An Ideal Husband

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern's house in Grosvenor Square. The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands LADY CHILTERN, a woman ofgrave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of thestaircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry-representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher-that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right isthe entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to otherreception-rooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are seated together on a LouisSeize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would haveloved to paint them.]MRS. MARCHMONT. Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret?LADY BASILDON. I suppose so. Are you?MRS. MARCHMONT. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they?LADY BASILDON. Horribly tedious Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere.MRS. MARCHMONT. I come here to be educated.LADY BASILDON. Ah I hate being educated MRS. MARCHMONT. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn't it? Butdear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So Icome here to try to find one.LADY BASILDON. Looking round through her lorgnette.] I don't see anybody here to-night whom onecould possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wifethe whole time.