LORD ILLINGWORTH. [_Reads letter over again_, _very slowly_.] May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child? MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It was not I who made him see it. It was another. LORD ILLINGWORTH. What _fin-de-siècle_ person? MRS. ARBUTHNOT. The Puritan, Lord Illingworth. [_A pause_.] LORD ILLINGWORTH. [_Winces_, _then rises slowly and goes over to table where his hat and gloves are_. MRS. ARBUTHNOT _is standing close to the table_. _He picks up one of the gloves, and begins pulling it on_.] There is not much then for me to do here, Rachel? MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Nothing. LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is good-bye, is it? MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For ever, I hope, this time, Lord Illingworth. LORD ILLINGWORTH. How curious! At this moment you look exactly as you looked the night you left me twenty years ago. You have just the same expression in your mouth. Upon my word, Rachel, no woman ever loved me as you did. Why, you gave yourself to me like a flower, to do anything I liked with. You were the prettiest of playthings, the most fascinating of small romances . . . [_Pulls out watch_.] Quarter to two! Must be strolling back to Hunstanton. Don’t suppose I shall see you there again. I’m sorry, I am, really. It’s been an amusing experience to have met amongst people of one’s own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one’s mistress, and one’s— [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