] Did you
know Baron Arnheim well?
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Smiling.] Intimately. Did you?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. At one time.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Wonderful man, wasn't he?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [After a pause.] He was very remarkable, in
many ways.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I often think it such a pity he never wrote his
memoirs. They would have been most interesting.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes: he knew men and cities well, like the old
Greek.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Without the dreadful disadvantage of having a
Penelope waiting at home for him.
MASON. Lord Goring.
[Enter LORD GORING. Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A
well-bred, expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to
be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were
considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good
terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives
him a post of vantage.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Good evening, my dear Arthur! Mrs. Cheveley,
allow me to introduce to you Lord Goring, the idlest man in London.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I have met Lord Goring before.
LORD GORING. [Bowing.] I did not think you would remember me, Mrs.
Cheveley.
MRS. CHEVELEY. My memory is under admirable control. And are you
still a bachelor?
LORD GORING. I . . . believe so.
MRS. CHEVELEY. How very romantic!
LORD GORING. Oh! I am not at all romantic.
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