fortune is! Get him to tell you how he sold to a stockbroker a Cabinet secret. Learn from him to what you owe your position.

Lady Chiltern It is not true! Robert! It is not true!

Mrs Cheveley (pointing at him with outstretched finger) Look at him! Can he deny it? Does he dare to?

Sir Robert Chiltern Go! Go at once. You have done your worst now.

Mrs Cheveley My worst? I have not yet finished with you, with either of you. I give you both till tomorrow at noon. If by then you don’t do what I bid you to do, the whole world shall know the origin of Robert Chiltern.

Sir Robert Chiltern strikes the bell. Enter Mason°

Sir Robert Chiltern Show Mrs Cheveley out.

Mrs Cheveley starts; then bows with somewhat exaggerated politeness to Lady Chiltern, who makes no sign of response. As she passes by Sir Robert Chiltern, who is standing close to the door, she pauses for a moment and looks him straight in the face. She then goes out, followed by the servant, who closes the door after him. The husband and wife are left alone. Lady Chiltern stands like someone in a dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She looks at him with strange eyes, as though she was seeing him for the first time

Lady Chiltern You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true!

Sir Robert Chiltern What this woman said is quite true. But, Gertrude, listen to me. You don’t realize how I was tempted. Let me tell you the whole thing. (Goes towards her)

Lady Chiltern Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. I feel as if you had soiled me for ever. Oh! what a mask you have been wearing all these years! A horrible painted mask! You sold yourself for money. Oh! a common thief were better. You put yourself up to sale to the highest bidder! You were bought in the market. You lie to the whole world. And yet you will not lie to me.

Sir Robert Chiltern (rushing towards her) Gertrude! Gertrude!

Lady Chiltern (thrusting him back with outstretched hands) No, don’t speak! Say nothing! Your voice wakes terrible memories— memories of things that made me love you—memories of words that made me love you—memories that now are horrible to me. And how I worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. And now—oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! the ideal of my life!

Sir Robert Chiltern There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men: but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us—else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last night you ruined my life for me—yes, ruined it! What this