An Ideal Husband Part 14

Much more so than her husband, though he is a typical Englishman, always dull and usually violent.

LADY CHILTERN. [_Makes no answer_, _but remains standing_. _There is a pause_. _Then the eyes of the two women meet_. LADY CHILTERN _looks stern and pale_. MRS. CHEVELEY _seem rather amused_.] Mrs. Cheveley, I think it is right to tell you quite frankly that, had I known who you really were, I should not have invited you to my house last night.

MRS. CHEVELEY [_With an impertinent smile_.] Really?

LADY CHILTERN. I could not have done so.

MRS. CHEVELEY. I see that after all these years you have not changed a bit, Gertrude.

LADY CHILTERN. I never change.

MRS. CHEVELEY [_Elevating her eyebrows_.] Then life has taught you nothing?

LADY CHILTERN. It has taught me that a person who has once been guilty of a dishonest and dishonourable action may be guilty of it a second time, and should be shunned.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Would you apply that rule to every one?

LADY CHILTERN. Yes, to every one, without exception.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Then I am sorry for you, Gertrude, very sorry for you.

LADY CHILTERN. You see now, I was sure, that for many reasons any further acquaintance between us during your stay in London is quite impossible?

MRS. CHEVELEY [_Leaning back in her chair_.] Do you know, Gertrude, I don't mind your talking morality a bit. Morality is simply the att.i.tude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. You dislike me. I am quite aware of that. And I have always detested you. And yet I have come here to do you a service.

LADY CHILTERN. [_Contemptuously_.] Like the service you wished to render my husband last night, I suppose. Thank heaven, I saved him from that.

MRS. CHEVELEY. [_Starting to her feet_.] It was you who made him write that insolent letter to me? It was you who made him break his promise?

LADY CHILTERN. Yes.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Then you must make him keep it. I give you till to-morrow morning-no more. If by that time your husband does not solemnly bind himself to help me in this great scheme in which I am interested-

LADY CHILTERN. This fraudulent speculation-

MRS. CHEVELEY. Call it what you choose. I hold your husband in the hollow of my hand, and if you are wise you will make him do what I tell him.

LADY CHILTERN. [_Rising and going towards her_.] You are impertinent.

What has my husband to do with you? With a woman like you?

MRS. CHEVELEY [_With a bitter laugh_.] In this world like meets with like. It is because your husband is himself fraudulent and dishonest that we pair so well together. Between you and him there are chasms. He and I are closer than friends. We are enemies linked together. The same sin binds us.

LADY CHILTERN. How dare you cla.s.s my husband with yourself? How dare you threaten him or me? Leave my house. You are unfit to enter it.

[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _enters from behind_. _He hears his wife's last words_, _and sees to whom they are addressed_. _He grows deadly pale_.]

MRS. CHEVELEY. Your house! A house bought with the price of dishonour.

A house, everything in which has been paid for by fraud. [_Turns round and sees_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.] Ask him what the origin of his 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 to-morrow 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 pa.s.ses 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 some one in a dreadful dream_. _Then she turns round and looks at her husband_. _She looks at him with strange eyes_, _as though she were 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 realise 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 lied to the whole world.

And yet you will not lie to me.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Rus.h.i.+ng 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 wors.h.i.+pped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, n.o.ble, 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 woman asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me.

She offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day?

Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you-you whom I have so wildly loved-have ruined mine!

[_He pa.s.ses from the room_. LADY CHILTERN _rushes towards him_, _but the door is closed when she reaches it_. _Pale with anguish_, _bewildered_, _helpless_, _she sways like a plant in the water_. _Her hands_, _outstretched_, _seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the mind_.

_Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face_. _Her sobs are like the sobs of a child_.]

ACT DROP

THIRD ACT

SCENE

_The Library in Lord Goring's house_. _An Adam room_. _On the right is the door leading into the hall_. _On the left_, _the door of the smoking-room_. _A pair of folding doors at the back open into the drawing-room_. _The fire is lit_. _Phipps_, _the butler_, _is arranging some newspapers on the writing-table_. _The distinction of Phipps is his impa.s.sivity_. _He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler_. _The Sphinx is not so incommunicable_. _He is a mask with a manner_. _Of his intellectual or emotional life_, _history knows nothing_. _He represents the dominance of form_.

[_Enter_ LORD GORING _in evening dress with a b.u.t.tonhole_. _He is wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape_. _White-gloved_, _he carries a Louis Seize cane_. _His are all the delicate fopperies of Fas.h.i.+on_.

_One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life_, _makes it indeed_, _and so masters it_. _He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought_.]