best auspices possible, and stay with all the right people, which
is so important at this solemn moment in your career.

GERALD. I don't want to see the world: I've seen enough of it.

MRS. ALLONBY. I hope you don't think you have exhausted life, Mr.
Arbuthnot. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted
him.

GERALD. I don't wish to leave my mother.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Now, Gerald, that is pure laziness on your part.
Not leave your mother! If I were your mother I would insist on
your going.

[Enter ALICE L.C.]

ALICE. Mrs. Arbuthnot's compliments, my lady, but she has a bad
headache, and cannot see any one this morning. [Exit R.C.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. [Rising.] A bad headache! I am so sorry!
Perhaps you'll bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is
better, Gerald.

GERALD. I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, to-morrow, then. Ah, if you had a father,
Gerald, he wouldn't let you waste your life here. He would send
you off with Lord Illingworth at once. But mothers are so weak.
They give up to their sons in everything. We are all heart, all