LORD  GORING

May  I  tr>%?

66


SIR  ROBERT  CHILTERN
Yes  ;  but  nothing  could  make  her  alter  her  views.
LORD  GORING

Well,  at  the  worst  it  would  simply  be  a  psycho-
logical experiment.
SIR  ROBERT  CHILTERN

All  such  experiments  are  terribly  dangerous.
LORD  GORING

Everything  is  dangerous,  my  dear  fellow.  If  it
wasn't  so,  life  wouldn't  be  worth  living.  .  .  .  Well,
I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  think  you  should  have
told  her  years  ago.
SIR  ROBERT  CHILTERN

When  ?  When  we  were  engaged  ?  Do  you  think
she  would  have  married  me  if  she  had  known  that
the  origin  of  my  fortune  is  such  as  it  is,  the  basis  of
my  career  such  as  it  is,  and  that  I  had  done  a  thing
that  I  suppose  most  men  would  call  shameful  and
dishonourable  ?

LORD  GORING

[Slowly.']  Yes ;  most  men  would  call  it  ugly
names.     There  is  no  doubt  of  that.
67


SIR   ROBERT  CHILTERN

{Bitterly.']  Men  who  every  day  do  something  of
the  same  kind  themselves.  Men  who,  each  one  of
them,  have  worse  secrets  in  their  own  Hves.
LORD  GORING

That  is  the  reason  they  are  so  pleased  to  find
out  other  people's  secrets.  It  distracts  public  at-
tention from  their  own.
SIR  ROBERT  CHILTERN

And,  after  all,  whom  did  I  wrong  by  what  I  did  ?
No  one.
LORD  GORING

[Looking  at  him  steadily^  Except  yourself,
Robert.
SIR  ROBERT  CHILTERN

{Afterapause^  Of  course  I  had  private  informa-
tion about  a  certain  transaction  contemplated  by
the  Government  of  the  day,  and  I  acted  on  it.
Private  information  is  practically  the  source  of
every  large  modern  fortune.
LORD  GORING

{Tapping  his  boot  with  his  cane.]  And  public
scandal  invariably  the  result.
