Scorn of Women: A Play In Three Acts

by Jack London

MRS. EPPINGWELL

Mr. Vanderlip will stay.

(Freda, broken down, beaten, but with no tears, no wringing of hands, nor customary signs of feminine weakness, with head up, mechanically resolute and defiant, ordinary carriage and speed of walk, goes toward street door. Silence. Everybody watches her. Doorkeeper does not assist her when she gropes blindly under bench for street moccasins.)

(What is emphasized is her isolation. She is not one of them, and they regard her as they would regard a strange animal which had strayed in out of the night.)

(She sits down on bench to put on street moccasins. Just as she lifts her foot to put on first moccasin, she pauses, thinks, then puts foot down again. She puts down moccasins, stands up, pauses irresolutely a moment, then walks forward to Mrs. Eppingwell and Vanderlip.)