CECIL GRAHAM (coming towards him L.C.): My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.

LORD WINDERMERE: What is the difference between scandal and gossip?

CECIL GRAHAM: Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say.

LORD AUGUSTUS: Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.

CECIL GRAHAM: Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.

LORD AUGUSTUS: My dear boy, when I was your age –

CECIL GRAHAM: But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. (Goes up to C.) I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You’ll play, Arthur, won’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE: No thanks, Cecil.

DUMBY (with a sigh): Good heavens! How marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

CECIL GRAHAM: You’ll play, of course, Tuppy?

LORD AUGUSTUS (pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table): Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.

CECIL GRAHAM: Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.

LORD DARLINGTON (rising from R. Table, where he has been writing letters): They always do find us bad!

DUMBY: I don’t think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.

LORD DARLINGTON: No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Sits down at C. table.)

DUMBY: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.

CECIL GRAHAM: Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?

LORD DARLINGTON: The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. (Glances instinctively at LORD WINDERMERE while he speaks.)

CECIL GRAHAM: A married woman, then! Well, there’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.

LORD DARLINGTON: Oh! She doesn’t love me. She is a good woman. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.

CECIL GRAHAM: The only good woman you have ever met in your life?

LORD DARLINGTON: Yes!

CECIL GRAHAM (lighting a cigarette): Well, you are a lucky fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good women. To know them is a middle-class education.