Page:Wilde - A Woman of no Importance, 1909.djvu/205

RhACT IV. MRS. ARBUTHNOT Don't be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.

LORD ILLINGWORTH [Reads letter over again, very slowly.] May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT It was not I who made him see it. It was another.

LORD ILLINGWORTH What fin-de-siècle person?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT The Puritan, Lord Illingworth. [A pause.] 187