at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into
its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You
prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before
me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a
lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day?
Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and
bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you--you
whom I have so wildly loved--have ruined mine!

[_He passes from the room_. LADY CHILTERN _rushes towards him_, _but the
door is closed when she reaches it_. _Pale with anguish_, _bewildered_,
_helpless_, _she sways like a plant in the water_. _Her hands_,
_outstretched_, _seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the mind_.
_Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face_. _Her
sobs are like the sobs of a child_.]

ACT DROP

THIRD ACT

SCENE

_The Library in Lord Goring's house_. _An Adam room_. _On the right is
the door leading into the hall_. _On the left_, _the door of the
smoking-room_. _A pair of folding doors at the back open into the
drawing-room_. _The fire is lit_. _Phipps_, _the butler_, _is arranging
some newspapers on the writing-table_. _The distinction of Phipps is his
impassivity_. _He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler_. _The
Sphinx is not so incommunicable_. _He is a mask with a manner_. _Of his
intellectual or emotional life_, _history knows nothing_. _He represents
the dominance of form_.

[_Enter_ LORD GORING _in evening dress with a buttonhole_. _He is
wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape_. _White-gloved_, _he carries a
Louis Seize cane_. _His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion_.
_One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life_, _makes it
indeed_, _and so masters it_. _He is the first well-dressed philosopher
in the history of thought_.]

LORD GORING. Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps?

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [_Takes his hat_, _cane_, _and cape_, _and
presents new buttonhole on salver_.]

LORD GORING. Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person
of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole.

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. I have observed that,

LORD GORING. [_Taking out old buttonhole_.] You see, Phipps, Fashion is
what one wears ones