MRS. ARBUTHNOT snatches up glove and strikes LORD ILLINGWORTH across the face with it. LORD ILLINGWORTH starts. He is dazed by the insult of his punishment. Then he controls himself and goes to window and looks out at his son. Sighs and leaves the room.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT (falls sobbing on the sofa): He would have said it. He would have said it.

Enter GERALD and HESTER from the garden.

GERALD: Well, dear mother. You never came out after all. So we have come in to fetch you. Mother, you have not been crying? (Kneels down beside her.)

MRS. ARBUTHNOT: My boy! My boy! My boy! (Running her fingers through his hair.)

HESTER (coming over): But you have two children now. You’ll let me be your daughter?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT (looking up): Would you choose me for a mother?

HESTER: You of all women I have ever known.

They move towards the door leading into garden with their arms round each other’s waists. GERALD goes to table L.C. for his hat. On turning round he sees LORD ILLINGWORTH’S glove lying on the floor, and picks it up.

GERALD: Hallo, mother, whose glove is this? You have had a visitor. Who was it?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT (turning round): Oh, no one. No one in particular. A man of no importance.

CURTAIN

An Ideal Husband

The Persons of the Play

THE EARL OF CAVERSHAM, K.G.

VISCOUNT GORING, his son

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign

VICOMTE DE NANJAC, Attaché at French Embassy in London

MR. MONTFORD

MASON, Butler to Sir Robert Chiltern

PHIPPS, Lord Goring’s servant

JAMES and HAROLD, Footmen

LADY CHILTERN

LADY MARKBY

Affairs

THE COUNTESS OF BASILDON

MRS. MARCHMONT

MISS MABEL CHILTERN, Sir Robert Chiltern’s sister

MRS. CHEVELEY

ACT ONE

SCENE: The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square, London. The action of the play is completed within twenty-four hours. TIME: The present.

The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests.

At the top of the staircase stands LADY CHILTERN, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry – representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher – that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.

MRS. MARCHMONT: Going on to the Hartlocks’ to-night, Margaret?

LADY BASILDON: I suppose so. Are you?

MRS. MARCHMONT: Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don’t they?