Page:Wilde - A Woman of no Importance, 1909.djvu/150

RhACT III. HESTER Mrs. Arbuthnot, I wish you would let us be friends. You are so different from the other women here. When you came into the Drawing-room this evening, somehow you brought with you a sense of what is good and pure in life. I had been foolish. There are things that are right to say, but that may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT I heard what you said. I agree with it, Miss Worsley.

HESTER I didn't know you had heard it. But I knew you would agree with me. A woman who has sinned should be punished, shouldn't she?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT Yes.

HESTER She shouldn't be allowed to come into the society of good men and women? 132