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  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh, no! I do the encouraging. But you will make me a handsome settlement, Windermere, won’t you?

  LORD WINDERMERE (frowning). Is that what you want to talk to me about to-night?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes.

  LORD WINDERMERE (with a gesture of impatience). I will not talk of it here.

  MRS. ERLYNNE (laughing). Then we will talk of it on the terrace. Even business should have a picturesque background. Should it not, Windermere? With a proper background women can do anything.

  LORD WINDERMERE. Won’t to-morrow do as well?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. No; you see, to-morrow I am going to accept him. And I think it would be a good thing if I was able to tell him that I had—well, what shall I say?—£2000 a year left to me by a third cousin—or a second husband—or some distant relative of that kind. It would be an additional attraction, wouldn’t it? You have a delightful opportunity now of paying me a compliment, Windermere. But you are not very clever at paying compliments. I am afraid Margaret doesn’t encourage you in that excellent habit. It’s a great mistake on her part. When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. But seriously, what do you say to £2000? £2500, I think. In modern life margin is everything. Windermere, don’t you think the world an intensely amusing place? I do!

  Exit on terrace with LORD WINDERMERE. Music strikes up in ball-room.

  LADY WINDERMERE. To stay in this house any longer is impossible. To-night a man who loves me offered me his whole life. I refused it. It was foolish of me. I will offer him mine now. I will give him mine. I will go to him! (Puts on cloak and goes to the door, then turns back. Sits down at table and writes a letter, puts it into an envelope, and leaves it on table.) Arthur has never understood me. When he reads this, he will. He may do as he chooses now with his life. I have done with mine as I think best, as I think right. It is he who has broken the bond of marriage—not I. I only break its bondage.

  Exit.

  PARKER enters L. and crosses towards the ball-room R. Enter MRS. ERLYNNE.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Is Lady Windermere in the ball-room?

  PARKER. Her ladyship has just gone out.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Gone out? She’s not on the terrace?

  PARKER. No, madam. Her ladyship has just gone out of the house.

  MRS. ERLYNNE (starts, and looks at the servant with a puzzled expression in her face). Out of the house?

  PARKER. Yes, madam—her ladyship told me she had left a letter for his lordship on the table.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. A letter for Lord Windermere?

  PARKER. Yes, madam.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Thank you.

  Exit PARKER. The music in the ball-room stops.

  Gone out of her house! A letter addressed to her husband! (Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear.) No, no! It would be impossible! Life doesn’t repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? (Tears letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.) Oh, how terrible! The same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! and how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now! (Still seated R.)

  Enter LORD WINDERMERE L.U.E.

  LORD WINDERMERE. Have you said good-night to my wife? (Comes C.)

  MRS. ERLYNNE (crushing letter in her hand). Yes.

  LORD WINDERMERE. Where is she?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said she had a headache.

  LORD WINDERMERE. I must go to her. You’ll excuse me?

  MRS. ERLYNNE (rising hurriedly). Oh, no! It’s nothing serious. She’s only very tired, that is all. Besides, there are people still in the supper-room. She wants you to make her apologies to them. She said she didn’t wish to be disturbed. (Drops letter.) She asked me to tell you!

  LORD WINDERMERE (picks up letter). You have dropped something.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh yes, thank you, that is mine. (Puts out her hand to take it.)

  LORD WINDERMERE (still looking at letter). But it’s my wife’s hand-writing, isn’t it?

  MRS. ERLYNNE (takes the letter quickly). Yes, it’s—an address. Will you ask them to call my carriage, please?

  LORD WINDERMERE. Certainly. (Goes L. and Exit.)

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Thanks! What can I do? What can I do? I feel a passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it mean? The daughter must not be like the mother—that would be terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? Windermere must be got out of the house; that is absolutely necessary. (Goes L.) But how shall I do it? It must be done somehow. Ah!

  Enter LORD AUGUSTUS R.U.E. carrying bouquet.

  LORD AUGUSTUS. Dear lady, I am in such suspense! May I not have an answer to my request?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Lord Augustus, listen to me. You are to take Lord Windermere down to your club at once, and keep him there as long as possible. You understand?

  LORD AUGUSTUS. But you said you wished me to keep early hours!

  MRS. ERLYNNE (nervously). Do what I tell you. Do what I tell you.

  LORD AUGUSTUS. And my reward?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Your reward? Your reward? Oh, ask me that to-morrow. But don’t let Windermere out of your sight to-night. If you do I will never forgive you. I will never speak to you again. I’ll have nothing to do with you. Remember you are to keep Windermere at your club, and don’t let him come back to-night. (Exit. L.)

  LORD AUGUSTUS. Well, really, I might be her husband already. Positively I might. (Follows her in a bewildered manner.)

  Curtain

  Third Act

  SCENE

  Lord Darlington’s Rooms. A large sofa is in front of fireplace R. At the back of the stage a curtain is drawn across the window. Doors L. and R. Table R. with writing materials. Table C. with syphons, glasses, and Tantalus frame. Table L. with cigar and cigarette box. Lamps lit.

  LADY WINDERMERE (standing by the fireplace). Why doesn’t he come? This waiting is horrible. He should be here. Why is he not here, to wake by passionate words some fire within me? I am cold—cold as a loveless thing. Arthur must have read my letter by this time. If he cared for me, he would have come after me, would have taken me back by force. But he doesn’t care. He’s entrammelled by this woman—fascinated by her—dominated by her. If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make gods of men and they leave us. Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is! … Oh! it was mad of me to come here, horribly mad. And yet, which is the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves one, or the wife of a man who in one’s own house dishonours one? What woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him? Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go back—no; I can’t go back, my letter has put me in their power—Arthur would not take me back! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow. I will go with him—I have no choice. (Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak.) No. no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can’t wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington—Oh! here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible … Oh! (Hides her face in her hands.)

  Enter MRS. ERLYNNE L.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Lady Windermere! (LADY WINDERMERE starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt.) Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband’s house immediately.

  LADY WINDERMERE. Must?

  MRS. ERLYNNE (authoritatively). Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.
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  LADY WINDERMERE. Don’t come near me!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home.

  LADY WINDERMERE throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa.

  What are you doing?

  LADY WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne—if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest—rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You don’t think that—you can’t.

  LADY WINDERMERE. Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world’s tongue. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. No—no——

  LADY WINDERMERE. Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me—I was going back—but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger—oh! it was infamous—infamous.

  MRS. ERLYNNE (C.). Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly—you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn’t know you are here—he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!

  LADY WINDERMERE (R.). Never read it!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. No—he knows nothing about it.

  LADY WINDERMERE. How simple you think me! (Going to her.) You are lying to me!

  MRS. ERLYNNE (restraining herself). I am not. I am telling you the truth.

  LADY WINDERMERE. If my husband didn’t read my letter, how is it that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. (Crosses L.)

  MRS. ERLYNNE (R.C.). Your husband has never seen the letter. I—saw it, I opened it. I—read it.

  LADY WINDERMERE (turning to her). You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn’t dare!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. (Going to fireplace.) It should never have been written. (Tears it and throws it into the fire.)

  LADY WINDERMERE (with infinite contempt in her voice and look). How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think the commonest device can take me in!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now was your letter. I swear it to you!

  LADY WINDERMERE (slowly). You took good care to burn it before I had examined it. I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, how could you speak the truth about anything? (Sits down.)

  MRS. ERLYNNE (hurriedly). Think as you like about me—say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.

  LADY WINDERMERE (sullenly). I do not love him!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. You do, and you know that he loves you.

  LADY WINDERMERE. He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do—but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back. Dear Heaven! what a life I would have then! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!

  MRS. ERLYNNE (with a gesture of despair). Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere, don’t say such terrible things. You don’t know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust. Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext—never to see him—never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him——

  LADY WINDERMERE (rising). Ah! you admit you have a hold!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere.

  LADY WINDERMERE. You expect me to believe that?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. You must believe it! It is true. It is his love for you that has made him submit to—oh! call it what you like, tyranny, threats, anything you choose. But it is his love for you. His desire to spare you—shame, yes, shame and disgrace.

  LADY WINDERMERE. What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you?

  MRS. ERLYNNE (humbly). Nothing. I know it—but I tell you that your husband loves you—that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life—that such love you will never meet—and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you—Oh! Arthur loves you!

  LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur? And you tell me there is nothing between you?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you! And I—I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his—oh! died, gladly died! (Moves away to sofa R.)

  LADY WINDERMERE. You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. (Sits L.C.)

  MRS. ERLYNNE (starts, with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where LADY WINDERMERE is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her.) Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment’s sorrow. But don’t spoil your beautiful young life on my account! You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one’s face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don’t know what it is. One pays for one’s sin, and then one pays again, and all one’s life one pays. You must never know that.—As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it.—But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn’t stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. LADY WINDERMERE rises.) God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere—your husband loves you! He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child. If he abandoned you, your place is with your child.

  LADY WINDERMERE bursts into tears and buries her face in her hand
s.

  (Rushing to her.) Lady Windermere!

  LADY WINDERMERE (holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a child might do). Take me home. Take me home.

  MRS. ERLYNNE (is about to embrace her. Then restrains herself. There is a look of wonderful joy in her face.) Come! Where is your cloak? (Getting it from sofa.) Here. Put it on. Come at once!

  They go to the door.

  LADY WINDERMERE. Stop! Don’t you hear voices?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. No, no! There is no one!

  LADY WINDERMERE. Yes, there is! Listen! Oh! that is my husband’s voice! He is coming in! Save me! Oh, it’s some plot! You have sent for him.

  Voices outside.

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Silence! I’m here to save you, if I can. But I fear it is too late! There! (Points to the curtain across the window.) The first chance you have, slip out, if you ever get a chance!

  LADY WINDERMERE. But you?

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! never mind me. I’ll face them.

  LADY WINDERMERE hides herself behind the curtain.

  LORD AUGUSTUS (outside). Nonsense, dear Windermere, you must not leave me!

  MRS. ERLYNNE. Lord Augustus! Then it is I who am lost! (Hesitates for a moment, then looks round and sees door R., and exit through it.)

  Enter LORD DARLINGTON, MR. DUMBY, LORD WINDERMERE, LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON, and MR. CECIL GRAHAM.

  DUMBY. What a nuisance their turning us out of the club at this hour! It’s only two o’clock. (Sinks into a chair.) The lively part of the evening is only just beginning. (Yawns and closes his eyes.)

  LORD WINDERMERE. It is very good of you, Lord Darlington, allowing Augustus to force our company on you, but I’m afraid I can’t stay long.

  LORD DARLINGTON. Really! I am so sorry! You’ll take a cigar, won’t you?

  LORD WINDERMERE. Thanks! (Sits down.)

  LORD AUGUSTUS (to LORD WINDERMERE). My dear boy, you must not dream of going. I have a great deal to talk to you about, of demmed importance, too. (Sits down with him at L. table.)

  CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! We all know what that is! Tuppy can’t talk about anything but Mrs. Erlynne.