Thérèse. Yes, Monsieur.
Féliat. I'll go and give the necessary orders. [He goes out]
Thérèse. It's all right. It's done. He's agreed! I'm to have my new workroom, and you're to be the head of it.
Lucienne. Oh, splendid! Then I'm really of some importance here at last. [A long happy sigh] Oh dear, how happy I am. I'd never have believed I could have enjoyed the smell of a bindery so. [Sniffing] Glue, and white of egg, and old leather; it's lovely! Oh, Thérèse, what you did for me in bringing me here! What I owe you! That's what a woman's being free means; it means a woman who earns her own living.
Thérèse. Oh, you're right! Isn't it splendid, Lucienne, ten wretched women saved, thanks to our new workshop. I've seen Duriot's forewoman. At any moment fifty women from there may be out of work. I can take on only ten at present, and I've had to choose. That was dreadful! Thirty of them are near starvation. I took the worst cases: the old maids, the girls with babies, the ones whose husbands have gone off and left them, the widows. Every one of those, but for me, would have been starved or gone on the streets. I used to want to write books and realize my dreams that way. Now I can realize them by work. I wish Caroline Legrand could know what I'm doing. It was she who helped me to get over my silly pride, and come and ask for work here.
Lucienne. Dear Caroline Legrand! Without her! Without you! [With a change of tone] What d'you suppose happened to me this morning? I had a visit from Monsieur Gambard.
Thérèse [laughing] Another visit! I shall be jealous!
Lucienne. You've reason. For the last week that excellent old man has come every single morning with a book for me to bind. I begged him not to take so much trouble, and I told him that if he had more work for us to do, we could send for the books to his house. What d'you think he did to-day?
Thérèse. I've no idea.
Lucienne. He asked me to marry him.