SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making me such a proposition!
MRS. CHEVELEY. I am quite serious.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Pray allow me to believe that you are not.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Speaking with great deliberation and emphasis.] Ah! but I am. And if you do what I ask you, I . . . will pay you very handsomely!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Pay me!
MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am afraid I don't quite understand what you mean.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Leaning back on the sofa and looking at him.] How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that you should thoroughly understand me.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I fear I don't.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [In her most nonchalant manner.] My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose.
Everybody has nowadays. The drawback is that most people are so dreadfully expensive. I know I am. I hope you will be more reasonable in your terms.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rises indignantly.] If you will allow me, I will call your carriage for you. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise that you are talking to an English gentleman.
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there while she is talking.] I realise that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Biting his lip.] What do you mean?
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Rising and facing him.] I mean that I know the real origin of your wealth and your career, and I have got your letter, too.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What letter?
MRS. CHEVELEY. [Contemptuously.] The letter you wrote to Baron Arnheim, when you were Lord Radley's secretary, telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares-a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Hoarsely.] It is not true.
MRS. CHEVELEY. You thought that letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you! It is in my possession.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected.
MRS. CHEVELEY. It was a swindle, Sir Robert. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of one canal.