An ideal husband
LORD GORING. It is not true, Robert. Before heaven, it is not true. In
her presence and in yours I will explain all.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Let me pass, sir. You have lied enough upon your
word of honour.
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _goes out_. LORD GORING _rushes to the door of the
drawing-room_, _when_ MRS. CHEVELEY _comes out_, _looking radiant and
much amused_.]
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_With a mock curtsey_] Good evening, Lord Goring!
LORD GORING. Mrs. Cheveley! Great heavens! . . . May I ask what you
were doing in my drawing-room?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening
through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them.
LORD GORING. Doesn’t that sound rather like tempting Providence?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh! surely Providence can resist temptation by this time.
[_Makes a sign to him to take her cloak off_, _which he does_.]
LORD GORING. I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some
good advice.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh! pray don’t. One should never give a woman anything
that she can’t wear in the evening.
LORD GORING. I see you are quite as wilful as you used to be.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Far more! I have 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?
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.
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.
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 any one 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. 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 civilised. 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?
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 you think it is quite charming of you to be so rude to
a woman in your own house?
LORD GORING. In the case of very fascinating women, sex is a challenge,
not a defence.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I suppose that is meant for a compliment. My dear
Arthur, women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That
is the difference between the two sexes.
LORD GORING. Women are never disarmed by anything, as far as I know
them.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_After a pause_.] Then you are going to allow your
greatest friend, Robert Chiltern, to be ruined, rather than marry some
one who really has considerable attractions left. I thought you would
have risen to some great height of self-sacrifice, Arthur. I think you
should. And the rest of your life you could spend in contemplating your
own perfections.
LORD GORING. Oh! I do that as it is. And self-sacrifice is a thing that
should be put down by law. It is so demoralising to the people for whom
one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad.
MRS. CHEVELEY. As if anything could demoralise Robert Chiltern! You
seem to forget that I know his real character.
LORD GORING. What you know about him is not his real character. It was
an act of folly done in his youth, dishonourable, I admit, shameful, I
admit, unworthy of him, I admit, and therefore . . . not his true
character.
MRS. CHEVELEY. How you men stand up for each other!
LORD GORING. How you women war against each other!
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Bitterly_.] I only war against one woman, against
Gertrude Chiltern. I hate her. I hate her now more than ever.
LORD GORING. Because you have brought a real tragedy into her life, I
suppose.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_With a sneer_.] Oh, there is only one real tragedy in
a woman’s life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her
future invariably her husband.
LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern knows nothing of the kind of life to which
you are alluding.
MRS. CHEVELEY. A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three-quarters
never knows much about anything. You know Gertrude has always worn seven
and three-quarters? That is one of the reasons why there was never any
moral sympathy between us. . . . Well, Arthur, I suppose this romantic
interview may be regarded as at an end. You admit it was romantic, don’t
you? For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a
great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very
well. If Sir Robert doesn’t uphold my Argentine scheme, I expose him.
_Voilà tout_.
LORD GORING. You mustn’t do that. It would be vile, horrible, infamous.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Shrugging her shoulders_.] Oh! don’t use big words.
They mean so little. It is a commercial transaction. That is all.
There is no good mixing up sentimentality in it. I offered to sell
Robert Chiltern a certain thing. If he won’t pay me my price, he will
have to pay the world a greater price. There is no more to be said. I
must go. Good-bye. Won’t you shake hands?
LORD GORING. With you? No. Your transaction with Robert Chiltern may
pass as a loathsome commercial transaction of a loathsome commercial age;
but you seem to have forgotten that you came here to-night to talk of
love, you whose lips desecrated the word love, you to whom the thing is a
book closely sealed, went this afternoon to the house of one of the most
noble and gentle women in the world to degrade her husband in her eyes,
to try and kill her love for him, to put poison in her heart, and
bitterness in her life, to break her idol, and, it may be, spoil her
soul. That I cannot forgive you. That was horrible. For that there can
be no forgiveness.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Arthur, you are unjust to me. Believe me, you are quite
unjust to me. I didn’t go to taunt Gertrude at all. I had no idea of
doing anything of the kind when I entered. I called with Lady Markby
simply to ask whether an ornament, a jewel, that I lost somewhere last
night, had been found at the Chilterns’. If you don’t believe me, you
can ask Lady Markby. She will tell you it is true. The scene that
occurred happened after Lady Markby had left, and was really forced on me
by Gertrude’s rudeness and sneers. I called, oh!—a little out of malice
if you like—but really to ask if a diamond brooch of mine had been found.
That was the origin of the whole thing.
LORD GORING. A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. How do you know?
LORD GORING. Because it is found. In point of fact, I found it myself,
and stupidly forgot to tell the butler anything about it as I was
leaving. [_Goes over to the writing-table and pulls out the drawers_.]
It is in this drawer. No, that one. This is the brooch, isn’t it?
[_Holds up the brooch_.]
MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. I am so glad to get it back. It was . . a present.
LORD GORING. Won’t you wear it?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Certainly, if you pin it in. [LORD GORING _suddenly
clasps it on her arm_.] Why do you put it on as a bracelet? I never
knew it could be worn as a bracelet.
LORD GORING. Really?
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Holding out her handsome arm_.] No; but it looks very
well on me as a bracelet, doesn’t it?
LORD GORING. Yes; much better than when I saw it last.
MRS. CHEVELEY. When did you see it last?
LORD GORING. [_Calmly_.] Oh, ten years ago, on Lady Berkshire, from
whom you stole it.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Starting_.] What do you mean?
LORD GORING. I mean that you stole that ornament from my cousin, Mary
Berkshire, to whom I gave it when she was married. Suspicion fell on a
wretched servant, who was sent away in disgrace. I recognised it last
night. I determined to say nothing about it till I had found the thief.
I have found the thief now, and I have heard her own confession.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Tossing her head_.] It is not true.
LORD GORING. You know it is true. Why, thief is written across your
face at this moment.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I will deny the whole affair from beginning to end. I
will say that I have never seen this wretched thing, that it was never in
my possession.
[MRS. CHEVELEY _tries to get the bracelet off her arm_, _but fails_.
LORD GORING _looks on amused_. _Her thin fingers tear at the jewel to no
purpose_. _A curse breaks from her_.]
LORD GORING. The drawback of stealing a thing, Mrs. Cheveley, is that