ISABEL. That's the difference between Greenwich Village and Evanston,
Illinois.
MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. But when I go back I shall lose the sense of it. I'll think I'm an injured woman because he was unfaithful to me, or because he brought scandal upon the family, or something like that. Now I realize that it's none of those things. It's—it's just an offence against—my human dignity. I've been treated like—like an inferior. But why shouldn't I be treated like an inferior? I am an inferior. When I go back to Evanston, and take up grass-widowhood and the burden of living down the family scandal, and sit and twiddle my thumbs in a big house, and have my maiden aunt come to live with me——
ISABEL. But why should you do that? If that's what it means to go back to Evanston, don't go! Stay here!
MRS. FALCINGTON. But—what could I do?
ISABEL. Do? Why—why—go on the stage!
MRS. FALCINGTON. (rising) Are you in earnest?
ISABEL. Look here. You've a good voice, and you're intelligent. That's enough to start with. I don't know whether you can act or not—but you'll find out. And if you can't act, you'll do something else. Your people will stake you?—give you an allowance, I mean?
MRS. FALCINGTON. To go on the stage with? Never. But I've a small income of my own. Only about a hundred a month. Would that do?
ISABEL. Do? Yes, that will do very well! And now it's my turn to ask you—are you in earnest? Because I am.
MRS. FALCINGTON. You are the first human being who even suggested to me that I could do anything. I've wanted to do something, but I couldn't even think of it as possible. It wasn't possible in Evanston. And as for acting, I kept that dream fast locked at the very bottom of my heart, for fear if I brought it out it would be shattered by polite laughter—