of another!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. It is infamous, what you propose - infamous!

MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, no! This is the game of life as we all have to
play it, Sir Robert, sooner or later!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I cannot do what you ask me.

MRS. CHEVELEY. You mean you cannot help doing it. You know you are
standing on the edge of a precipice. And it is not for you to make
terms. It is for you to accept them. Supposing you refuse -

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What then?

MRS. CHEVELEY. My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that
is all! Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has
brought you. In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than
his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one's neighbour was
considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our
modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of
purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues -
and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins - one after
the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody
disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to
a man - now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You
couldn't survive it. If it were known that as a young man, secretary
to a great and important minister, you sold a Cabinet secret for a
large sum of money, and that that was the origin of your wealth and
career, you would be hounded out of public life, you would disappear