This is very witty, and as with the other plays I've read by Wilde, I recognise a number of lines. He's certainly a very quotable writer! I can't help but think that more attention has been given to the prose than to the story, however - and it does seem a bit lumpen, that story. Perhaps it's because the romance in it is only a secondary thing, between two secondary characters? For the most part it's a straight drama that centres on the confrontation of Lord Illingham with the woman who, twenty years ago, he'd seduced and abandoned. Much of the play is concerned with the differing standards that men and women are held to under such circumstances: she is ruined, while he is allowed back into decent society, even if he is the more at fault. I'm completely with Wilde on this, and I suspect with a very good actress Mrs. Arbuthnot would be enormously affecting - she's affecting even when only reading the play - but I read Lady Windermere's Fan a couple of days ago, also by Wilde, and when it comes to portraits of so-called fallen women, Mrs. Erlynne leaves Mrs. Arbuthnot for dead.