And yet I have come here to do you a service.
LADY CHILTERN. [Contemptuously.] Like the service you wished to
render my husband last night, I suppose. Thank heaven, I saved him
from that.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Starting to her feet.] It was you who made him
write that insolent letter to me? It was you who made him break his
promise?
LADY CHILTERN. Yes.
MRS. CHEVELEY. Then you must make him keep it. I give you till to-
morrow morning - no more. If by that time your husband does not
solemnly bind himself to help me in this great scheme in which I am
interested -
LADY CHILTERN. This fraudulent speculation -
MRS. CHEVELEY. Call it what you choose. I hold your husband in the
hollow of my hand, and if you are wise you will make him do what I
tell him.
LADY CHILTERN. [Rising and going towards her.] You are impertinent.
What has my husband to do with you? With a woman like you?
MRS. CHEVELEY [With a bitter laugh.] In this world like meets with
like. It is because your husband is himself fraudulent and dishonest
that we pair so well together. Between you and him there are chasms.
He and I are closer than friends. We are enemies linked together.
The same sin binds us.
LADY CHILTERN. How dare you class my husband with yourself? How
dare you threaten him or me? Leave my house. You are unfit to enter
it.
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN enters from behind.
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