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takes it up and looks at envelope.] What a curious handwriting!
It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years

ago.
MRS. ALLONBY. Who?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh! no one. No one in particular. A woman of
no importance. [Throws letter down, and passes up the steps of the

terrace with MRS. ALLONBY. They smile at each other.]
ACT DROP.

SECOND ACT
SCENE

Drawing-room at Hunstanton, after dinner, lamps lit. Door L.C.
Door R.C.

[Ladies seated on sofas.]
MRS. ALLONBY. What a comfort it is to have got rid of the men for

a little!
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes; men persecute us dreadfully, don't they?

MRS. ALLONBY. Persecute us? I wish they did.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY. The annoying thing is that the wretches can be
perfectly happy without us. That is why I think it is every

woman's duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except
during this short breathing space after dinner; without which I

believe we poor women would be absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地;确实">absolutely worn to shadows.
[Enter Servants with coffee.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. Worn to shadows, dear?
MRS. ALLONBY. Yes, Lady Hunstanton. It is such a strain keeping

men up to the mark. They are always trying to escape from us.
LADY STUTFIELD. It seems to me that it is we who are always trying

to escape from them. Men are so very, very heartless. They know
their power and use it.

LADY CAROLINE. [Takes coffee from Servant.] What stuff and
nonsense all this about men is! The thing to do is to keep men in

their proper place.
MRS. ALLONBY. But what is their proper place, Lady Caroline?

LADY CAROLINE. Looking after their wives, Mrs. Allonby.
MRS. ALLONBY. [Takes coffee from Servant.] Really? And if

they're not married?
LADY CAROLINE. If they are not married, they should be looking

after a wife. It's perfectly scandalous the amount of bachelors
who are going about society. There should be a law passed to

compel them all to marry within twelve months.
LADY STUTFIELD. [Refuses coffee.] But if they're in love with

some one who, perhaps, is tied to another?
LADY CAROLINE. In that case, Lady Stutfield, they should be

married off in a week to some plain respectable girl, in order to
teach them not to meddle with other people's property.

MRS. ALLONBY. I don't think that we should ever be spoken of as
other people's property. All men are married women's property.

That is the only true definition of what married women's property
really is. But we don't belong to any one.

LADY STUTFIELD. Oh, I am so very, very glad to hear you say so.
LADY HUNSTANTON. But do you really think, dear Caroline, that

legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that,
nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the

bachelors like married men.
MRS. ALLONBY. I certainly never know one from the other.

LADY STUTFIELD. Oh, I think one can always know at once whether a
man has home claims upon his life or not. I have noticed a very,

very sad expression in the eyes of so many married men.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, all that I have noticed is that they are

horriblytedious when they are good husbands, and abominably
conceited when they are not.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, I suppose the type of husband has
completely changed since my young days, but I'm bound to state that

poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as
good as gold.

MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I'm
tired of meeting him.

LADY CAROLINE. But you renew him from time to time, don't you?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh no, Lady Caroline. I have only had one husband

as yet. I suppose you look upon me as quite an amateur.
LADY CAROLINE. With your views on life I wonder you married at

all.
MRS. ALLONBY. So do I.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear child, I believe you are really very
happy in your married life, but that you like to hide your

happiness from others.
MRS. ALLONBY. I assure you I was horribly deceived in Ernest.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Oh, I hope not, dear. I knew his mother quite
well. She was a Stratton, Caroline, one of Lord Crowland's

daughters
LADY CAROLINE. Victoria Stratton? I remember her perfectly. A

silly fair-haired woman with no chin.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, Ernest has a chin. He has a very strong chin, a

square chin. Ernest's chin is far too square.
LADY STUTFIELD. But do you really think a man's chin can be too

square? I think a man should look very, very strong, and that his
chin should be quite, quite square.

MRS. ALLONBY. Then you should certainly know Ernest, Lady
Stutfield. It is only fair to tell you beforehand he has got no

conversation at all.
LADY STUTFIELD. I adore silent men.

MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, Ernest isn't silent. He talks the whole time.
But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don't know.

I haven't listened to him for years.
LADY STUTFIELD. Have you never forgiven" target="_blank" title="forgive的过去分词">forgiven him then? How sad that

seems! But all life is very, very sad, is it not?
MRS. ALLONBY. Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a MAUVAIS QUART

D'HEURE made up of exquisite moments.
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, there are moments, certainly. But was it

something very, very wrong that Mr. Allonby did? Did he become
angry with you, and say anything that was unkind or true?

MRS. ALLONBY. Oh dear, no. Ernest is invariably calm. That is
one of the reasons he always gets on my nerves. Nothing is so

aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal
about the good temper of most modern men. I wonder we women stand

it as well as we do.
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes; men's good temper shows they are not so

sensitive as we are, not so finely strung. It makes a great
barrier often between husband and wife, does it not? But I would

so much like to know what was the wrong thing Mr. Allonby did.
MRS. ALLONBY. Well, I will tell you, if you solemnly promise to

tell everybody else.
LADY STUTFIELD. Thank you, thank you. I will make a point of

repeating it.
MRS. ALLONBY. When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me

positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in
the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I

didn't believe him, I needn't tell you. Unfortunately, however, I
made no enquiries of any kind till after I had been actually

married four or five months. I found out then that what he had
told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so

absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地;确实">absolutely uninteresting.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY. Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is
their clumsyvanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about

things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
LADY STUTFIELD. I see what you mean. It's very, very beautiful.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear child, you don't mean to tell me that you
won't forgive your husband because he never loved any one else?

Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.
LADY CAROLINE. Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane,

that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.
They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, they're quite out of date.
LADY STUTFIELD. Except amongst the middle classes, I have been

told.
MRS. ALLONBY. How like the middle classes!

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes - is it not? - very, very like them.
LADY CAROLINE. If what you tell us about the middle classes is

true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is
much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so

persistently frivolous, under the impressionapparently that it is
the proper thing to be. It is to that I attribute the unhappiness

of so many marriages we all know of in society.
MRS. ALLONBY. Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don't think the

frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More
marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband

than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy
with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly

rational being?
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY. Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs
to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years.

He can't help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is
very different. We have always been picturesque protests against

the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the
first.

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, the common sense of husbands is certainly
most, most trying. Do tell me your conception of the Ideal

Husband. I think it would be so very, very helpful.
MRS. ALLONBY. The Ideal Husband? There couldn't be such a thing.

The institution is wrong.
LADY STUTFIELD. The Ideal Man, then, in his relations to US.

LADY CAROLINE. He would probably be extremely realistic.
MRS. CAROLINE. The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us

as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He
should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of

our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us
to have missions. He should always say much more than he means,

and always mean much more than he says.
LADY HUNSTANTON. But how could he do both, dear?

MRS. ALLONBY. He should never run down other pretty women. That
would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too

much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow
they don't attract him.

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear
about other women.

MRS. ALLONBY. If we ask him a question about anything, he should
give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise

us for whatever qualities he knows we haven't got. But he should
be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that

we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that
we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgiveable.

But he should shower on us everything we don't want.
LADY CAROLINE. As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay

bills and compliments.
MRS. ALLONBY. He should persistently compromise us in public, and

treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he
should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever

we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地;确实">absolutelymiserable, at a
moment's notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less

than twenty minutes, and to be positivelyviolent at the end of
half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when

we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has
seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back

the little things he has given one, and promised never to
communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he

should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day
long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private

hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should


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