LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you say that? [_A pause_.] LORD WINDERMERE. [_Holding her hand_.] Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment’s folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me—I was mistaken in her. She is bad—as bad as a woman can be. LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur, Arthur, don’t talk so bitterly about any woman. I don’t think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don’t think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman—I know she’s not. LORD WINDERMERE. My dear child, the woman’s impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere. LADY WINDERMERE. But I want to see her. I want her to come here. LORD WINDERMERE. Never! LADY WINDERMERE. She came here once as _your_ guest. She must come now as _mine_. That is but fair. LORD WINDERMERE. She should never have come here. LADY WINDERMERE. [_Rising_.] It is too late, Arthur, to say that now. [_Moves away_.] LORD WINDERMERE. [_Rising_.] Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, after she left this house, you would not sit in the same room with her. It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing. LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur, I can’t bear it any longer. I must tell you. Last night— [_Enter_ PARKER _with a tray on which lie_ LADY WINDERMERE’S _fan and a card_.] PARKER. Mrs. Erlynne has called to return your ladyship’s fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card. LADY WINDERMERE. Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up. [_Reads card_.] Say I shall be very glad to see her. [_Exit_ PARKER.] She wants to see me, Arthur. LORD WINDERMERE. [_Takes card and looks at it_.] Margaret, I _beg_ you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She’s a very dangerous woman. She is the most dangerous woman I know. You don’t realise what you’re doing. LADY WINDERMERE. It is right that I should see her. LORD WINDERMERE. My child, you may be on the brink of a great sorrow. Don’t go to meet it. It is absolutely necessary that I should see her before you do. LADY WINDERMERE. Why should it be necessary? [_Enter_ PARKER.] PARKER. Mrs. Erlynne. [_Enter_ MRS. ERLYNNE.] [_Exit_ PARKER.]