『真面目が肝心：真面目な人々のための些細な喜劇』

Cecily spots Dr. Chasuble approaching and conspiratorially pretends Miss Prism has a headache so they might stroll together. Chasuble apologises for the classical reference to “Egeria.” When he and Miss Prism depart, Cecily hurls her books onto the table in despair.

Merriman appears with a card: Mr. Ernest Worthing has just driven over from the station. Cecily, startled—Uncle Jack’s brother!—asks Merriman to bring him to the garden, having never met a really wicked person. She is almost disappointed when Algernon enters, gay and debonnair, looking like everyone else. He calls her his little cousin Cecily; she corrects him—she is not little—and welcomes wicked cousin Ernest. She hopes he has not been leading a double life—pretending to be wicked while good would be hypocrisy. Algernon, amazed, confesses he has been reckless. Cecily says Uncle Jack wants to discuss his emigrating—Jack has gone to buy his outfit. Algernon is incredulous: Australia! He would sooner die.

Part 4

The garden scene at Jack’s country estate deepens into romantic mischief as Algernon, lounging among the flowers, confesses to Cecily that he wants to be reformed. When she points out he might not be good enough for the world, he pleads that she make his redemption her mission. Cecily, perfectly composed, replies that she has no time that afternoon, then suggests he try reforming himself. Algernon declares he feels better already, and Cecily sweetly observes that he looks “a little worse” because he is hungry. She invites him inside, but not before he requests a buttonhole first—a Marechal Niel, no, on second thought, a pink rose, because she is like one. Cecily blushes, citing Miss Prism’s warning that all good looks are a snare, and Algernon replies that such snares are precisely what every sensible man would like to be caught in. They disappear into the house together as Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return.

The two older figures fall into a spirited debate about matrimony. Miss Prism scolds the clergyman for being too much alone and declares that a permanently single man becomes “a permanent public temptation.” Chasuble counters that the Primitive Church distinctly disapproved of marriage, prompting Miss Prism’s devastating retort: “That is obviously the reason why the Primitive Church has not lasted up to the present day.” When Chasuble suggests married men might be equally attractive, she informs him coldly that no married man is ever attractive except to his wife—and often, she has been told, not even to her. She adds, with botanical finality, that young women are green and only ripeness can be trusted, explaining primly that she spoke “horticulturally.”