style="font-size:15px;"> Well, you’ll have lots of topics of conversation with her, Tuppy. [Rising and going to him.]
lord augustus
You’re getting annoying, dear boy; you’re getting demmed annoying.
cecil graham
[Puts his hands on his shoulders.] Now, Tuppy, you’ve lost your figure and you’ve lost your character. Don’t lose your temper; you have only got one.
lord augustus
My dear boy, if I wasn’t the most good-natured man in London——
cecil graham
We’d treat you with more respect, wouldn’t we, Tuppy? [Strolls away.]
dumby
The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair. [Lord Augustus looks round angrily.]
cecil graham
Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy.
·90· dumby
Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women now-a-days behave to men who are not their husbands.
lord windermere
Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don’t really know anything about her, and you’re always talking scandal against her.
cecil graham
[Coming towards him L.C.] My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.
lord windermere
What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
cecil graham
Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say.
·91· lord augustus
Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.
cecil graham
Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.
lord augustus
My dear boy, when I was your age——
cecil graham
But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. [Goes up C.] I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You’ll play, Arthur, won’t you.
lord windermere
No, thanks, Cecil.
dumby
[With a sigh.] Good heavens! how marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
cecil graham
You’ll play, of course, Tuppy?
lord augustus
[Pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table.] ·92· Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.
cecil graham
Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.
lord darlington
[Rising from R. table, where he has been writing letters.] They always do find us bad!
dumby
I don’t think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.
lord darlington
No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. [Sits down at C. table.]
dumby
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.
cecil graham
Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?
·93· lord darlington
The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. [Glances instinctively at Lord Windermere while he speaks.]
cecil graham
A married woman, then! Well, there’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.
lord darlington
Oh! she doesn’t love me. She is a good woman. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.
cecil graham
The only good woman you have ever met in your life?
lord darlington
Yes!
cecil graham
[Lighting a cigarette.] Well, you are a lucky fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good women. To know them is a middle-class education.
·94· lord darlington
This woman has purity and innocence. She has everything we men have lost.
cecil graham
My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.
dumby
She doesn’t really love you then?
lord darlington
No, she does not!
dumby
I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst, the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not
