JOHNNY. I'm not a baby.
MRS MARCH. You are—and she'll smother you.
JOHNNY. How beastly women are to each other!
MRS MARCH. We know ourselves, you see. The girl's father realises perfectly what she is.
JOHNNY. Mr Bly is a dodderer. And she's got no mother. I'll bet you've never realised the life girls who get outed lead. I've seen them—I saw them in France. It gives one the horrors.
MRS MARCH. I can imagine it. But no girl gets "outed," as you call it, unless she's predisposed that way.
JOHNNY. That's all you know of the pressure of life.
MRS MARCH. Excuse me, Johnny. I worked three years among factory girls, and I know how they manage to resist things when they've got stuff in them.
JOHNNY. Yes, I know what you mean by stuff—good hard self-preservative instinct. Why should the wretched girl who hasn't got that be turned down? She wants protection all the more.
MRS MARCH. I've offered to help with money till she gets a place.