SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My intention is to retire at once from public life.

LORD CAVERSHAM (angrily): Decline a seat in the Cabinet, and retire from public life? Never heard such damned nonsense in the whole course of my existence. I beg your pardon, Lady Chiltern. Chiltern, I beg your pardon. (To LORD GORING.): Don’t grin like that, sir.

LORD GORING: No, father.

LORD CAVERSHAM: Lady Chiltern, you are a sensible woman, the most sensible woman in London, the most sensible woman I know. Will you kindly prevent your husband from making such a…from talking such…Will you kindly do that, Lady Chiltern?

LADY CHILTERN: I think my husband is right in his determination, Lord Caversham. I approve of it.

LORD CAVERSHAM: You approve of it? Good heavens!

LADY CHILTERN (taking her husband’s hand): I admire him for it. I admire him immensely for it. I have never admired him so much before. He is finer than even I thought him. (To SIR ROBERT CHILTERN): You will go and write your letter to the Prime Minister now, won’t you? Don’t hesitate about it, Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (with a touch of bitterness): I suppose I had better write it at once. Such offers are not repeated. I will ask you to excuse me for a moment, Lord Caversham.

LADY CHILTERN: I may come with you, Robert, may I not?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes, Gertrude.

LADY CHILTERN goes with him.

LORD CAVERSHAM: What is the matter with this family? Something wrong here, eh? (Tapping his forehead.) Idiocy? Hereditary, I suppose. Both of them, too. Wife as well as husband. Very sad. Very sad indeed! And they are not an old family. Can’t understand it.

LORD GORING: It is not idiocy, father, I assure you.

LORD CAVERSHAM: What is it then, sir?

LORD GORING (after some hesitation): Well, it is what is called nowadays a high moral tone, father. That is all.

LORD CAVERSHAM: Hate these new-fangled names. Same thing as we used to call idiocy fifty years ago. Shan’t stay in this house any longer.

LORD GORING (taking his arm): Oh! Just go in there for a moment, father. Third palm tree to the left, the usual palm tree.

LORD CAVERSHAM: What, sir?

LORD GORING: I beg your pardon, father, I forgot. The conservatory, father, the conservatory – there is some one there I want you to talk to.

LORD CAVERSHAM: What about, sir?

LORD GORING: About me, father.

LORD CAVERSHAM (grimly): Not a subject on which much eloquence is possible.

LORD GORING: No, father; but the lady is like me. She doesn’t care much for eloquence in others. She thinks it a little loud.

LORD CAVERSHAM goes into the conservatory. LADY CHILTERN enters.

LORD GORING: Lady Chiltern, why are you playing Mrs. Cheveley’s cards?

LADY CHILTERN (startled): I don’t understand you.