What Every Woman Knows

by J. M. Barrie

JAMES. Not him.

MAGGIE [getting near her tragedy]. How can you say that when you don’t know her? I expect she is full of charm.

ALICK. Charm? It’s the very word he used.

DAVID. Havering idiot.

ALICK. What IS charm, exactly, Maggie?

MAGGIE. Oh, it’s—it’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none.

[Somehow she has stopped knitting. Her men-folk are very depressed. JAMES brings his fist down on the table with a crash.]

JAMES [shouting]. I have a sister that has charm.

MAGGIE. No, James, you haven’t.

JAMES [rushing at her with the watch and chain]. Ha’e, Maggie.