Mrs Arbuthnot When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.

Lord Illingworth My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year.° But you wouldn’t take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried the child away with you.

Mrs Arbuthnot I wouldn’t have accepted a penny from her. Your father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.

Lord Illingworth Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my mother. Every man is when he is young.

Mrs Arbuthnot I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall certainly not go away with you.

Lord Illingworth What nonsense, Rachel!

Mrs Arbuthnot Do you think I would allow my son—

Lord Illingworth Our son.

Mrs Arbuthnot My son (Lord Illingworth shrugs his shoulders)—to go away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who has tainted every moment of my days? You don’t realize what my past has been in suffering and in shame.

Lord Illingworth My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s future considerably more important than your past.

Mrs Arbuthnot Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.

Lord Illingworth That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time. But don’t let us have a scene. Rachel, I want you to look at this matter from the common-sense point of view, from the point of view of what is best for our son, leaving you and me out of the question. What is our son at present? An underpaid clerk in a small provincial bank in a third-rate English town. If you imagine he is quite happy in such a position, you are mistaken. He is thoroughly discontented.

Mrs Arbuthnot He was not discontented till he met you. You have made him so.

Lord Illingworth Of course, I made him so. Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. But I did not leave him with a mere longing for things he could not get. No, I made him a charming offer. He jumped at it, I need hardly say. Any young man would. And now, simply because it turns out that I am the boy’s own father and he my own son, you propose practically to ruin his career. That is to say, if I were a perfect stranger, you would allow Gerald to go away with me, but as he is my own flesh and blood you won’t. How utterly illogical you are!

Mrs Arbuthnot I will not allow him to go.

Lord Illingworth How can you prevent it? What excuse can you give to him for making him decline such an offer as mine? I won’t tell him in what relation I stand to him, I need hardly say. But you daren’t tell him. You know that. Look how you have brought him up.

Mrs Arbuthnot I have brought him up to be a good man.