_He opens the door and stands back to allow Caroline Legrand to come in. She is dressed in a long brown tailor-made overcoat and a white waistcoat, with a yellow necktie._

CAROLINE LEGRAND. Good-morning, Meuriot.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Good-morning, Caroline Legrand. [_They shake hands_]

CAROLINE LEGRAND. It seems there's something new going on here.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. I believe there is, but I know nothing about it.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. I expect the paper's not going well, the jam hasn't hidden the pill. Even Madame Nerisse's thirtieth article upon divorce at the desire of one party hasn't succeeded in stirring up enthusiasm this time. She's been preaching up free love, but she really started the paper only because she thought it would help her to get the law changed and allow her to marry her "dearest."

THeReSE. Mademoiselle Legrand, I have some news that will please you.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. Are all the men dead?

THeReSE. No, not yet; but I've heard that in a small country town they're starting a Woman's Trade Union.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. It won't succeed. Women are too stupid.

THeReSE. They've opened a special workshop there, and they're going to have work that's always been done by men done by women.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. That's splendid! A woman worker the more is a slave the less.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_gravely_] Are you quite sure of that?

CAROLINE LEGRAND. Oh, don't you misunderstand me! [_Forcibly_] Listen to this. A time will come when people will be as ashamed of having made women work as they are ashamed now of having kept slaves. But, until then--

THeReSE. The employer is rather disturbed about it.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. He's quite right. Very soon there'll be a fierce reaction among the men about this cheap women's labor. There's going to be a new s.e.x struggle--the struggle for bread. Man will use all his strength and all his cruelty to defend himself. There's a time coming when gallantry and chivalry will go by the board, _I_ can tell you.

_Madame Nerisse comes in._

MADAME NeRISSE. Oh, good-morning, Legrand. I'm glad you're here, I've been wanting to ask your advice about a new idea I want to start in _Woman Free_. A correspondence about getting up a league of society women--

CAROLINE LEGRAND. What about the others?

MADAME NeRISSE [_continuing, without attending to her_]--and smart people, who will undertake not to wear ornaments in their hats made of the wings or the plumage of birds.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. You're giving up _Woman Free_ for _Birds Free_, then?

MADAME NeRISSE. What do you mean?

CAROLINE LEGRAND. You'd better make a league to do away with hats altogether as a protest against the sweating of the women who st.i.tch the straw at famine prices and make the ribbon at next to nothing. I shall be more concerned for the fate of the sparrows when I haven't got to concern myself about the fate of sweated women.

MADAME NeRISSE. Well, of course. That's the article we've got to write.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. Of course.

MADAME NeRISSE. We'll write it in the form of a letter to a member of parliament--it had better be a man, because we're going to put him in the wrong--a member of parliament who wants to form the league I suggested. What you said about the sparrows will be a splendid tag at the end. Will you write it?

CAROLINE LEGRAND. Rather! It's lucky you don't stick to your ideas very obstinately, because they can sometimes be improved upon. I think I shall write your paper for you in future.

MADAME NeRISSE. Go along and send me in Mademoiselle Gregoire and Madame Chanteuil. They'll bother you, and I want them here.

CAROLINE LEGRAND. To write about "Soap of the Sylphs." _I_ know.

_She goes out to the right._

MADAME NeRISSE. She's a little mad, but she really has good ideas sometimes.

_The page boy comes in._

BOY [_to Madame Nerisse_] The gentlemen are there, Monsieur Cazares and another gentleman.

MADAME NeRISSE. Are they with Monsieur Nerisse?

BOY. Yes, Madame.

MADAME NeRISSE. Very well, I'll go. [_The boy goes out. She speaks to the others_] Divide the work between you. [_To Madame Chanteuil and Mademoiselle Gregoire, who come in from the right_] There's lots of work to be done. [_She goes out to the left_]

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. We'd better sit down. [_She sits down and says what follows whilst they are taking their places round the table. She takes up the first letter_] This is for the advertising department. Is Mademoiselle Baron here?

THeReSE. No, poor little thing. She's trudging round Paris to try and get hold of a few advertis.e.m.e.nts.

MADAME CHANTEUIL. It's a dreadful job, trying to get advertis.e.m.e.nts for a paper that three-quarters of the people she goes to have never heard of. It gives me the shivers to remember what I had to go through myself over that job.

THeReSE. And poor little Baron is so shy!

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. She earned only fifty francs all last month.

MADEMOISELLE GReGOIRE. I know her, I met her lately; she told me she was in luck, that she had an appointment with the manager of the Inst.i.tut de Jouvence.

MADAME CHANTEUIL. And she thinks she's in luck!

MADEMOISELLE GReGOIRE. It appears that that's a place where you can do quite good business.

MADAME CHANTEUIL [_gravely_] Yes, young women can do business there if they're pretty; but have you any idea what price they pay? Nothing would induce me to put my foot inside the place again.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Oh, the poor little girl! Oh, dear! [_A pause.

She begins to sort the letters_]

THeReSE [_half to herself_] It seems to me our name _Woman Free_ is horrible irony.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_holding a letter in her hand_] Oh, Chanteuil, what _have_ you done? Here's somebody perfectly furious. She says she asked you to give her some information in the beauty column. [_Reading_]

It was something she was mistaken about. She wrote under the name of "Always Young," and apparently you've answered "Always Young is a mistake." She thinks you did it to insult her. You must write her a letter of apologies.

MADAME CHANTEUIL. Yes, Mademoiselle.