Caroline Legrand. Have you a rich lover who will back you?
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. No. Then you'll get nothing at all in the theatres except by making friends with half a dozen men or selling yourself to one.
Thérèse. I'll go into a shop. At any rate, when it shuts I shall be free.
Caroline Legrand. You think they're longing for you, don't you? You forget you'd have to know things for that one doesn't learn by taking a degree; things like shorthand and typewriting. Do you know there are twenty thousand women in Paris who want to get into shops and offices and can't find places?
Madame Chanteuil. I know exactly what's going to become of me.
Caroline Legrand. Now you're going to say something silly.
Madame Chanteuil. You think so, you've guessed. Well, I tell you, middle class girls thrown on the world as we are can't get along without a man—a husband or a lover. We haven't got the key of the prison door. We've not learned a trade. We've learned to smile, and dance, and sing—parlor tricks. All that's only of use in a love affair or a marriage. Without a man we're stranded. Our parents have brought us all up for one career and one only—the man. I was a fool not to understand before. Now I see.
Caroline Legrand. Look here, you're not going to take a lover?
Madame Chanteuil. Suppose I am?
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]