JACK. Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons. ALGERNON. I would rather like to see Cecily. JACK. I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen. ALGERNON. Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen? JACK. Oh! one doesn’t blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. ALGERNON. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis’s, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven? JACK. [Irritably.] Oh! It always is nearly seven. ALGERNON. Well, I’m hungry. JACK. I never knew you when you weren’t . . . ALGERNON. What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre? JACK. Oh no! I loathe listening. ALGERNON. Well, let us go to the Club? JACK. Oh, no! I hate talking. ALGERNON. Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten? JACK. Oh, no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly. ALGERNON. Well, what shall we do? JACK. Nothing! ALGERNON. It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. [Enter Lane.] LANE. Miss Fairfax. [Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out.] ALGERNON. Gwendolen, upon my word! GWENDOLEN. Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing. ALGERNON. Really, Gwendolen, I don’t think I can allow this at all. GWENDOLEN. Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. [Algernon retires to the fireplace.] JACK. My own darling! GWENDOLEN. Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on mamma’s face I fear we never shall. Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife, and I may marry some one else, and marry often, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you. JACK. Dear Gwendolen! GWENDOLEN. The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me. Your town address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the country? JACK. The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire. [Algernon, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide.]