CAROLINE LEGRAND. My dear, you came here full of indignation, clamoring against the state of society. You called yourself a feminist, but you, and women like you, are feminists only when it's convenient. There are no real feminists except ugly women like me or old ones like Meuriot. You others come about us in a swarm and then drop away one after another to go off to some man. As soon as a lover condescends to throw the handkerchief you're up and off to him. You _want_ to be slaves. Go, my dear, and take your lover. That's your fate. Good-night. [_She goes out_] MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_to Madame Chanteuil_] Don't listen to her, you poor child. Don't ruin all your life in a fit of despair. MADAME CHANTEUIL. I can't stay here. I'm not a saint and I'm not a fool. How can I live on what they offer to pay me? MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Stay for a little, while you're looking for something else. MADAME CHANTEUIL. Look for something else! Never! That means all the horrors I went through, before I came here, over again! No! _no! no!_ Never! Looking for work means trailing through the mud, toiling up stairs, ringing bells, being told to call again, calling again to get more snubs. And then when one thinks one's found something one comes up against a door guarded by a man who's watching you, and who's got to be satisfied before you can get into the workroom, or the office, or the shop, or whatever it may be. And then you've got to begin again with somebody else and be snubbed again. No. Since it's an accepted, settled, decided thing that the only career for a woman is to satisfy the passions of a man, I prefer the one I've chosen myself. MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. And what if he goes off and leaves you with a baby? MADAME CHANTEUIL. Well, I'll bring it up. I shan't be the first. Women do it. It happens to one in every five in Paris. Ask Mademoiselle de Meuriot, the old maid, if she wouldn't be glad to have one now? When one grows old it's better to have had a child in that way than not to have had one at all. Ask her if I'm not telling the truth. Ask her if she's happy in her loneliness. MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Oh, it's true--it's true! Sometimes-- _She bursts into tears. Therese goes to her and takes her in her arms._ THERESE. Oh, Mademoiselle, dear Mademoiselle! MADAME CHANTEUIL [_between her teeth_] Good-bye, Mademoiselle. Good-bye, Therese. MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_to Madame Chanteuil_] Wait, wait. I'm going with you. I am not going to leave you just now. _Mademoiselle de Meuriot goes out with Madame Chanteuil. Therese, left alone, buries her head in her hands and thinks. Then she takes the two books that Madame Nerisse has handed her, and with a determined swing sits down and starts working. After a moment Monsieur Nerisse comes in._ NERISSE. My dear child, I have news for you. Pleasant news, I think. THERESE [_rather grimly_] Have you?