MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I left you because you refused to give the child a
name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. I had no expectations then. And besides,
Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two.
I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your
father's garden.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be
old enough to do right also.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are
always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely
nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of
course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a
year. But you wouldn't take anything. You simply disappeared, and
carried the child away with you.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I wouldn't have accepted a penny from her. Your
father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in
Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is
not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my
mother. Every man is when he is young.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall
certainly not go away with you.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. What nonsense, Rachel!