Page:Wilde - A Woman of no Importance, 1909.djvu/126

RhACT III. to me. No one ever had such a mother as I have had.

LORD ILLINGWORTH I am quite sure of that. Still I should imagine that most mothers don't quite understand their sons. Don't realise, I mean, that a son has ambitions, a desire to see life, to make himself a name. After all, Gerald, you couldn't be expected to pass all your life in such a hole as Wrockley, could you?

GERALD Oh, no! It would be dreadful!

LORD ILLINGWORTH A mother's love is very touching, of course, but it is often curiously selfish. I mean, there is a good deal of selfishness in it.

GERALD [Slowly.] I suppose there is.

LORD ILLINGWORTH Your mother is a thoroughly good woman. But good women have such 108