Lord Illingworth I suppose they were intensely sentimental, weren’t they? You women live by your emotions and for them. You have no philosophy of life.

Mrs Arbuthnot You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will. I have two passions, Lord Illingworth; my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other.

Lord Illingworth What sort of love is that which needs to have hate as its brother?

Mrs Arbuthnot It is the sort of love I have for Gerald. Do you think that terrible? Well, it is terrible. All love is terrible. All love is a tragedy. I loved you once, Lord Illingworth. Oh, what a tragedy for a woman to have loved you!

Lord Illingworth So you really refuse to marry me?

Mrs Arbuthnot Yes.

Lord Illingworth Because you hate me?

Mrs Arbuthnot Yes.

Lord Illingworth And does my son hate me as you do?

Mrs Arbuthnot No.

Lord Illingworth I am glad of that, Rachel.

Mrs Arbuthnot He merely despises you.

Lord Illingworth What a pity! What a pity for him, I mean.

Mrs Arbuthnot Don’t be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.

Lord Illingworth (reads letter over again, very slowly) May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child?

Mrs Arbuthnot It was not I who made him see it. It was another.

Lord Illingworth What fin-de-siècle person?°

Mrs Arbuthnot The Puritan, Lord Illingworth.

A pause. Lord Illingworth winces, then rises slowly and goes over to table where his hat and gloves are. Mrs Arbuthnot is standing close to the table. He picks up one of the gloves, and begins putting it on°

Lord Illingworth There is not much then for me to do here, Rachel?

Mrs Arbuthnot Nothing.

Lord Illingworth It is good-bye, is it?

Mrs Arbuthnot For ever, I hope, this time, Lord Illingworth.

Lord Illingworth How curious! At this moment you look exactly as you looked the night you left me twenty years ago. You have just the same expression in your mouth. Upon my word, Rachel, no woman