[_The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests_. _At the top of the staircase stands_ LADY CHILTERN, _a woman of grave Greek beauty_, _about twenty-seven years of age_. _She receives the guests as they come up_. _Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights_, _which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry—representing the Triumph of Love_, _from a design by Boucher—that is stretched on the staircase wall_. _On the right is the entrance to the music-room_. _The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard_. _The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms_. MRS. MARCHMONT _and_ LADY BASILDON, _two very pretty women_, _are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa_. _They are types of exquisite fragility_. _Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm_. _Watteau would have loved to paint them_.] MRS. MARCHMONT. Going on to the Hartlocks’ to-night, Margaret? LADY BASILDON. I suppose so. Are you? MRS. MARCHMONT. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don’t they? LADY BASILDON. Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere. MRS. MARCHMONT. I come here to be educated. LADY BASILDON. Ah! I hate being educated! MRS. MARCHMONT. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn’t it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one. LADY BASILDON. [_Looking round through her lorgnette_.] I don’t see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time. MRS. MARCHMONT. How very trivial of him! LADY BASILDON. Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about? MRS. MARCHMONT. About myself. LADY BASILDON. [_Languidly_.] And were you interested? MRS. MARCHMONT. [_Shaking her head_.] Not in the smallest degree. LADY BASILDON. What martyrs we are, dear Margaret! MRS. MARCHMONT. [_Rising_.] And how well it becomes us, Olivia! [_They rise and go towards the music-room_. _The_ VICOMTE DE NANJAC, _a young attaché known for his neckties and his Anglomania_, _approaches with a low bow_, _and enters into conversation_.] MASON. [_Announcing guests from the top of the staircase_.] Mr. and Lady Jane Barford. Lord Caversham. [_Enter_ LORD CAVERSHAM, _an old gentleman of seventy_, _wearing the riband and star of the Garter_. _A fine Whig type_. _Rather like a portrait by Lawrence_.] LORD CAVERSHAM. Good evening, Lady Chiltern! Has my good-for-nothing young son been here? LADY CHILTERN. [_Smiling_.] I don’t think Lord Goring has arrived yet. MABEL CHILTERN. [_Coming up to_ LORD CAVERSHAM.] Why do you call Lord Goring good-for-nothing?