robert chiltern
Gertrude, here is the draft of my letter. Shall I read it to you?
lady chiltern
Let me see it.
[Sir Robert hands her the letter. She reads it, and then, with a gesture of passion, tears it up.]
sir robert chiltern
What are you doing?
lady chiltern
A man’s life is of more value than a woman’s. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man’s life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice!
·206· sir robert chiltern
Gertrude! Gertrude!
lady chiltern
You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.
sir robert chiltern
[Deeply overcome by emotion, embraces her.] My wife! my wife! [To Lord Goring.] Arthur, it seems that I am always to be in your debt.
lord goring
Oh dear no, Robert. Your debt is to Lady Chiltern, not to me!
sir robert chiltern
I owe you much. And now tell me what you were going to ask me just now as Lord Caversham came in.
lord goring
Robert, you are your sister’s guardian, and I want your consent to my marriage with her. That is all.
lady chiltern
Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad! [Shakes hands with Lord Goring.]
·207· lord goring
Thank you, Lady Chiltern.
sir robert chiltern
[With a troubled look.] My sister to be your wife?
lord goring
Yes.
sir robert chiltern
[Speaking with great firmness.] Arthur, I am very sorry, but the thing is quite out of the question. I have to think of Mabel’s future happiness. And I don’t think her happiness would be safe in your hands. And I cannot have her sacrificed!
lord goring
Sacrificed!
sir robert chiltern
Yes, utterly sacrificed. Loveless marriages are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side only, and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken.
lord goring
But I love Mabel. No other woman has any place in my life.
·208· lady chiltern
Robert, if they love each other, why should they not be married?
sir robert chiltern
Arthur cannot bring Mabel the love that she deserves.
lord goring
What reason have you for saying that?
sir robert chiltern
[After a pause.] Do you really require me to tell you?
lord goring
Certainly I do.
sir robert chiltern
As you choose. When I called on you yesterday evening I found Mrs. Cheveley concealed in your rooms. It was between ten and eleven o’clock at night. I do not wish to say anything more. Your relations with Mrs. Cheveley have, as I said to you last night, nothing whatsoever to do with me. I know you were engaged to be married to her once. The fascination she exercised over you then seems to have returned. You spoke to me last night of her as of a woman pure and stainless, a woman whom you respected and honoured. That may be ·209· so. But I cannot give my sister’s life into your hands. It would be wrong of me. It would be unjust, infamously unjust to her.
lord goring
I have nothing more to say.
lady chiltern
Robert, it was not Mrs. Cheveley whom Lord Goring expected last night.
sir robert chiltern
Not Mrs. Cheveley! Who was it then?
lord goring
Lady Chiltern!
lady chiltern
It was your own wife. Robert, yesterday afternoon Lord Goring told me that if ever I was in trouble I could come to him for help, as he was our oldest and best friend. Later on, after that terrible scene in this room, I wrote to him telling him that I trusted him, that I had need of him, that I was coming to him for help and advice. [Sir Robert Chiltern takes the letter out of his pocket.] Yes, that letter. I didn’t go to Lord Goring’s, after all. I felt that it is from ourselves alone that help ·210· can come. Pride made me think that. Mrs. Cheveley went. She stole my letter and sent it anonymously to you this morning, that you should think … Oh! Robert, I cannot tell you what she wished you to think….
sir robert chiltern
What! Had I fallen so low in your eyes that you thought that even for a moment I could have doubted your goodness? Gertrude, Gertrude, you are to me the white image of all good things, and sin can never touch you. Arthur, you can go to Mabel, and you have my best wishes! Oh! stop a moment. There is no name at the beginning of this letter. The brilliant Mrs. Cheveley does not seem to have noticed that. There should be a name.
lady chiltern
Let me write yours. It is you I trust and need. You and none else.
lord goring
Well, really, Lady Chiltern, I think I should have back my own letter.
lady chiltern
[Smiling.] No; you shall have Mabel. [Takes the letter and writes her husband’s name on it.]
·211· lord goring
Well, I hope she hasn’t changed her mind. It’s nearly twenty minutes
