LADY WINDERMERE. How impertinent of her! [A pause.]

LORD WINDERMERE. Margaret, I came to ask you a great favour, and I
still ask it of you, though you have discovered what I had intended
you should never have known that I have given Mrs. Erlynne a large
sum of money. I want you to send her an invitation for our party
to-night. [Standing L. of her.]

LADY WINDERMERE. You are mad! [Rises.]

LORD WINDERMERE. I entreat you. People may chatter about her, do
chatter about her, of course, but they don't know anything definite
against her. She has been to several houses--not to houses where
you would go, I admit, but still to houses where women who are in
what is called Society nowadays do go. That does not content her.
She wants you to receive her once.

LADY WINDERMERE. As a triumph for her, I suppose?

LORD WINDERMERE. No; but because she knows that you are a good
woman--and that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a
happier, a surer life than she has had. She will make no further
effort to know you. Won't you help a woman who is trying to get
back?

LADY WINDERMERE. No! If a woman really repents, she never wishes
to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin.

LORD WINDERMERE. I beg of you.