Lord Illingworth. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year. But you wouldn’t take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried the child away with you.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I wouldn’t have accepted a penny from her. Your father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.
Lord Illingworth. Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my mother. Every man is when he is young.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall certainly not go away with you.
Lord Illingworth. What nonsense, Rachel!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think I would allow my son—
Lord Illingworth. Our son.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. My son [Lord Illingworth shrugs his shoulders]—to go away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who has tainted every moment of my days? You don’t realise what my past has been in suffering and in shame.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s future considerably more important than your past.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.