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 the time I was poor; you were rich.

Lord Goring Quite so. That is why your 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 anyone 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.

[A pause]

Mrs Cheveley 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