Mrs Erlynne Yes.

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

Mrs Erlynne So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble.

Lady windermere (moves to door R.) No trouble at all, Mrs Erlynne.°

Mrs Erlynne Thanks so much.

Exit Lady Windermere R.

You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.

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

Mrs Erlynne I have not told her the truth, you mean.

Lord Windermere (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 Erlynne Why do you say that?

Lord Windermere You made me get you an invitation to my wife’s ball.

Mrs Erlynne For my daughter’s ball—yes.

Lord Windermere You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house you are found in a man’s rooms—you are disgraced before everyone. (Goes up stage C.)

Mrs Erlynne Yes.

Lord Windermere (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 again, never to attempt to come near my wife—

Mrs Erlynne (coldly) My daughter, you mean.

Lord Windermere You have no right to claim her as your daughter. You left her, abandoned her when she was but a child in the cradle, abandoned her for your lover, who abandoned you in turn.

Mrs Erlynne (rising)° Do you count that to his credit, Lord Windermere—or to mine?

Lord Windermere To his, now that I know you.

Mrs Erlynne Take care—you had better be careful.

Lord Windermere Oh, I am not going to mince words for you. I know you thoroughly.