An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring and Sir Robert discuss Mrs. Cheveley’s scandalous proposition. Lord Goring says Sir Robert should have told his wife everything, but Sir Robert tells him she would have been horrified. Lord Goring then tells Sir Robert he should have told her long ago—that everyone keeps secrets and that scandal exists to distract the public from their own. Sir Robert asks whether it’s fair that a secret from so long ago should ruin him now. Lord Goring says that life is never fair.

He then asks Sir Robert how Baron Arnheim convinced him to sell stock secrets to him; Sir Robert replies that Baron Arnheim promised to make Sir Robert rich if he ever gave over any information of value. Since Sir Robert sought power and wealth, he did so willingly. He tells Lord Goring that since Lord Goring has always been wealthy, he wouldn’t understand such ambition. When Lord Goring asks whether he regrets it, Sir Robert replies that until now, he felt that he “fought the century with its own weapons, and won” (241). He asks whether Lord Goring hates him for what he’s done, and Lord Goring replies that he does not and will try to help him find a solution, starting by trying to talk with Lady Chiltern about her seemingly impossible standards for Sir Robert.