ing of that wretched woman who came here last night? (Coming round and sitting r. of her.) You don't still imagine -no, you could n't.

Lady W. I don't. I know now I was wrong and foolish.

Lord W. It was very good of you to receive her last night-but you are never to see her again.

Lady W. Why do you say that?

(A pause.)

Lord W. (Holding her hand.) Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment's folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me I was mistaken in her. She is bad-as bad as a woman can be. Lady W. Arthur, Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any woman. I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad, as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman-I know she's not.

Lord W. My dear child, the woman's impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere.

Lady W. But I want to see her. I want
her to come here.
Lord W. Never!
Lady W.

She came here once as your guest. She must come now as mine. That is but fair.

Lord W. She should never have come here.

Lady W. (Rising.) It is too late, Arthur, to say that now.

(Moves away.)

turn your ladyship's fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card. Lady W. Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up. (Reads card.) Say I shall be very glad to see her. (Exit Parker.) She wants to see me, Arthur.

Lord W. (Takes card and looks at it.) Margaret, I beg you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She's a very dangerous woman. She is the most danger

ous woman I know. You don't realize what you're doing.

Lady W. It is right that I should see her.
Lord W. My child, you may be on the
brink of a great sorrow. Don't go to
meet it. It is absolutely necessary that
I should see her before you do.
Lady W.

Why should it be necessary?
(Enter Parker.)

Parker. Mrs. Erlynne.

(Enter Mrs. E. Exit Parker.)

Most

Mrs. E. How do you do, Lady Windermere? (To Lord W.) How do you do? Do you know, Lady Windermere, I am so sorry about your fan. I can't imagine how I made such a silly mistake. stupid of me. And as I was driving in your direction, I thought I would take the opportunity of returning your property in person, with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you goodbye.

Lady W. Good-bye? (Moves towards sofa with Mrs. E. and sits down beside her.) Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?

Mrs. E. Yes; I am going to live abroad again. The English climate does n't suit me. My heart is affected here, and that I don't like. I prefer living in the south. London is too full of fogs andand serious people, Lord Windermere. Whether the fogs produce the serious people or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know, but the whole thing rather gets on my nerves, and so I'm leaving this afternoon by the Club Train.

Lady W. This afternoon? But I wanted so much to come and see you.

Mrs. E. How kind of you! But I am afraid I have to go.

Lady W. Shall I never see you again, Mrs. Erlynne?

Mrs. E. I am afraid not. Our lives lie

too far apart. But there is a little thing I would like you to do for me. I want a photograph of you, Lady Windermere -would you give me one? You don't know how gratified I should be. Lady W. Oh, with pleasure. There is one on that table. I'll show it to you.

(Goes across to the table.) Lord W. (Coming up to Mrs. E. and speaking in a low voice.) It is monstrous your intruding yourself here after your conduct last night.

Mrs. E. (With an amused smile.) My dear Windermere, manners before morals!

Lady W. (Returning.) I'm afraid it is very flattering-I am not so pretty as that.

(Showing photograph.) Mrs. E. You are much prettier. But haven't you got one of yourself with your little boy?

Lady W. I have. Would you prefer one of those?

Mrs. E. Yes.

Lady W. I'll go and get it for you, if you'll excuse me for a moment. I have one upstairs.

Mrs. E. So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble. Lady W. (Moves to door r.) No trouble at all, Mrs. Erlynne.

Mrs. E. Thanks so much. (Exit Lady W. r.) You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.

Lord W. I can't bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.

Mrs. E. I have not told her the truth,

you mean.

Lord W. (Standing c.) I sometimes wish you had. I should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the last six months. But rather than my wife should know that the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living-a divorced woman going about under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be-rather than that, I was ready to supply you with money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever had with my wife. You don't understand what that means to me. How

could you? But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you next her. You sully the innocence that is in her. (Moves l. c.) And then I used to think that with all your faults you were frank and honest. You are not.

Mrs. E. Why do you say that? Lord W. You made me get you an invitation to my wife's ball.

Mrs. E. For my daughter's ball-yes. Lord W. You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house, you are found in a man's rooms-you are disgraced before every one.

(Goes up stage c.) Yes.

Mrs. E. Lord W. (Turning round on her.) Therefore I have a right to look upon you as what you are-a worthless, vicious woman. I have the right to tell you never to enter this house, never to attempt to come near my wife

Mrs. E. (Coldly.) My daughter, you

Lord W. To his, now that I know you. Mrs. E. Take care-you had better be careful.

Lord W. Oh, I am not going to minee

words for you. I know you thoroughly. Mrs. E. (Looking steadily at him.) I question that.

Lord W. I do know you. For twenty years of your life you lived without your child, without a thought of your child. One day you read in the papers that she had married a rich man. You saw your hideous chance. You knew that to spare her the ignominy of learning that a woman like you was her mother, I would endure anything. You began your blackmailing.

Mrs. E. (Shrugging her shoulders.) Don't use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar. I saw my chance, it is true, and took it.

Lord W. Yes, you took it-and spoiled it all last night by being found out. Mrs. E. (With a strange smile.) are quite right, I spoiled it all last night.

You

Lord W. What do you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object?

(Crossing 1. c. and sitting.) Mrs. E. (With a note of irony in her voice.) To bid good-bye to my dear daughter, of course. (Lord W. bites his underlip in anger. Mrs. E. looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In her accents as she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself.) Oh, don't imagine I am going to have a pathetic scene with her, weep on her neck and tell her who I am, and all that kind of thing. I have no ambition to play the part of a mother. Only once in my life have I known a mother's feelings. That was last night. They were terrible-they made me suffer -they made me suffer too much. twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless-I want to live childless still. (Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh.) Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter? Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not. So you see what difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am con

For

I

cerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother. Why should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard enough to keep my own. lost one illusion last night. I thought I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart does n't suit me, Windermere. Somehow it does n't go with modern dress. It makes one look old. (Takes up handmirror from table and looks into it.) And it spoils one's career at critical moments.

Lord W. You fill me with horror-with absolute horror.

Mrs. E. (Rising.) I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent or become a hospital nurse or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don't do such things-not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No-what consoles one now-a-days is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake-I discovered that last night.

Lord W. A fatal mistake.

Mrs. E. (Smiling.) Almost fatal. Lord W. I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once. Mrs. E. I regret my bad actions. regret your good ones-that is the difference between us.

You

Lord W. I don't trust you. I will tell my wife. It's better for her to know, and from me. It will cause her infinite pain-it will humiliate her terribly, but it's right that she should know. Mrs. E. You propose to tell her? Lord W. I am going to tell her. Mrs. E.

(Going up to him.) If you do, I will make my name so infamous that it will mar every moment of her life. It will ruin her and make her wretched. If you dare to tell her, there is no depth of degradation I will not sink to, no pit of shame I will not enter. You shall not tell her-I forbid you. Lord W. Why?

If I said to perhaps loved

Mrs. E. (After a pause.) you that I cared for her, her even-you would sneer at me, would n't you?

Lord W. I should feel it was not true. A mother's love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such things?

Mrs. E. You are right. What could I know of such things? Don't let us talk any more about it, as for telling my daughter who I am, that I do not allow. It is my secret, it is not yours. If I make up my mind to tell her, and I think I will, I shall tell her before I leave this house-if not, I shall never tell her. Lord W. (Angrily.) Then let me beg of you to leave our house at once. I will make your excuses to Margaret.

(Enter Lady W. r. She goes over to Mrs. E. with the photograph in her hand. Lord W. moves to back of sofa, and anxiously watches Mrs. E. as the scene progresses.)

Lady W. I am so sorry, Mrs. Erlynne, to have kept you waiting. I could n't find the photograph anywhere. At last I discovered it in my husband's dressingroom-he had stolen it.

Mrs. E. (Takes the photograph from her and looks at it.) I am not surprisedit is charming. (Goes over to sofa with Lady W. and sits down beside her. Looks again at the photograph.) And so that is your little boy! What is he called?

Lady W. Gerard, after my dear father. Mrs. E. (Laying the photograph down.) Really?

Lady W. Yes. If it had been a girl, I

would have called it after my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.

Mrs. E. My name is Margaret, too.
Lady W. Indeed!

Mrs. E. Yes. (Pause.) You are devoted to your mother's memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.

Lady W. We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.

Mrs. E. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better.

Lady W. (Shaking her head.)

If I lost

my ideals, I should lose everything. Mrs. E. Everything?

Lady W. Yes.

(Pause.)

Mrs. E. Did your father often speak to you of your mother?

Lady W. No, it gave him too much pain He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born. His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again. It made him suffer even to hear it. My father-my father really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.

Mrs. E. (Rising.) I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.

Lady W. (Rising.) Oh no, don't.
Mrs. E. I think I had better. My ear-

riage must have come back by this time I sent it to Lady Jedburgh's with a note. Lady W. Arthur, would you mind seeing

if Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come back?

Mrs. E. Pray don't trouble Lord Windermere, Lady Windermere.

Lady W. Yes, Arthur, do go, please.

(Lord W. hesitates for a moment and looks at Mrs. E. She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room.) (To Mrs. E.) Oh, what am I to say to you? You saved me last night!

(Goes toward her.)

Mrs. E. Hush-don't speak of it. Lady W. I must speak of it. I can't let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.

You

Mrs. E. It is not your duty-at least you have duties to others besides him. say you owe me something? Lady W. I owe you everything. Mrs. E. Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don't spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband's life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh, how easily love is killed! Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.

Lady W. (With bowed head.) It is your will, not mine.

Mrs. E. Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child-I like to think of you as a mother. I like you to think of yourself as one.

Lady W. (Looking up.) I always will Only once in my life I have forgotten my own mother-that was last

now.

night. Oh, if I had remembered her, I should not have been so foolish, so wicked.

Mrs. E. (With a slight shudder.) Hush, last night is quite over.

(Enter Lord W.)

Lord W. Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne.

Mrs. E. It makes no matter. I'll take a hansom. There is nothing in the world so respectable as a good Shrewsbury and Talbot. And now, dear Lady Windermere, I am afraid it is really good-bye. (Moves up c.) Oh, I remember.

You'll think me absurd, but do you know, I've taken a great fancy to this fan that I was silly enough to run away with last night from your ball. Now, I wonder would you give it to me? Lord Windermere says you may. I know it is his present.

Lady W. Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure. But it has my name on it. It has "Margaret" on it.

Mrs. E. But we have the same Christian

Lord A. Good-morning, dear boy. Goodmorning, Lady Windermere.

Mrs. E.) Mrs. Erlynne!

Duchess. Won't you carry the fan, Lord Augustus?

Lord A. If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne.

Mrs. E. (Laughing.) Of course I do. You'll carry it so gracefully. You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus.

(When she reaches the door she looks back for a moment at Lady W. Their eyes meet. Then she turns, and exit c., followed by Lord A.)

Lady W. You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you? Lord W. (Gravely.) She is better than

one thought her.

Lady W. She is better than I am. Lord W. (Smiling as he strokes her hair.) Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.

Lady W. Don't say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

Lord W. (Moves down with her.) Darling, why do you say that? Lady W. (Sits on sofa.) Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated

us

Lord W. We were never parted. Lady W. We never must be again. Oh, Arthur, don't love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby, the roses are white and red.

(Sees

Lord A.

Mrs. E. How do you do, Lord Augustus? Are you quite well this morning? (Coldly.) Quite well, thank you,

Lord A. Mrs. Erlynne. Mrs. E. You don't look at all well, Lord Augustus. You stop up too late-it is so bad for you. You really should take more care of yourself. Good-bye, Lord Windermere. (Goes towards door with a bow to Lord A. Suddenly smiles, and looks back at him.) Lord Augustus! Won't you see me to my carriage? You might carry the fan. Lord W. Allow me!

Mrs. E. No, I want Lord Augustus. I have a special message for the dear

(Enter Lord A. c.) Arthur, she has explained everything! (Lady W. looks horribly frightened. Lord W. starts. Lord A. takes Lord W. by the arm, and brings him to front of stage.) My dear fellow, she has explained every demned thing. We all wronged her immensely. It was entirely for my sake she went to Darlington's rooms-called first at the club. Fact is, wanted to put me out of suspense, and being told I had gone on, followed-naturally-frightened when she heard a lot of men coming in-retired to another room-I assure you, most gratifying to me, the whole thing. We all behaved