sir robert chiltern. [Looking at him.] Really! How?
lord goring. [After some hesitation.] Oh, merely by something in the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?
sir robert chiltern. Mrs. Cheveley herself. And the woman I love knows that I began my career with an act of low dishonesty, that I built up my life upon sands of shame—that I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. [Burying his face in his hands.]
lord goring. [After a pause.] You have heard nothing from Vienna yet, in answer to your wire?
sir robert chiltern. [Looking up.] Yes; I got a telegram from the first secretary at eight o’clock to-night.
lord goring. Well?
sir robert chiltern. Nothing is absolutely known against her. On the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion of his immense fortune. Beyond that I can learn nothing.
lord goring. She doesn’t turn out to be a spy, then?
sir robert chiltern. Oh! spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.
lord goring. And thunderingly well they do it.