Taking a fancy to young Gerald Arbuthnot, Lord Illingworth offers to employ him as his secretary. Although Gerald is anxious to accept, believing that the post will help him socially, his mother strenuously objects, without telling him her reasons. Her objections arise from her former relationship with Illingworth, who turned her away years ago as "a woman of no importance."
He is, in fact, Gerald's father, and she is afraid of his influence on her son. When Illingworth makes advances to Gerald's fiancée and Gerald is about to strike him, the mother blurts out the truth about their relationship. Now she is able to turn away the contrite Illingworth as a man of no importance.