man with a future, didn’t you? But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble, self-sacrificing character. You can stand geniuses. I have no character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear. As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much, don’t they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me. I must go round now and rehearse at Lady Basildon’s. You remember, we are having tableaux, don’t you? The Triumph of something, I don’t know what! I hope it will be triumph of me. Only triumph I am really interested in at present. [Kisses LADY CHILTERN and goes out; then comes running back.] Oh, Gertrude, do you know who is coming to see you? That dreadful Mrs. Cheveley, in a most lovely gown. Did you ask her?
LADY CHILTERN. [Rising.] Mrs. Cheveley! Coming to see me? Impossible!
MABEL CHILTERN. I assure you she is coming upstairs, as large as life and not nearly so natural.
LADY CHILTERN. You need not wait, Mabel. Remember, Lady Basildon is expecting you.
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I must shake hands with Lady Markby. She is delightful. I love being scolded by her.
[Enter MASON.]
MASON. Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.
[Enter LADY MARKBY and MRS. CHEVELEY.]
LADY CHILTERN. [Advancing to meet them.] Dear Lady Markby, how nice of you to come and see me! [Shakes hands with her, and bows somewhat distantly to MRS. CHEVELEY.] Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Cheveley?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Thanks. Isn’t that Miss Chiltern? I should like so much to know her.
LADY CHILTERN. Mabel, Mrs. Cheveley wishes to know you.
[MABEL CHILTERN gives a little nod.]
MRS. CHEVELEY [Sitting down.] I thought your frock so charming last night, Miss Chiltern. So simple and … suitable.
MABEL CHILTERN. Really? I must tell my dressmaker. It will be such a surprise to her. Goodbye, Lady Markby!
LADY MARKBY. Going already?
MABEL CHILTERN. I am so sorry but I am obliged to. I am just off to rehearsal. I have got to stand on my head in some tableaux.
LADY MARKBY. On your head, child? Oh! I hope not. I believe it is most unhealthy. [Takes a seat on the sofa next LADY CHILTERN.]
MABEL CHILTERN. But it is for an excellent charity: in aid of the Undeserving, the only people I am really interested in. I am the secretary, and Tommy Trafford is treasurer.
MRS. CHEVELEY. And what is Lord Goring?
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! Lord Goring is president.
MRS. CHEVELEY. The post should suit him admirably, unless he has deteriorated since I knew him first.
LADY MARKBY. [Reflecting.] You are remarkably modern, Mabel. A little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. I have known many instances of it.
MABEL CHILTERN. What a dreadful prospect!
LADY MARKBY. Ah! my dear, you need not be nervous. You will always be as pretty as possible. That is the best fashion there is, and the only fashion that England succeeds in setting.
MABEL CHILTERN. [With a curtsey.] Thank you so much, Lady Markby, for England … and myself. [Goes out.]
LADY MARKBY. [Turning to LADY CHILTERN.] Dear Gertrude, we just called to know if Mrs. Cheveley’s diamond brooch has been found.
LADY CHILTERN. Here?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. I missed it when I got back to Claridge’s, and I thought I might possibly have dropped it here.
LADY CHILTERN. I have heard nothing about it. But I will send for the butler and ask. [Touches the bell.]
MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, pray don’t trouble, Lady Chiltern. I dare say I lost it at the Opera, before we came on here.
LADY MARKBY. Ah yes, I suppose it must have been at the Opera. The fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing Room, I always feel as if I hadn’t a shred on me, except a small shred of decent reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that our Society is terribly overpopulated. Really, some one should arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great deal of good.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I quite agree with you, Lady Markby. It is nearly six years since I have been in London for the Season, and I must say Society has become dreadfully mixed. One sees the oddest people everywhere.
LADY MARKBY. That is quite true, dear. But one needn’t know them. I’m sure I don’t know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn’t like to.
[Enter MASON.]
LADY CHILTERN. What sort of a brooch was it that you lost, Mrs. Cheveley?
MRS. CHEVELEY. A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby, a rather large ruby.
LADY MARKBY. I thought you said there was a sapphire on the head, dear?
MRS. CHEVELEY [Smiling.] No, lady Markby — a ruby.
LADY MARKBY. [Nodding her head.] And very becoming, I am quite sure.
LADY CHILTERN. Has a ruby and diamond brooch been found in any of the rooms this morning, Mason?
MASON. No, my lady.
MRS. CHEVELEY. It really is of no consequence, Lady Chiltern. I am so sorry to have put you to any inconvenience.
LADY CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Oh, it has been no inconvenience. That will do, Mason. You can bring tea.
[Exit MASON.]
LADY MARKBY. Well, I must say it is most annoying to lose anything. I remember once at Bath, years ago, losing in the Pump Room an exceedingly handsome cameo bracelet that Sir John had given me. I don’t think he has ever given me anything since, I am sorry to say. He has sadly degenerated. Really, this horrid House of Commons quite ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented.
LADY CHILTERN. Ah! it is heresy to say that in this house, Lady Markby. Robert is a great champion of the Higher Education of Women, and so, I am afraid, am I.
MRS. CHEVELEY. The higher education of men is what I should like to see. Men need it so sadly.
LADY MARKBY. They do, dear. But I am afraid such a scheme would be quite unpractical. I don’t think man has much capacity for development. He has got as far as he can, and that is not far, is it? With regard to women, well, dear Gertrude, you belong to the younger generation, and I am sure it is all right if you approve of it. In my time, of course, we were taught not to understand anything. That was the old system, and wonderfully interesting it was. I assure you that the amount of things I and my poor dear sister were taught not to understand was quite extraordinary. But modern women understand everything, I am told.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Except their husbands. That is the one thing the modern woman never understands.
LADY MARKBY. And a very good thing too, dear, I dare say. It might break up many a happy home if they did. Not yours, I need hardly say, Gertrude. You have married a pattern husband. I wish I could say as much for myself. But since Sir John has taken to attending the debates regularly, which he never used to do in the good old days, his language has become quite impossible. He always seems to think that he is addressing the House, and consequently whenever he discusses the state of the agricultural labourer, or the Welsh Church, or something quite improper of that kind, I am obliged to send all the servants out of the room. It is not pleasant to see one’s own butler, who has been with one for twenty-three years, actually blushing at the sideboard, and the footmen making contortions in corners like persons in circuses.