SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.
LADY CHILTERN. I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don"t let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won"t you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back, that is all!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Must I write and tell her that?
LADY CHILTERN. Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I might see her personally. It would be better.
LADY CHILTERN. You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you.
No; you must write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Write this moment!
LADY CHILTERN. Yes.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But it is so late. It is close on twelve.
LADY CHILTERN. That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you-and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme.
Yes-write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _sits down and writes a letter_. _His wife takes it up and reads it_.] Yes; that will do. [_Rings bell_.] And now the envelope. [_He writes the envelope slowly_. _Enter_ MASON.] Have this letter sent at once to Claridge"s Hotel. There is no answer. [_Exit_ MASON. LADY CHILTERN _kneels down beside her husband_, _and puts her arms around him_.] Robert, love gives one an instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from something that might have been a danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less than they do. I don"t think you realise sufficiently, Robert, that you have brought into the political life of our time a n.o.bler atmosphere, a finer att.i.tude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher ideals-I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!
LADY CHILTERN. I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it! [_Kisses him and rises and goes out_.]
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _walks up and down for a moment_; _then sits down and buries his face in his hands_. _The Servant enters and begins pulling out the lights_. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _looks up_.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!
[_The Servant puts out the lights_. _The room becomes almost dark_.
_The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love_.]
ACT DROP
SECOND ACT
SCENE
_Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern"s house_.
[LORD GORING, _dressed in the height of fashion_, _is lounging in an armchair_. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _is standing in front of the fireplace_.
_He is evidently in a state of great mental excitement and distress_.
_As the scene progresses he paces nervously up and down the room_.]
LORD GORING. My dear Robert, it"s a very awkward business, very awkward indeed. You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from other people"s wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things.
They can discover everything except the obvious.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, I couldn"t tell my wife. When could I have told her? Not last night. It would have made a life-long separation between us, and I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world I worship, of the only woman who has ever stirred love within me. Last night it would have been quite impossible. She would have turned from me in horror ... in horror and in contempt.
LORD GORING. Is Lady Chiltern as perfect as all that?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; my wife is as perfect as all that.
LORD GORING. [_Taking off his left-hand glove_.] What a pity! I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, I didn"t quite mean that. But if what you tell me is true, I should like to have a serious talk about life with Lady Chiltern.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. It would be quite useless.
LORD GORING. May I try?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; but nothing could make her alter her views.
LORD GORING. Well, at the worst it would simply be a psychological experiment.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. All such experiments are terribly dangerous.
LORD GORING. Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn"t so, life wouldn"t be worth living... . Well, I am bound to say that I think you should have told her years ago.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. When? When we were engaged? Do you think she would have married me if she had known that the origin of my fortune is such as it is, the basis of my career such as it is, and that I had done a thing that I suppose most men would call shameful and dishonourable?
LORD GORING. [_Slowly_.] Yes; most men would call it ugly names. There is no doubt of that.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Bitterly_.] Men who every day do something of the same kind themselves. Men who, each one of them, have worse secrets in their own lives.
LORD GORING. That is the reason they are so pleased to find out other people"s secrets. It distracts public attention from their own.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And, after all, whom did I wrong by what I did? No one.
LORD GORING. [_Looking at him steadily_.] Except yourself, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_After a pause_.] Of course I had private information about a certain transaction contemplated by the Government of the day, and I acted on it. Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.
LORD GORING. [_Tapping his boot with his cane_.] And public scandal invariably the result.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Pacing up and down the room_.] Arthur, do you think that what I did nearly eighteen years ago should be brought up against me now? Do you think it fair that a man"s whole career should be ruined for a fault done in one"s boyhood almost? I was twenty-two at the time, and I had the double misfortune of being well-born and poor, two unforgiveable things nowadays. Is it fair that the folly, the sin of one"s youth, if men choose to call it a sin, should wreck a life like mine, should place me in the pillory, should shatter all that I have worked for, all that I have built up. Is it fair, Arthur?
LORD GORING. Life is never fair, Robert. And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The G.o.d of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
LORD GORING. You underrate yourself, Robert. Believe me, without wealth you could have succeeded just as well.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. When I was old, perhaps. When I had lost my pa.s.sion for power, or could not use it. When I was tired, worn out, disappointed. I wanted my success when I was young. Youth is the time for success. I couldn"t wait.
LORD GORING. Well, you certainly have had your success while you are still young. No one in our day has had such a brilliant success.