But to get my son back I am ready
- yes, I am ready to marry you, Rachel - and to treat you always
with the deference and respect due to my wife. I will marry you as
soon as you choose. I give you my word of honour.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You made that promise to me once before and broke
it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I will keep it now. And that will show you that
I love my son, at least as much as you love him. For when I marry
you, Rachel, there are some ambitions I shall have to surrender.
High ambitions, too, if any ambition is high.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I decline to marry you, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Are you serious?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Do tell me your reasons. They would interest me
enormously.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I have already explained them to my son.
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-SIECLE 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
pulling it on.] 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
ever loved me as you did. Why, you gave yourself to me like a
flower, to do anything I liked with. You were the prettiest of
playthings, the most fascinating of small romances . . . [Pulls out
watch.] Quarter to two! Must be strolling back to Hunstanton.
Don't suppose I shall see you there again. I'm sorry, I am,
really.
