising.] The Book of Numbers.
mrs. cheveley
Do
