An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Page A

CAVERSHAM. It is the secret of your mother’s happiness. You are very heartless, sir, very heartless.
    LORD GORING. I hope not, father.
    [Goes out for a moment. Then returns, looking rather put out, with SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.]
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. My dear Arthur, what a piece of good luck meeting you on the doorstep! Your servant had just told me you were not at home. How extraordinary!
    LORD GORING. The fact is, I am horribly busy to-night, Robert, and I gave orders I was not at home to any one. Even my father had a comparatively cold reception. He complained of a draught the whole time.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Ah! you must be at home to me, Arthur. You are my best friend. Perhaps by to-morrow you will be my only friend. My wife has discovered everything.
    LORD GORING. Ah! I guessed as much!
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Looking at him.] Really! How?
    LORD GORING. [After some hesitation.] Oh, merely by something in the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Mrs. Cheveley herself. And the woman I love knows that I began my career with an act of low dishonesty, that I built up my life upon sands of shame—that I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. [Burying his face in his hands.]
    LORD GORING. [After a pause.] You have heard nothing from Vienna yet, in answer to your wire?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Looking up.] Yes; I got a telegram from the first secretary at eight o’clock to-night.
    LORD GORING. Well?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Nothing is absolutely known against her. On the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion of his immense fortune. Beyond that I can learn nothing.
    LORD GORING. She doesn’t turn out to be a spy, then?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Oh! spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.
    LORD GORING. And thunderingly well they do it.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, I am parched with thirst. May I ring for something? Some hock and seltzer?
    LORD GORING. Certainly. Let me. [Rings the bell.]
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Thanks! I don’t know what to do, Arthur, I don’t know what to do, and you are my only friend. But what a friend you are—the one friend I can trust. I can trust you absolutely, can’t I?
    [Enter PHIPPS .]
    LORD GORING. My dear Robert, of course. Oh! [To PHIPPS .] Bring some hock and seltzer.
    PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
    LORD GORING. And Phipps!
    PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
    LORD GORING. Will you excuse me for a moment, Robert? I want to give some directions to my servant.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Certainly.
    LORD GORING. When that lady calls, tell her that I am not expected home this evening. Tell her that I have been suddenly called out of town. You understand?
    PHIPPS. The lady is in that room, my lord. You told me to show her into that room, my lord.
    LORD GORING. You did perfectly right. [Exit PHIPPS .] What a mess I am in. No; I think I shall get through it. I’ll give her a lecture through the door. Awkward thing to manage, though.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, tell me what I should do. My life seems to have crumbled about me. I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.
    LORD GORING. Robert, you love your wife, don’t you?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I love her more than anything in the world. I used to think ambition the great thing. It is not. Love is the great thing in the world. There is nothing but love, and I love her. But I am defamed in her eyes. I am ignoble in her eyes. There is a wide gulf between us now. She has found me out, Arthur, she has found me out.
    LORD GORING. Has she never in her life done some folly—some indiscretion—that she should not forgive your sin?
    SIR ROBERT