impossible! [Rising and crossing stage to C.] We are only married
two years. Our child is but six months old. [Sits in chair R. of
L. table.]

DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Ah, the dear pretty baby! How is the little
darling? Is it a boy or a girl? I hope a girl--Ah, no, I remember
it's a boy! I'm so sorry. Boys are so wicked. My boy is
excessively immoral. You wouldn't believe at what hours he comes
home. And he's only left Oxford a few months--I really don't know
what they teach them there.

LADY WINDERMERE. Are ALL men bad?

DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without
any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old,
but they never become good.

LADY WINDERMERE. Windermere and I married for love.

DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Yes, we begin like that. It was only
Berwick's brutal and incessant threats of suicide that made me
accept him at all, and before the year was out, he was running
after all kinds of petticoats, every colour, every shape, every
material. In fact, before the honeymoon was over, I caught him
winking at my maid, a most pretty, respectable girl. I dismissed
her at once without a character.--No, I remember I passed her on to
my sister; poor dear Sir George is so short-sighted, I thought it
wouldn't matter. But it did, though--it was most unfortunate.
[Rises.] And now, my dear child, I must go, as we are dining out.
And mind you don't take this little aberration of Windermere's too